Kashmir

Until this rant, I only ever thought of Kashmir as a rather good Led Zep song.



So then; India and Pakistan. You can't leave them alone for a minute these days. Even if they both promise to be on their best behaviour, the second you turn your back they're busy threatening each other with mutual annihilation, the naughty little tricksters. Should we be worried about the reports emerging from the sub-continent (that tend to get tucked away behind more important news stories such as Jordan giving birth, or the new series of Big Brother) or is it yet another case where we will see the international equivalent of 2 blokes squaring up to each other on a Saturday night whilst their girlfriends screech "He's not worth it Kev, just leave it!" in the background?

Before attempting to unravel just why these two countries are currently behaving in the same way that England and France wish they still could, it's worth having a look at the history behind the two. In recent history, it all began when England got it's wrist slapped for still having an Empire at the end of WWII. Part of that Empire was the Indian sub-continent. In 1947-8, there were various elections and statutes aimed at dismantling the British Empire. The elections on the subcontinent showed that the majority of people in what is now Pakistan (it was West Pakistan; East Pakistan is now Bangladesh, but as it is a country made up almost entirely of mud, sediment, and poverty, India rarely seems to feel the need to rattle it's sabre to the east) wanted a Muslim state whilst the people of India were predominantly Hindu with a sizeable Sikh minority. So, hence the division of the subcontinent into Hindu India and Moslem Pakistan.

This all seems fairly reasonable so far. But, as is clearly stated in the United Nations Charter, paragraph 15; "Every silver lining must have a cloud". In this case, the cloud has turned out to be Kashmir. And it's a pretty substantial cloud too judging by the fact that India and Pakistan have either been at war or threatening to go to war over Kashmir for the last 40 or 50 years. And the reason that they're willing to go to war over it is that, thanks to those elections in 1947-8, it's currently divided between the two, completely owned by neither one country nor the other.

Now you may think that this tells you everything that you need to know about the current situation; 2 countries, both of whom are saying "Mine! Gimme!" about a piece of land on their border where the population are divided by religion. Not entirely dissimilar to Northern Ireland really, correct? Nope, alas not. I've been doing a little background research concerning Kashmir (which was previously best known to me as the title of a rather good Led Zeppelin tune, which was itself ripped off by such luminaries as Puff Daddy for a film about a dinosaur, and by the BBC for their World Cup coverage) and I find that things are not quite that straightforward.

Kashmir was a separate kingdom for many centuries. Although it was divided along religious lines, it's cultural makeup is almost entirely Persian, meaning that they have more in common with Iran than either India or Pakistan. As such, Kashmir wants to be independent from both nations. As to whether they could run the country without it degenerating into either a bloodbath (the fear of Humanitarians) or a haven for terrorists (the fear of Politicians)....well, barring the occasional bout of religious zeal (funny how absolute devotion to religions that are supposed to be about Brotherhood tends to get expressed by a desire to kill as many human beings in as short a space of time as possible...), the Hindu and Moslem populations lived together in relative peace. Now the poor bastards are being used to represent the India-Pakistan antipathy in microcosm. The conflict over Kashmir has, in fact, got almost nothing to do with Kashmir. Like most bad things in the world, it's about national pride and international politics.

For example, India and Pakistan are neighbours and rivals. The issue of Kashmir has been grinding along for some time now. Occasionally, peace talks are mooted and these usually centre round the idea that maybe a place that was independent for most of recorded history should be independent once more. Then, once everyone gets round the table, one side or other finds an excuse for not talking to the other, everyone goes away in a huff, and the people of Kashmir find that their country is once more being used as battlefield practice by the Indian military and Pakistan sponsored Islamic militants.

As to why both nations behave with the maturity of England fan after seeing Germany getting beat 5 – 1... well that would take a lot more time than I currently have to look at. But in short, India doesn't want to give up any territory as it would
A: Be regarded as giving in to Islamic militant terrorists, and
B: Have to give up some land. And it's their land. And no one else can have it. So yah, boo, sucks to you.

Pakistan is also rather reluctant to settle the issue. Their reasons are somewhat different. As we have had demonstrated to us over the last few months, Pakistan has a rich and proud tradition of producing Islamic militants so toe-curlingly insane that they make Fred and Rose West look like Zippy and George. When these happy go lucky types aren't calling for death to anyone who has committed the heinous crime of not being a Moslem, they're generally calling for the overthrow of the government in order to replace it with something like hell on earth. The Pakistani government has previously dealt with this in two way; the first was to encourage said fanatics to go to Afghanistan and fight their ideological battles against other Moslems. The second was to encourage them to go to Kashmir and fight for the liberation of their Moslem brothers and sisters.

As they no longer have the first option open to them (well...not whilst America is looking on), that leaves Kashmir as the only option. Or in other words, it suits Pakistan to leave Kashmir divided as it takes care of a possible domestic problem. It suits India to do so because angry rhetoric over Kashmir is a sure-fire vote winner. The only people who it doesn't suit are the people of Kashmir. And why should anyone care about them when they're not a real country anyway?

And so, because no-one in the world really cared too much about Indians and Pakistanis killing Kashmiri’s and each other with gay abandon, the whole rather shabby mess has been allowed to degenerate further still. And now, suddenly, everyone is paying attention and sweating gently with fear. Why? Good old nuclear weapons, that's why! As it's painfully clear how frightened I am of Nuclear War, I won't restate the point again (although if a nuclear war does break out in the next few weeks, the biggest concentration of journalists from around the world are going to be a stones throw away in Japan for the World Cup. Does anyone else find the idea of John Motson commentating on the apocalypse rather amusing, or is it just me?). But what I will say is that it's funny how the rest of the world only started caring about Kashmir when it became clear that it might be about to be reduced to molten rock along with the Indian subcontinent and most of the southern former Soviet republics. Not to mention the cataclysmic effect on the world's eco-system that even a small scale nuclear war would have. In other words, the second it started looking like it might affect us, then we're all ears.

Happily, the warlike posturing of both nations is beginning to die down a little. Presumably the leaders of both countries recognise that they would like to have countries left to lead. But in a strange sort of way I find myself applauding both of them. After all, it's nice of them to remind the US and Europe that, if we insist on allowing nations we regard as lesser or inferior to try and obliterate each other when in it's our interests to allow them to do so, and if we arm those nations to help them along, then we shouldn't be too surprised when they decide to go the whole hog and develop the most destructive weapons of all. With luck, one day the supposedly civilised West will realise that a peaceful and contented life for all is in everyone's best interests. Until then we can look forward to various 'patriots' continuing to demand that other countries sort their own mess out, whilst burying their heads in the sand as to who is responsible for the mess in the first place.