Why Kashimirs revolted against India?

By Hashim Qureshi

Political reasons :
Despite the division of the Indian sub-continent on the basis of two-nations theory in 1947, Kashmiris stuck to their age-old tradition of communal harmony and saw to it that the virus of communal violence did not undermine that tradition. This made Gandhi Ji concede that he could see a rey of hope in Kashmir.

Maharaja Hari Singh had concluded a stand-still agreement with Pakistan soon after the two dominions came into existence. Despite this, the tribesmen with logistical support from Pakistan, made an incursion into Kashmir and endangered her quest for freedom. Even then the people of Kashmir maintained their cool and were not swayed by communal frenzy that had carried astray many people in the subcontinent. They categorically declared their intention of preserving their identity and future course that had become clear for more than three decades in the past.

The support given by the Indian leadership in pre-independence era to the national movement of Kashmiris against the autocratic rule of the Maharaja of the State had given the Indian leadership credibility in the eyes of Kashmiris. They found India championing their case at the United Nations against their aggressors. This also was a clear proof that India respected Kashmir´s right for self-determination.

Even the tallest among the Indian leaders, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru said in a public speech in Lal Chowk, Srinagar soon after the beginning of hostilities with Pakistan "that the peopole of Kashmir were not dumb driven cattle wahom either India or Pakistan could drive to a destination of their choosing." He said "that they were human beings and enjoyed their right to self-determination."

This commitment made by Indian leadership became the basis for the UN resolutions of 1948 and 1949 according to which Pakistan was to withdraw all her fighting forces from PoK to be followed by India pulling back the bulk of her forces from Kashmir and the governance of the original State of Jammu and Kashmir remaining concentrated in Srinagar administration. The UN was then to supervise the holding of plebiscite in the State.These developments strengthened the faith of Kashmiris in the Indian stand because it recognized their stand for self-determination. Kashmiris trusted India as their friend and well-wisher. A sound basis of mutual understanding on ideological basis was created.

Identity in peril :
These promises and perceptions were still in process when India dealt a damaging blow to the entire structure by removing the populist leadership of Kashmir on charges that could never be substantiated, and installing a handpicked regime in Srinagar in 1953.

The replaced regime and the subsequent ones could not be anything more than surrogates carrying on the diktat of New Delhi. A breach of trust was suspected by the Kashmiris with serious dimensions if the drift was not arrested.This was a political blunder of far-reaching consequences.

The incoming regimes after the removal of the most popular Kashmiri leadership onwards of 1953, gradually gave rise to New Delhi´s more and more dependence on their own stooges. In this scenario, it was natural that the bolstered local leadership grabbed power through means fair and foul only to became despotic and imperious. Helpless masses watched the emerging situation much to their disappointment and disbelief.

The Kashmiris felt their identity was threatened with erosion and their credibility in her genuine concern for the Kashmiris built over the years had become only fragile. Another blow came when in the later part of 1960s, a segment of NC leadership made a big but highly controversial policy decision of converting National Conference into Indian National Congress. A small but influential pro-India group had grabbed power in Srinagar after it managed to ease out Bakhshi Ghulam Mohammad in 1963. The first reverberation of this struggle for power was to be witnessed in the dislocation of the holy relic in Hazratbal. The entire Kashmiri community had been stunned and shocked by this indecent act. Many years later, people in Kashmir came to know of the perfidy of local political leadership in inciting religious feelings. Perhaps this could be considered a crucial stage in the evolution of armed militancy in the whole of Kashmir beginning early 1990.

Conversion of National Conference into Indian National Congress (I) in late 1960s meant closing a glorious chapter of Kashmir´s national struggle for freedom. This further strengthened the hands of political blackmailers. Knowing well that they were moving against the tide of the time, Kashmir Congress leadership adopted a clear - cut double policy vis--a-vis New Delhi and the masses of people in Kashmir. Its promoters and propagators claimed they were outright Indians carrying the cross of nationalism. But in the eyes of common Kashmiris, they remained suspect and undependable. Congress (I) did not miss the political antics of Kashmir political leadership of hunting with the hound and running with the hare. By and large, common Kashmiris remained isolated from the national mainstream owing to local exigencies of their special problems.

It is to be pointed out that in 1965, our neighbour tried to distabilise peace and order in Kashmir by infiltrating regular troops under the name of mujahideen. It goes to the credit of secular-minded and peacea -loving people of Kashmir that they did not extend their support to this conspiracy.

Retracing the step :
By the time, Indo-Pak war of 1971 came to an end and the ground situation in the subcontinent changed substantially, both New Delhi and traditional political leadership in Kashmir felt that the time had come when steps for reconciliation needed to be taken.Thus came into being the 1974 Indira Gandhi - Sheikh Abdullah Accord, another watermark in the current political history of Kashmir. More than a million Kashmiris gave the Sheikh a tumultous reception in Srinagar after signing the Accord. When he asked the mamoth gathering whether the Accord was acceptable to them, the multitudes raised the famous slogan which became history. They said in Kashmiri " aleh kareh wangan karen, bab kareh bab kareh" ( whatever the patriarch does is acceptable to us absolutely). The people of Kashmir again proved that they wanted to be treated with dignity and respect in the matter of their relations and affairs with India.

Nowhere in the history of democratic world do we find a ruling political party (Congress in the present case) with a strong majority in the Legislative Assembly surrendering power to a person at that time totally outside the pale of political structure in the State. Sheikh Abdullah was not even a member of the Legislative Assembly. This was done with the unanimous agreement of the sitting members in the Assembly. But within a couple of months, the same party tried to bring a vote of no-confidence against the person whom it alone had catapulted into the seat of power. The Sheikh outmanouevered them and kept himself stay put in the seat of power.

The Sheikh agreed to disband the Plebiscite Front towards which Kashmiris had expressed their sympathy. But the enrolement of the disbanded cadres of Plebiscite Front into the National Conference gave rise to speculations that New Delhi was trying to follow the colonial text book formula of divide and rule. Two parties, the NC and the Congress in Kashmir began trading accusations and counter-accusations with Sheikh Abdullah calling the Congressites as pests and dirty insects in the drain. Kashmiris began suspecting them all.

Betrayal :
Can any self-respecting people pocket such insults? Did these happenings in Kashmir really reflect the words of Nehru uttered by him in a public gathering in Lal Chowk years ago? Kashmiris had reasons to believe that New Delhi was interested only in imposing its surrogates on them. They were convinced that enormous funds provided by New Delhi in the name of development of Kashmir were allowed to be apportioned by the surrogates under the rubric of different plans and programmes. A class of politicos and bureaucrats had formed the nexus to perpetrate general loot of Kashmir.

When under Sadiq´s Congress (I) rule, nearly twenty-eight MLAs of the State called on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and placed before her the facts pertaining to misrule by Sadiq´s Congress government, Indira Gandhi threatened to dissolve the State Legislative Assembly and warned that none of the MLAs comprising the delegation would find himself re-elected.

Yet the Kashmiris bore this with fortitude hoping that good sense would prevail on Indian leadership.When the Sheikh died in 1984, two million people joined the funeral procession. In a broadcast about the event, the BBC said that only President Nasser´s funeral in Egypt could be compared with it.

His son Dr. Farooq Abdullah stepped into his shoes. This was done under the close watch of Indian political leadership. Yet the people accepted the arrangement in the hope that a chance could be given to the young leader to grasp the complexities of Kashmir politics. He had hardly been allowed a year to be in office, when behind the curtain intrigues and conspiracies were hatched to replace him. The text book formula of divide and rule could take any shape and dimension. At this junctutre, his brother-in-law, with whom he was at daggers drawn, was made to hijack some of the ministers in Farooq´s Council of Ministers and some MLAs along with them and he was shown the door.

This sordid act of stabbing in the back left the Kashmiris totally disillusioned. Regrets and disillusionment gradually gave place to resentment, distancing, hatred and alienation. Kashmiri youth in particular listened to and carried home the message which Pakistan as an adversary of India had to convey at these crucial junctures. They exploited the situation to their maximum benefit. Kashmiri youth now decided to take a decisive step which was of giving strong political fight to the surrogates and stooges. They decided to establish the will of the people by rejecting the self-seeking political leaders who had dominated the Kashmir scene for last four decades.

Dissenters unite :
Thus in the impending elections of 1986-87, all the dissenting elements came together and formed the well-known Muslim United Front (MUF). It should be remembered that the constituent elements of the Front had previously fought elections on their own after taking oath of allegiance to the Indian Constitution and had become a party to the enacting of laws for the land through the proper procedures. Now they and their activists were resolved to capture political power and bring in an era of radical reforms in Kashmir polity.

MUF workers and leaders made a gallant effot of fielding their candidates, providing proper support structure and carrying on active campaigns to win as many seats as possible in the Assembly. The Jamaat-e-Islami was in the forefront with a widespread netweork it had established in the rural and urban segments of Kashmir. But the elections wer reigged by the NC - Congress combine in accordance with Rajiv Gandhi´s - Farooq Abdullah Accord. The MUF was left with just six seats. MUF´s raising of hue and cry against rigged elections made no impact on the Election Commission and the NC-Congress combine returned to the corridors of power to strike with bitter vengeance.

This was the beginning of a very crucial turn in Kashmir politics. The MUF electioneering had caused consternation among the traditional political parties, NC in particular. This was so because the NC never allowed the culture of healthy opposition to grow in the political history of Kashmir. Even those criticising the government for its failure on economic front were not tolerated and dubbed as Indian intelligence agents. The MUF workers were beaten, manhandled, humiliated and disparaged.

These somewhat outcast elements rallied into a formidable force that became the bedrock of ongoing Kahmir movement. All the workers and leaders of MUF of 1986-87 elections are in the frontline of armed militancy in Kashmir. They are convinced that the curse lies in New Delhi and not at any other place. Therefore the emergence of armed revolt of Kashmiris becomes a reality.

Misleading the minority :
Yet one more aspect of political reasons needs to be elaborated. Though Kashmiris have a glorious record of communal harmony, yet this was sought to be disrupted by some unwise steps of the Government of India. It patronized the political stooges and groups funding them lavishly and turning Nelson´s eye to their gross mismanagement. Along with this, they infuriated the local population by encouraging the Kashmiri minorities in a way as if the majority community had a score to settle with India. By creating hurdles in the path of the members of majority community in Kashmir to find entry into central organisations, their sense of alienation was sharpened. It was a question of doubting their loyalty. New Delhi always behaved in a manner as if only a few politicians and families of their connection were pro-Indians and the rest were not and thus could be written off. Instead of ensuring the use of enormous funds in developmental projects in Kashmir, New Delhi remained complacent with her favoured few who feasted on the spoils to their hearts content.

Now the marginalised Kashmiri youth was left with no choice but to take up arms. Pakistan was watching the situation and exploited it fully by providing the youth training in her training camps and equipping them with arms and ammunition. The insurgency increased rapidly in the length and breadth of Kashmir. The elected government resigned and its stalwarts ran away from the scene seeking shelter in different parts of India and abroad. They did not face it politically because they had no political base in Kashmir. They were imposed by New Delhi which had now to bear the brunt directly.

Handling militancy :
Handling of Kashmir militancy by the Indian political leadership betrayed sings of immaturity and inexperience particularly of Kashmir affairs. Instead of handling it politically, they resorted to the use of brute force aginst the common people. Brutal suppression of a civilian revolt through muscle power, indiscriminate killing of civilinas

In many places, arson and rape became the weapons used by the uncontrollable security forces. Extra-judicial killings in Kashmir by the security forces is an open truth and has been recorded by foreign as well as Indian human rights acativists.

This provided Pakistan with grist to its anti-India propganda. It could mould the world opinion against oporessive measures of Indian security forces in Kashmir. Thus on international plane, India was faced with another formidable detractor. Even the most impartial reports say that 25,000 to 35,000 Kashmiris were killed during the one decade of turmoil.

Old game again :
Yet in face of this crime against humanity, the Indian leadership did not learn to abide by the wishes of the people. Without taking the people into confidence and creating a conducive atmosphere, or addressing their aspirations and wishes, New Delhi once again decided to hold the elections in 1996. The run-aways were facilitated to come back on the scene because it suited the Indian leadership. Again the same traditional political party was placed in power that could be held reponsible for many ills. Has this party been able to deliver goods? Alienation of Kashmiris has deepened in these three years and militancy has exacerbated in proportion. The net result is that the Kashmiris are getting killed and Kashamir is getting destroyed. As all this is happening, the NC leaders and their cronies are raising private properties worth crores of rupees in Jammu city. During three years of NC rule, Kashmir has met with total deterioration in all spheres, economic, political, social and psychological. With financial crunch leading to non-payment of salaries of government employees for months together, 16-hour a- day power cuts, recession of market, major projects starving for want of funds, militancy spreading to more areas, unemployment of youth on an increase, court cases pending for decades at a stretch, extra-judicial killings going on, intermittant assaults on press and its freedom, sharp rise in crime and controversial statements by responsible ministers and MLAs and party leaders, all indicate that the NC government is indirectly making the task of ISI easy in Kashmir. As the situation goes from bad to worse, Kashmiris get more alienated and more hatred comes to sit against India.

Economic causes

Deficit State :
Deficit state by and large, governments in J&K State have never had a smooth sailing in regard to their financial relations with New Delhi. J&K is a deficit state because a large part of its territory is mountainous with not too easy lines of communication. It cannot generate funds enough to meet its developmental plans. As such, the State had to depend on financial assistance in the shape of grants, loans and allocations from the Centre. But there has been a system and a criterian for making financial assistance available. The main reason for irritation on this count is that the State governments have not been able to generate self-employing opportunities through industrialisation. At the same time, providng free education to the youth of the Stat upto the post graduate standard churned out enormous number of educated people who could not find the jobs commensurate with their educational qualifications. While the education took more and more youth into its ambit, job opportunities remained limited. This phenomenon was bound to create unrest among the youth one day.

Indian authorities failed to understand the strategic importance of Kashmir, the state whose boundaries touched with the boundaries of five countries. Besides that, the disputed nature of the state made it always vulnerable to the inroads of India´s detractors either in terms of physical violation of her sovereignty or in terms of damaging her image on international plane. Wisdom and foresight demanded that emergence of a situation like that should have been forestalled at any cost. The way out was of paying special attention to the industrialisation and mechanisation of Kashmir. The way was to provide the requisite infrastructure without wasting time. This should have been a permanent, positive and unalterable base of New Delhi´s Kashmir policy that no government could change or ignore. A piecemeal treatment to economic imperatives was disastrous.

The biggest blunder of New Delhi was essentially political but spilling over to economy. New Delhi has always given more weight to a few persons and families with strong political linkages than to the people in general in Kashmir. No doubt enormous funds have been poured into the state over the years, but it is also a fact that a large portion of these funds was misappropriated by the elements that basked under the patronage of Indian political leadership. Absence of accountability added to the corruption syndrome. The poor, unemployed and deprived masses began to get reconciled to the situation because their loud protests from time to time yielded no positive results. New Delhi thought it was keeping Kashmir with it by keeping the 22 top families of Srinagar contented and satisfied.

Communication :
Two areas should have received highest priority in the matter of bringing economic prosperity to the state. These were communication and energy. In the case of communication, we all know that there is only one overland route that connects Kashmir and Ladakh regions with Jammu region and then to the rest of India. One need not elaborate strategic and political importance of this link. In order to streamline overland communication, the Banihal road should have been converted into a two - way highway that would be operative in all seasons. It would be a mountain highway and the area is snowbound for many months in the year. But western road building technology has surmounted all these difficulties and given a new concept to highland transportation.The other requirement was to provide an alternative link to supplement the main highway. When roads are built, destiny of the people is changed. Three successive Prime Ministers of India laid the foundation stone for a rail link between Jammu and Srinagar but not a single mile of railway line has come up beyond Jammu to this day. If the project of rail and road link was undertaken with a minimum of fifteen kilometers a year, by now the entire link upto Ladakh would have been completed by now.

Within just two decades of close friendship with China, Pakistan was able to build the Karakorum Highway crossing the Himalayan pass of Khunjarab at a height of 17,000 feet to connect Beijing with Karachi. But India could not build a highway between Jammu and Ladakh, a bare four hundred miles stretch, for fifty long years. We need not lay emphasis on the importance of roads in transforming economic condition of a backward people. Why did New Delhi ignore this vital aspect? Is it the avowed policy of the Government of India to go slow with urgent and crucial developmental programmes in Kashmir because it is a disputed territory? If that is the conviction, then they should have no regrets for what they are facing in Kashmir today. Why then, instead of getting innocent people and security personnel killed aimlessly, New Delhi did not let Kashmiris manage their affairs themselves without any relation with India?

The State Government did announce the building of an alternate road linking the two segments across the Pir Panchal. This is known as the Mughal route. But the project remained on paper for decades and now is being taken up only half-heartedly.The pace with which work goes on the project would take it a century to complete. Along this Mughal route lies a very strategic area. Alas even from security and strategic point of view, the importance and necessity of building the road in shrotest possible time is not taken into account, leave aside its economic importance. If the project of laying the railway line from Qazigund to Baramulla in Kashmir valley has been taken up now, but at what cost? Should it not have been undertaken three or four decades ago?

Electric power :
In regard to power production, the world knows that Jammu and Kashmir State is endowed with abundance of water resources that could sustain production of hydel power production not only for the entire state but also to other neighbouring states on commercial basis. With more than half a dozen mega hydel power projects taken in hand decades ago, the entire state today remains plunged in darkness for more than 16 hours a day. Corruption, inefficiency, red tapism, lack of sense of responsibility and absence of accountability, all have combined to fail the government and the people with regard to production of adequate quantum of power. Even technical profeciency of the engineers assigned to these projects is doubted by many commentators. Favouritism in admission to engineering colleges, in appointments of engineers and their posting at lucrative places also contributed to the sorry state of things.

Except for three tehsils of Jammu region, the entire state has cold and snowy climatic conditions. The prosperity and economic development of the people in cold regions in particular is closely related to the availability of low cost and abundant supply of electricity. In Kashmir and Ladakh regions, there is only one-crop season. This means that for more than six months the people have to spend an indoor life. In absence of cottage and small scale industries on a wide scale, in absence of proper engagemnt of the people in indoor productive enterprises, economic condition of the state could not be changed.Take the case of Japan. Every house is a small manufacturing unit. Why could not this be envisioned by policy planners in New Delhi in regard to Kashmir? It should be remembered that the key to winning the people of Kashmir lies in providing cheap and regular electric power for all purposes.

Investment neglected :
A general trend of Indian investors and private sector leadership has been to be less enthusiastict about investment and industrialization of Kashmir. How on earth can we imagine of eradicating poverty, illiteracy, and backwardness without caring to develop industries and industrial infrastructure? Indian industrialists were never enticed to invest in Kashmir. Kashmir´s industrialisation remained subservient to political considerations more than what it should have been.The result is that the Kashmiri youth, especially the educated youth, became a large army of unemployed young men ready to respond to any call given from any quarter to defy the authority of the regimes. Total absence of industries deprives the society of developing work culture and trade unionism in which economic and material pursuits sharpen people´s understanding. Kashmir has remained far removed from mechanisation.

Agro-industry :
In agriculture and horticulture industries, the second mainstay of Kashmir economy, no effective steps have been taken to ameliorate the condition of those who are enchained to agrarian pursuits. Innovations and researches into agriculture activities and productions are nowhere in sight. We do not have even workshops where standard agariculture tools and implements could have been forged as supplement to agricultural reform schemes. Often crops fail because of pests and other debilities that have been largely overcome in the developed countries. Our irrigation system has neither been modified nor modernized. Despite enormous water resources, a large portion of cultivated area called kandi remains choked for want of irrigation. The tube-well technology is absent in the State not only because power is not available but also because there is no urge to bring a radical change into the life style of the poor peasantry. Holland is one-fifth of the State of Jammu & Kashmir with most of the land reclaimed from the sea. It has made progress in diary farming to the extent that Dutch milk and milk products are available in all major markets of the world. Despite being a cold country like Kashmir Valley and the adjoining region, Holland produces all kinds of fruit and vegetables in the green houses round the year.

The story of horticulture is too shameful to recount. Kashmir was once reputed for its finest fruits. Kashmir apple had won the appreciation from people far and wide. But Kashmir horticulture is faced with disaster caused by pests and scabs. It is so sad that despite having two agricultural universities in the State and morte than a hundred of them in other parts of India, a pesticide that could control the scab of apple could not be developed by our scientists. The result is that hundreds of thosands of acres of apple orchards have been destroyed and devastated. For quite sometime the stories of corruption in the department and adulteration of pesticides were galore. Very few people are hopeful that the horticulture industry would meet with its revival in Kashmir. First Himachal Pradesh emerged as a potent rival in the industry and then came the scams and corruptions paralysing the entire industry. The Cadburys, known throughout the world for its jam and jice production had floated a plan for Kashmir to collect the fruit and convert it into jams and juices which would have helped horticulturists benefit immensely from the industry. This was conceived in view of a tremendous waste of apple crop for lack of proper technical assistance. But unfortunately, New Delhi based rich brokers, State bureaucracy and political leadership formed a nexus to defeat the project. This happened because there was no industarial, agrarian and other economic policy parametes drawn after considerable thought.

Forests :
Kashmir´s rich forests are her greatest asset. But this asset needed to put on modern lines of development. Instead, the antidated system of allowing fraudulent forest lesses to exploit Kashmir´s forest wealth has deprived the people of a potential source of income. Proper utilisation of timber for commercial use and aforestation ought to have gone together hand in hand. Today Kashmir´s forest wealth has dwindled enormously because of rampant corruption. Prefabrication and processing of constructional material has never been undertaken, which would have provided means of livelihood to many people and standardized the constructional patterns. Waste of precious timber should have been avoided. In the name of social forestry, enormous funds have been misappropriated with hardly any useful result. Deforestation has adversely affected the climate and ecology of Kashmir. Golf fields are usually made on barren lands so that turfing it would bring some verdure. The unfortunate Kashmiris have been deprived of green patches within the city and turned into Golf fields only to satisfy the whims of a handful of politicians and bureaucrats.

France has a significant income from its excellent wines exported to various countries in the world. Kashmir, too, had the suitable climate and soil for developing vineyards and producing grapes for making wine. The argument that handling of wine is a religius taboo does not hold good. Morocco and Tunisia produce good wines and a large part of their inncome comes from the production and export of excellent wines.

Holland occupies the pride of place in producing the most beautiful flowers and exports these to foreign countries earning foreign exchange to the tune of 2.5 billion dollars a year. Floriculture exhibition ground in Holland spread over 30 acres of land is credited with all species of flowers existing in the world. Nearly four million people from all parts of the world travel to Holland each year to visit this unique feat of floriculture in the months of April and May. Then the flowers are exported to foreign countries which brings foreign exchange of billions of dollars. This industry has flourished in a way to give Holland the rightly deserved fame. We have far better climate and weather conditions in Kashmir to learn from Dutch experiment. But never has any attention been paid to it. Self-reliance

Could not Kashmir export the bulk of bottled mineral water and earn thereby if that industry had been developed on scientific lines. It is not an expensive enterprise and could have been easily left to private sector. Its establishment did not need enormous funding as in the case of other industries. One is taken aback on seeing a Kashmiri buying himself a bottle of mineral water for twelve rupees a-piece while the springs of finest water in his homeland in Kashmir remain untapped. Kashmir has the potential of supplying mineral water to the subcontinent.

Kashmir´s climate and topography are highly suited for hebticulture. Even the innumerable kinds of herbs that grow in her pastures and meadows, in forsts and in plains have never been made a subject of research by medical practitioners. Herbiculture is an industry in which Kashmir should have been leading the country today. This would have substantially improved income to the state exchequer and productively employed a sizeable section of our farmers. India with a vast potential for developing technological infrastructure could have and should have established production of components of small and precision tools industry in Jammu and Kashmir.

In short, India slept over her responsibilities in Kashmir, allowed the anti-India trend gain strength and become strong enough to challenge the authority of the state. People in Kashmir were yearning for a radical change in the life style but had remained entwined in an obsolete and outdated style. There was the urge to enter the new world of new ideas and new styles; the age of science and technological advancement. They wanted to get rid of all that had tied them down to economic backwardness, social deprivation and political instability.

Ecology and environment Environmental disaster :
An assault on Kashmir´s wonderful ecology and environment was allowed by vested politicians in Srinagar and in New Delhi. Any sincere dedication to the welfare of Kashmir and her people would have disallowed destruction of this ecology. Dal Lake, with 28 sq kilometer area in 1947 has now shrunk to 14 kms. Politicians allowed the encroachers to set up shabby and ugly settlements becuse of vote bank syndrome. The once crystal clear waters of the Dal Lake have been polluted beyond recognition. In the name of cleaning of Dal Lake, widespread corruption and embzzlement of funds was allowed to gratify politically influential persons. Plantation skirting the Wular lake has been destroyed by firewood contractors and once beutiful landscape is now turned into swamp and marshes. Indiscriminate fishing in the Wular has adversely affected the environment and fish population. Shanties and huts have come up in large numbers along the banks of the Wular lake thus making the sight look ugly and offensive. Illogical deforestation has denuded Kashmir of her natural wealth and beauty. The bed of Jhelum has been converted into slum and the repository of the city´s refuse and litter. In short, Kashmir´s environment is defiled day after day, and there is every possibility that no visitor would be willing to spend his holidays and money in Kashmir. It is a direct threat to the tourist industry of the State.

Kashmir handicrafts so renowned in the world, have lost their credibility in the world market. This is because substandard material like art silk (staple) was allowed to be used which was not acceptable to foreign buyers. The government had not any definite commercial policy to make Kashmir handicraft like carpets, shawls, wood carving, papier mache and metal work, gradually change over t o modern concepts and face the competition in the world markets.

Conclusion
There could be many more things to discuss. The essential point is that keeping in view the special relations of Kashmir with the Indian Union, it was highly desirable for the Indian policy planners to take these aspects into consideration and make these as strong instruments to keep the people of Kashmir satisfied. The temporary accession made by the Maharaja might have been ratified by the common people of Kashmir voluntarily and not under any pressure.

The question is that in the light of what has been said above, what could be the basis on which the Indians would want the people of the State to remain associated with them?

This is the picture of the part of Kashmir ruled by India. The story of the other part under Pakistani rule is much more sorded. Its full picture has been given in my article entitled " Why Azad Kashmir be called Pakistan occupied Kashmir?" and " Kashmir Accession to Pakistan: its inviability." This is explained by an Urdu saying, " bare miyan to bare miyan; chhote miyan Subhan Allah" ( The elder brother is what he is but the younger one is steps ahead of him)