There seems to be conspiracy of hope in the Kashmir issue which playing spoilsports. The stakeholders are all having different hopes quite divergent to each other and are living in their make believe reality and thus having vested interest in Kashmir bush fire burning.
India, which controls about 43 percent of the erstwhile kingdom’s territory and is a dominant party in this rigmarole hopes that by hook or crook it will bend the Kashmiris resolve of resistance and lord over the paradise of the earth by any means.
The ruling elite of India hope that the people of the world will keep the Junagarh and Hyderabad cases in the pages of history and in case of Kashmir, take side with the idea that sovereignty rests with the state and not with the people.
Such hope has strong wings to fly and it means having getting back the areas now held by Pakistan and China that once was part of the erstwhile kingdom.
This madness of hope is stoking jingoistic nationalism to the extent what it may be, peace must be maintained at the shadow of the gun.
This conspiracy of hope has given jest to lynching mentality and it is seen in the current skirmishes between the Indian security forces and unarmed Kashmiri youth making ‘us verses them’ divide ad has made Kashmir a killing field of sorts.
Pakistan which holds about thirty eight percent of erstwhile kingdom’s territory hopes that the world community will come to mediate in this historical tangle and they will push back India to its Hindu majority areas and following any such arbitration the Muslim majority areas would come to it as legitimate claimant.
Pakistan further hopes that Kashmiris will not throw the towel and continue to defy India’s occupation to their last blood and till then their legitimacy holds good.
Such hope is keeping the Pakistanis busy pursuing cross border terrorism as an instrument of state policy and thus keeping the Kashmir pot burning.
Kashmiris’ who are at the center of this quagmire hope that a plebiscite will be held one day and they will gain independence of their own. This hope of freedom from India and Pakistan that is keeping them motivated to sacrifice their life, honor, security and property. This conspiracy of hope is making them as canon fodders.
The international community that has constituted United Nations to regulate the world order absolves itself from all the responsibilities that was thrust on it and hopes that India and Pakistan themselves will resolve this issue and they may not come for arbitration, whatever may be the nature of Kashmir bush fire. This is the big hoax going on in this funny world and everyone hope that everything will be fine one day.
China that holds about 20 percent of the erstwhile kingdom of Kashmir’s territory, hopes that Macartney–MacDonald Line of 1893 will be accepted as the final arbitration done in this mater and hope that India will not harp on Johnson Line of 1865, for the demarcation of the territory.
Such conspiracy of hope has innumerable imponderables and the main culprit in this quagmire is the people of Kashmir who are the worst suffer in this uncivilized debate of hope.
It is not that there is no solution to the Kashmir issue. There many such solution that has been worked out since last 70 years. Some of them have even come close to be accepted as the final settlement of this problem. However, it’s the conspiracy of hope that is providing legitimacy to illegitimate hopes.
The best foot forward in this tangle could be to cancel out all the illegitimate hopes that have been cooked up all these years as impractical and unacceptable.
After that keeping the legitimate hope that sovereignty rest with the people living in the territory and not with the sate that controls those areas a fresh round of negotiation can be made on most practical solution and settle one the longest dispute in the world. If any such settlement means national dishonor let it is, after all its people who make the nation and not the vice versa.
However, given the current mood, such sobriety looks a distant dream and it appears that conspirators of hope will have an extended sway over the Kashmir rigmarole.
The most pitiable thing is this drama is as human if given the choice to choose between human first or national first, many of us would be cowed by the nationalist brigade and throw the towel to buy peace.
Humaneness is being sacrificed at the altar of nationalism seems obvious, gauging the mood of the nation after more than 35 days of turmoil in Kashmir.
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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted atsyedalmujtaba@yahoo.com
Do you know that your so called muslim brothers ‘Uighurs’ are involved in recent bomblasts in Thailand. Why aren’t you people take the path of peace why so much violence? If you are fighting with China then why make Thailand suffer???? Wht this hipocracy?