PoK: Seeds of Unrest

The saying “Gun is my law, and law is in my hands” summarises the present situation in Pakistan. This has left PoK folks wondering what their future with Pakistan will be...

By Our Corespondent

Kashmiris living in the Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir seem to be losing patience with the Pakistani government and politicians. In its editorial, a leading PoK newspaper - Voice of Kashmir - wonders how the state that cannot look after the safety and well-being of its own people will ensure justice to the Kashmiris.

Voice of Kashmir editor Sardar Ashiq Hussain says that the saying “Topak Zama Qanoon De,
Au Qanoon Zama Pa Las Ke (Gun is my law, and law is in my hands)” summarises the present
situation in Pakistan where the term Rule of Law means rule of the powerful; and the rich and the powerful frame rules and laws for personal benefits.

Sardar Hussain says “Kashmiris have had a very close socio-economic and religious links with Pakistan. On the basis of these close relations, majority of Kashmiris wanted merger of Kashmir with Pakistan. But now, keeping in view the situation prevailing in Pakistan, the people of Kashmir are confronted with a big question: What will be their future in Pakistan?”

The editorial in Voice of Kashmir further says that the state (Pakistan) that came into being in the name of upholding the rights and ensuring the well-being of Muslims “has fallen completely in the hands of armymen, landlords and industrialists who have deprived the common man of his due and taken control of all the resources.”

The newspaper wonders how a state that could not guarantee basic rights to its citizens in the last
60 years would be a welfare state for those who are not its natives. Another article in the same issue of the magazine accused Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of merely using the Kashmir issue for his own survival. “When he (Mr Musharraf) sided with the US in its ‘war on terror’, General Musharraf calmed the overwhelming opposition of his countrymen by claiming that Pakistan’s support for the US-led action would get the much-needed Western support for the resolution of the Kashmir problem. But as the ‘war on terror’ dragged and crossed into Iraq and beyond and has now deeply engulfed Pakistan, no promised Western support for Kashmir has come.

In another article in the same issue of the magazine, Dr Shabir Choudhry, chairman of the diplomatic committee of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and author of many books on Kashmir, says “both India and Pakistan aggressively expressed their desire to control the state and it people even before they became independent themselves. Their struggle to control and manage the affairs of the state…has created problems not only for the Kashmiri people but also for India and Pakistan.”

He says “…all Pakistani rulers wrongly assume that they have a God-given right to take decision on behalf of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. They also wrongly assume that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are dying to join Pakistan…survey after survey have confirmed that majority of the people of the state (J&K) want to opt for an independent Kashmir, and in any case not to accede to Pakistan.”

After the recent crackdown on lawyers and imposition of emergency in Pakistan by President Pervev Musharraf, JKLF President Abbas Butt remarked “look at what is happening to these respectable members of the Pakistani society who are demanding basic human rights and democracy. Pakistani governments deny us Kashmiris right to independence. They have pursued this policy since 1947 that we should either join India or Pakistan. Of course they want us to become part of Pakistan or remain divided and deprived.”

Mr Butt then goes on to ask “Is it this Pakistan they insist we should join? Do they think we are fools with no sense of right and wrong?…”