Kashmir

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh]

My Lords, I begin by thanking my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, for securing this debate and introducing it with the passion and eloquence that we have come to associate with him. He has been a good champion of his people and I admire him for that, although I do not agree with most of the things that he has said.

Relations between India and Pakistan have passed through several stages. It was Pandit Nehru who suggested, within five years of taking office, that there should be a confederation between the two countries, a proposal he reiterated on several occasions. Relations have passed through various phases because the two countries do not seem to be able to make up their minds on exactly how much to co-operate, at what pace and in which direction.

In Pakistan there are institutions and agencies that would like the two countries to get together; there are others that think differently. Ever since the military has been a dominant force in Pakistani politics, relations with India have remained rather tense, although I see that Pakistan is beginning to show a more ambiguous, nuanced approach. Given the penetration of the military into the economic sphere, and the fact that the economic sphere offers the opportunity for Pakistani business to flourish, there is a great deal of demand for closer ties between the two countries, including the proposal for giving India most favoured nation status.

At the same time, terrorist attacks such as those on the Indian Parliament and the Taj Hotel in Bombay have been occasions when the relations between the two countries seemed to point in the direction of hostility. In other words, there are gestures in both directions and one will have to see how things move and at what pace.

Our concern today is not to talk so much about India and Pakistan in general—this is not a summit between five noble Lords, one from Pakistan and the rest of us from India—but rather to concentrate on Kashmir. I know that the noble Lord has been preoccupied with Kashmir for quite a while.

I have taken a stand which has not been very popular in the Indian community or the Indian establishment. I have always argued that to talk about Kashmir “belonging” to India is an ambiguous expression. If “Kashmir” refers to land, land can belong to another country. But if “Kashmir” refers to people—which it does—no people can belong to another, short of slavery. Therefore, to say that Kashmir belongs to India is a very dangerous proposition if it is taken to mean that the people of Kashmir can be held hostage by the people of India.

I have wondered how best to handle the question. A plebiscite is not the answer. If I were the Prime Minister of India—which happily I am not—I would go for it because I would know that I would be able to organise a plebiscite but Pakistan would not. The 1948 resolution requires that both sides should withdraw their armed forces. Under Pakistan’s constitution, Pakistani-occupied Kashmir is already an integral part of Pakistan and therefore it is not open to Pakistan to cede Pakistani-occupied Kashmir or allow it to become separate.

It is also the case that in order for the United Nations resolution to be implemented, Kashmir will have to be whole, which means that the territory of Kashmir that Pakistan has ceded to China will have to be restored. In order for the 1948 resolution to go through, Pakistan would have to vacate Pakistani-occupied Kashmir and regain the land it has ceded to China. Neither of these conditions can be met, so India could easily say, “Let’s have a plebiscite”, knowing full well that the other side would not be able to meet those conditions.

There are other reasons why I can imagine India not agreeing, because if you agree to a plebiscite in Kashmir, you might have to do that in the north-east and other parts of India, and that is a non-starter. In addition, if the plebiscite went the other way one could not be entirely sure how the 148 million Muslims in India would respond and no Government could risk the disorder that this might cause. So a plebiscite is not an option.

At the same time, the existing situation is not an option either. It is absolutely right to say that India has behaved badly in Kashmir in recent years. Its forces have been responsible for violations of human rights. However, this has been recognised by the Indian media, as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, pointed out. There are plenty of groups in India that have campaigned against this. The National Human Rights Commission of India has campaigned against this. There is a tremendous amount of Indian opposition—people like myself, Arundhati Roy and lots of others have written about it. Within India itself there are enough alternatives available to put pressure on the Government to do something about it—the kind of thing, I am afraid, that does not seem to obtain in Pakistan.

What should we be doing? India cannot continue as it is doing now. At the same time, one cannot expect that the two halves of Kashmir can remain as they are, for all kinds of reasons. For the time being at least, one must respect the line of control; expect and require the Indians to behave much more sensibly in Kashmir, as they used to do but have not done in recent years; and hope that the compulsions of democracy in India and Kashmir will force a course of events resulting in an increasingly relaxed climate in Kashmir and India, and between India and Pakistan, so that the situation can be handled much more intelligently than it is being handled now.