Kashmir In Recess

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31120, 25 July 1966, Page 12

Kashmir In Recess

When the United States restored full economic aid to India and Pakistan in May it was assumed that the Kashmir crisis had ended; there had, in the view of the State Department, been “a return to the peace “ which was so tragically interrupted by last autumn’s “conflict”, and the two Governments were “again “ concentrating on urgent tasks of national development ”, Each country has, indeed, more than enough troublesome domestic problems to make the shelving of the Kashmir dispute and the resumption of American aid more than welcome—in India famine; in Pakistan, the desperate shortage of funds to pay for imports and the growing clamour in East Pakistan for a measure of autonomy that might yet become a demand for secession. India’s need for economic aid is dire. A fourth development plan, drawn up last year by Mrs Gandhi’s Government, will need foreign support on a massive scale—£36oo million in aid and investment over the five years up to 1970.

President Ayub, in Pakistan, has been driven by similar necessities. His army suffered heavy losses of equipment, mainly American tanks, in the Kashmir fighting, and then its flow of supplies and spares was cut off. Attempts to buy arms elsewhere met with little success. Further, the rupture of trade with India resulting from the Kashmir fighting was damaging. East Pakistan in particular had welcomed the prospect of peace with India which Tashkent seemed to offer; and the failure of that prospect encouraged the growth of Bengali nationalism. A little more than haff of Pakistan’s 115 million people are in East Pakistan; but its income per capita is only about four-fifths of West Pakistan’s. The Bengalispeaking people of East Pakistan see economic expansion in Pakistan as largely enriching the West, where much of the East’s commerce is controlled. It Is not thought that East Pakistan would want to repudiate separation from India; but it is demanding agricultural improvement and a form of federation that would leave a federal government control of only foreign affairs and defence.

All this has helped to cool the passions of Indians and Pakistanis more effectively than the accord at Tashkent could ever have done. But the Kashmir problem is only in recess; it has certainly not been solved. It would take little to inflame the dormant passions once again; and already there is a good deal of apprehension about the possibilities of trouble during the Indian General Election next February. The three previous elections held in the State of Kashmir, although nominally free, are generally believed to have been unscrupulously rigged by the ruling National Conference Party. An election under the Indian Electoral Commission would certainly be conducted more fairly, but the scales are still heavily weighted against the opposition. Its leaders are nearly all in detention; and advocating secession from India has recently been made a criminal offence. The Indian Government might be tempted to seek an agreement either with the imprisoned Sheikh Abdullah or with some of the minor opposition leaders, perhaps on the lines of a limited autonomy for Kashmir, but it will not lightly risk a public rebuff. In any event, it will be surprising if Pakistan allows an electoral demonstration of Kashmiri support for India to be effected without at least some vigorous opposition, military or otherwise. l