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A comprehensive survey by a very reputable London based organization, Chattam House, has just delivered the results of what many of us already suspected and knew..............most Kashmiris and people in Jammu also presumably, want a comprehensive final settlement, which recognizes the current LoC as the International border between India and Pakistan, and normalizes and de-militarizes the border so that people can come and go reasonably freely between Pak Kashmir and the Indian part of Kashmir (normal coexistence).
Sounds logical, rational and pragmatic. So whats the problem?
The problem are the so called leaders, and bureaucrats of both countries.
In Pakistan's case the powerful military who have dominated Pakistan since its creation see the dispute of Kashmir as an "opportunity" to rally the country behind them, and also as a justification for the current bloated size of the Pak military way beyond the means of the country (Unofficially: 800,000 military, 300,000 paramilitary, and 1,000,000 reserves, spending 5-8% of actual GDP on defense and security).
The civilian politicians and especially the PPP would probably like some form of accommodation with India, but lack the power and credibility to deliver peace with India over such an significant issue. President Zardari bhen and his coterie of criminals lacks total credibility within Pakistan and are propped up by American mercenary forces.....going through the motion of peace with India for public consumption mainly.
Nawaz Sharif came close to reaching peace with India, but MOSSAD Musharaf launched a wholly illegal war in Kargil to undercut that significant effort. Final peace with India would have given Sharif enormous political prestige, and real solid economic and political benefits but MOSSAD Musharaf didn't want him, a civilian politician, getting that enormous bonus.
One also suspects that since Pakistan is a failed state due to the machinations of the USA, and Pakistan officially is a client puppet state of the USA, then in this realpolitik the USA is also a significant contributing factor for the lack of progress over Kashmir, on the Pakistani side at least, operating in the background in Islamabad. The USA's role in 26/11 would suggest that on the contrary it is far from interested in peace between India and Pakistan.
On the Indian side we have a corrupt sluggish slow Indian bureaucracy which lacks imagination and drive, and a political elite which is wholly incompetent controlling through the Union budget barely 10% of the real Indian economy (red + black economy $3,800 billion by PPP). Governance in India is appallingly poor, never mind the oft repeated cliche that it is the largest democracy in the world. Such inept ramshackle governments sitting in Delhi lack the will, coherence and drive to achieve final peace with Pakistan, even though the opportunities for India to make a break through are ample, and stares at them daily.
"Listen you post-colonial coolie chaudis, set up a task force headed by a professor of international relations to pick point by point how to bring peace with Pakistan finally, after 63 years, and calculate how much in $ billions aid must be given to Pakistan to buy that final peace. The Zardari government requires hard cash. India has FCR of $280 billion, and the PPP real economy is $3,800 billion 2010........a few $ billions should do the trick. If you have to borrow a few billion from the 55 Indian billionaires then do so....Ambani the 2nd richest guy in the world who is spending $2 billion on his new Penthouse????!!!!!"
HENNA
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Just 2% of people in J&K want to join Pak:
By TOI.
For those who still think a plebiscite will tilt the status of Kashmir and that most Kashmiris yearn to wave the Pakistani green, there are now numbers for the first time to contradict these claims.
(RSS sympathizers in India making a big deal about a few Indian Muslim waving the Pakistani flag hardly reflects the reality of the silent majority, though obviously makes good headlines for the RSS media)
A survey carried out across both Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, that its author claims is the first ever of its kind, shows that only 2% of the respondents on the Indian side favour joining Pakistan and most such views were confined to Srinagar and Budgam districts. In six of the districts surveyed late last year by researchers from the London-based thinktank Chatham House, not a single person favoured annexation with Pakistan, a notion that remains the bedrock for the hardline separate campaign in Kashmir.
(Lets face it who wants to live and be part of failed state Pakistan (9) which is going through a few problems now, and in the process of being swamped by mercenary Christian fundie forces running amok in the country)
However, the study by Robert Bradrock, a scholar from London's Kings College, that involved interviewing 3,774 people in both parts of Kashmir in September-October 2009 showed that 44% of people on the Pakistani side favoured independence, compared to 43% in Indian Kashmir.
(Not a realistic option or solution)
Bradrock says in the 37-page report on the survey that this would put an end for all times to come to the plebiscite route as a possible way to resolve Kashmir, since the only two options envisaged under the UN resolutions proposing plebiscite in 1948/49 were for the whole of Kashmir to join either India or Pakistan; azadi was not an option. But in the Valley, the mood for azadi still remained strong, with 75%-95% respondents favouring that as a final resolution.
(Not practical, pragmatic)
The poll showed no support either for joint sovereignty or for maintaining status quo. However, more than 58% of those surveyed were prepared to accept the Line of Control as a permanent border if it could be liberalized for greater people-to-people contact and trade. Only 8% voted against making the LoC a permanent boundary, with the highest level of opposition in Anantnag district, the report said.
Few people in Kashmir, compared to many more in PoK, believed that violence was likely to resolve the Kashmir issue.
In J&K, only 20% thought that militant violence would help solve the problem, compared to nearly 40% who thought it was coming in the way of a resolution. In PoK, 37% of those surveyed held the view that violence was a possible route to resolution.
That both the state legislative elections in 2008 and the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 had helped bring about a change in mindsets was seen in the increasingly high turnouts that Kashmir has posted in recent years.
The survey too demonstrated that trend, with more than half the respondents saying the elections had improved chances for peace.
"The results aren't surprising at all. I feel they re-emphasize the need to look beyond traditional positions and evaluate the contours of a solution grounded in today's realities," said Sajjad Lone, a former ally of the Hurriyat who unsuccessfully contested the 2009 election.
Peoples Democratic Party chief spokesman Naeem Akhtar said the azadi aspirations must be factored into any solution.
"It can't be wished away and has to be configured into the future strategy on Kashmir. We've always been pleading to provide an alternative to the azadi sentiment."
(RSS sympathizers in India making a big deal about a few Indian Muslim waving the Pakistani flag hardly reflects the reality of the silent majority, though obviously makes good headlines for the RSS media)
A survey carried out across both Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, that its author claims is the first ever of its kind, shows that only 2% of the respondents on the Indian side favour joining Pakistan and most such views were confined to Srinagar and Budgam districts. In six of the districts surveyed late last year by researchers from the London-based thinktank Chatham House, not a single person favoured annexation with Pakistan, a notion that remains the bedrock for the hardline separate campaign in Kashmir.
(Lets face it who wants to live and be part of failed state Pakistan (9) which is going through a few problems now, and in the process of being swamped by mercenary Christian fundie forces running amok in the country)
However, the study by Robert Bradrock, a scholar from London's Kings College, that involved interviewing 3,774 people in both parts of Kashmir in September-October 2009 showed that 44% of people on the Pakistani side favoured independence, compared to 43% in Indian Kashmir.
(Not a realistic option or solution)
Bradrock says in the 37-page report on the survey that this would put an end for all times to come to the plebiscite route as a possible way to resolve Kashmir, since the only two options envisaged under the UN resolutions proposing plebiscite in 1948/49 were for the whole of Kashmir to join either India or Pakistan; azadi was not an option. But in the Valley, the mood for azadi still remained strong, with 75%-95% respondents favouring that as a final resolution.
(Not practical, pragmatic)
The poll showed no support either for joint sovereignty or for maintaining status quo. However, more than 58% of those surveyed were prepared to accept the Line of Control as a permanent border if it could be liberalized for greater people-to-people contact and trade. Only 8% voted against making the LoC a permanent boundary, with the highest level of opposition in Anantnag district, the report said.
Few people in Kashmir, compared to many more in PoK, believed that violence was likely to resolve the Kashmir issue.
In J&K, only 20% thought that militant violence would help solve the problem, compared to nearly 40% who thought it was coming in the way of a resolution. In PoK, 37% of those surveyed held the view that violence was a possible route to resolution.
That both the state legislative elections in 2008 and the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 had helped bring about a change in mindsets was seen in the increasingly high turnouts that Kashmir has posted in recent years.
The survey too demonstrated that trend, with more than half the respondents saying the elections had improved chances for peace.
"The results aren't surprising at all. I feel they re-emphasize the need to look beyond traditional positions and evaluate the contours of a solution grounded in today's realities," said Sajjad Lone, a former ally of the Hurriyat who unsuccessfully contested the 2009 election.
Peoples Democratic Party chief spokesman Naeem Akhtar said the azadi aspirations must be factored into any solution.
"It can't be wished away and has to be configured into the future strategy on Kashmir. We've always been pleading to provide an alternative to the azadi sentiment."
