Demands of a diaspora

The cuisine of the Punjab cities like Sialkot, Gujrat and Lahore is dominated by Kashmiri eating habits. Similarly, the politics in these cities is polarised between the old population and the Ka-shmiri settlers. In Gujrat, it is more inte-nsely polarised between the indigenous Jats and the settled Kashmiris. In Lahore, the area of Shah Alami is Kashmiri-majority; in Sialkot, because of its proximity to the Valley, the local population has a strong presence of Kashmiris. National poet Allama Eqbal, a Sialkoti, was descended from Kashmiri Brahmins, like the Nehru family in India.

At the forefront of the Kashmir liberation struggle8217; is the population of Azad Kashmir, the 40 per cent includingGilgit-Baltistan of the pre-1947 Kashmir. Ex-cluding the Gilgit-Baltistan region, which is non-Kashmiri, Azad Kashmir compr-ises the bulk of the Poonch region where the revolt against the Maharaja of Kas-hmir occurred in 1947, triggering the Indo-Pak war of 1948. The sense of injustice is intense in Azad Kashmir, which is directed against the British for the Radcliffe Award recorded by Zafrullah Khan and Chaud-hary Muhammad Ali in their books, but now accepted by all international scholars as fraudulent and the coercive and illegal accession of Kashmir to India as recorded by major Western writers on the subject.In October 1947, the provisional government of the Republic of Ka-shmir8217; was set up by the Muslim Conference in the areas liberated from Kashmir. In 1974, Azad Kashmir acquired its own Constitution under which the political parties of Azad Kashmir were in a better position to demand more powers from Pakistan. The first government under the Constitution was form-ed by Sardar Qayyum8217;s MuslimConference. Under Article 56 of this Constitution, the government of Pa-kistan has the authority to remove any Az-ad Kashmir government. From 1977 to 1985, General Zia suspended the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly, ruling the region directly through a President appointed by him.

Most Kashmiris settled in Pakistan fr-om the various past diasporas are nationalised and cast their votes accordingly. But one-fourth of the Azad Kashmir Assem-bly is still elected from this Pakistani diaspora designated as people from the Valley and Jammu. The Muzaffarabad government is intensely aware of the Kashmiri diaspora outside South Asia. When the Legislative Assembly was reconvened in 1985, one seat was set aside in it for this co-mmunity, the largest being concentrated in the UK. The Azad Kashmir Prime Mi-nister appoints the representative of the overseas Kashmiris.

Azad Kashmir is more politically and economically integrated with Pakistan than India-held Kashmir is with India. In the 1960s, the construction of ManglaDam serving Punjab on Azad Kashmir territory inundated 250 Kashmiri villages and caused an upheaval in the cities of Mirpur and Kotli. This led to a massive migration of the Mi-rpur and Kotli population to the UK. Today the majority of Pakis-tani8217; immigrants in the UK are Kashmiris; and from among Kashmiris, the majority are from Mirpur and Kotli. The economy of Azad Ka-shmir is supported by the remittances of the-se migrants.

British Kashmiris have been more inte-nsely politicised over the Kashmir dispute than the Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir. Their opposition to Indian occupation of Ka-shmir has been persistent and has frequently caused problems for British-Indian relations. Patricia Ellis and Za- far Khan of University of Luton, writing in a recently published book Region and Partition OUP, have outlined the history of the struggle of the British Ka-shmiris against Indian occupation of Kashmir.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front JKLF was founded in Birmin-gham in 1977 with Amanullah Khan as itschairman. According to Ellis and Khan, 8220;this is the most important manifestation of diasporic mobilisation around the Kashmir situation8221;.

The JKLF remains the strongest Kash-miri political group in the UK. Because of its highly developed political culture, it has adopted the stance known as the third option8217; in Pakistan. It demands an independent Kashmir under the UN Charter, rat-her than under the UN Security Council resolutions favoured by Pakistan. Since the 1977 Azad Kashmir Constitution bans parties fighting elections under the third option8217;, the JKLF has not been able to show its strength in the Azad Kashmir Assembly. In 1992, it attempted a crossing of the Line of Control in protest against India, which demonstrated its popularity in the region.

The JKLF has hurt the Indian position internationally. It has many champions in the British Parliament, who continue to embarrass the Indian govern- ment with their condemnation of human rights violations in Kashmir. It has compelled the Labour Party tochange its pro-Indian policy. In 1995, Shadow Fo-reign Secretary Robin Cook said that 8220;the position of the Labour Party is that Kashmir is part of the Indian State8221;. But in Pakistan, its independent Kashmir policy has not found favour with the government. Most international solutions8217; offered for the Kashmir dispute too have bypassed the JKLF position. The pluralist, independent Kashmir envisaged by Amanullah Khan is idealistic rather than realistic, especially after the religious radicalisation of communities in Jam-mu-Ladakh and the Valley.

The Kashmiri diaspora, inside and outside Pakistan, has not only compelled Pakistan to remain firm in its support for the cause of Kashmir, but has significantly influenced international opinion to keep the issue alive.

The writer is a noted Pakistani journalist. The article, abridged here, first appeared in The Friday Times8217; Lahore where he is a columnist