Exercise Phase II
Today our group presented the outline foreign policy that we had worked out for the first phase of the exercise. It was a commendable effort as acknowledged by the faculty. Later in the afternoon, we were given our next task. This time I fill in the role of the study group member in the disaster management team. My specific task (with another colleague) is to look into the historical aspect and lesson learnt in the past disaster experienced by Pakistan. Of course, the recent earthquake will be one that came immediate to our mind. I was also reminded that Pakistan had earlier experienced an earthquake, in 1935, in Queta. Apparantly, that earthquake wiped out the whole town. Pakistan also faced another calamity in 1948 (not sure) when the country experienced the distruction of tsunami.
Later in the evening I went to the drug store at F6 to get myself some medicine. I need that medicine upon prescription by the the doctor. We stopped by at Pizza Hut for a round of Pizza. I got myself my favourate, i.e. chicken fijita and belanja takeaway for En Halim.
Last Friday, we had a guest speaker, a British professor, who spoke to us on Kashmir issue. The professor who has researched and written extensively on the Kashmir issue opened by asserting that when India was divided into 500 princely states, prior to the Partition of Pakistan, the ruler of Jammu was a Hindu, ruling a population that was a Muslim majority. This ruler apparently signed an agreement with Pakistan to ensure that trade and travel could continue; however, India did not agree to a similar document. Next there is an issue of the instrument of accession, which this same ruler allegedly signed with India – however, this speaker indicated those documents were falsified; the person that was alleged to have received them had a journal that indicated he was in Delhi the day this document was supposed to have been provided to him on 26 October 1947 – he was not in Kashmir. But the speaker also considers this point to be irrelevant. Many of the issues between Pakistan and India have been exaggerated or even fabricated. Pakistan’s foreign policy and even its domestic policy have been overshadowed by the Kashmir problem; it stems from resentment over partition, the nations’ (both India and Pakistan) colonial legacy. Many people now have conditioned thoughts on this topic, not necessarily grounded in reality. The situation in 1947 was such that no one was working, before March of that year, on the rules of partition. Britain was bankrupt, or nearly so, and under a great deal of pressure from the U.S. to pull out of its colonies. So, in almost concurrent succession, they pulled out of Palestine, Greece, Turkey, and India. The division of the India into two states had been worked out by two Indian bureaucrats 3 years earlier (1944-45), and provided it to the British. But in this design, two states were problematic. Hyderbad and Jammu and Kashmir. J&K was the larger of the two because of its border with Tibet (China) and its proximity to the Soviet Union. The concern was, ‘who would control this frontier?’ But foreign policy in that era was left to a small group of elite academics, most people didn’t pay much attention to it. Interestingly, in 1935 India secured a 60 year lease from the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir over certain northern portions of this region, this fell under British rule. Two weeks before the British departed the sub-continent, the Viceroy (British leader) decided to transfer this area back to the Maharajah (the ruler of J&K) to ensure the Gilgit area was in his hands before Partition. Had this not occurred, the region would’ve been part of the Northwest Frontier Province.Essentially, through it all, two nations, India and Pakistan, are trying to take control of an area that was never formally assigned. Both sides accuse the other of deceit and fraud. In 1964/65 infiltrated external agitation began to occur in the area. Karachi (then the capital of Pakistan) concluded the population was ripe for riots due to an incident in which Indians were accused of removing an artifact from a local (J&K) mosque. However, the people there did not wish for rebellion and this policy failed. However, it gave the Indians and idea – they too decided to infiltrate militants and try their hand at the same tactics. Things have become blurred over time; but it is clear that after the Afghan war, mujahadeen from the battles there, now ‘unemployed’ may have been involved in infiltrating and causing terror in the Indian held portion of Kashmir. In the end, the Kashmiris must define what it is they want (note too that Kashmiris are not entirely a homogenous people, in fact many are not even Muslim); it is a culture that spans centuries, made up of many ethnic groups. One interesting fact is that there are 7.7 million Kashmiri people on the Indian side of the “line of control.” There are also 700,000 Indian soldiers – a 1:10 ratio, which is the greatest ratio of soldiers to civilians anywhere in the world!
So much on Kashmir, I don’t think I want to hear it again. Also I promise not to write anything about it, ever… Dah naik muak…
Later in the evening I went to the drug store at F6 to get myself some medicine. I need that medicine upon prescription by the the doctor. We stopped by at Pizza Hut for a round of Pizza. I got myself my favourate, i.e. chicken fijita and belanja takeaway for En Halim.
Last Friday, we had a guest speaker, a British professor, who spoke to us on Kashmir issue. The professor who has researched and written extensively on the Kashmir issue opened by asserting that when India was divided into 500 princely states, prior to the Partition of Pakistan, the ruler of Jammu was a Hindu, ruling a population that was a Muslim majority. This ruler apparently signed an agreement with Pakistan to ensure that trade and travel could continue; however, India did not agree to a similar document. Next there is an issue of the instrument of accession, which this same ruler allegedly signed with India – however, this speaker indicated those documents were falsified; the person that was alleged to have received them had a journal that indicated he was in Delhi the day this document was supposed to have been provided to him on 26 October 1947 – he was not in Kashmir. But the speaker also considers this point to be irrelevant. Many of the issues between Pakistan and India have been exaggerated or even fabricated. Pakistan’s foreign policy and even its domestic policy have been overshadowed by the Kashmir problem; it stems from resentment over partition, the nations’ (both India and Pakistan) colonial legacy. Many people now have conditioned thoughts on this topic, not necessarily grounded in reality. The situation in 1947 was such that no one was working, before March of that year, on the rules of partition. Britain was bankrupt, or nearly so, and under a great deal of pressure from the U.S. to pull out of its colonies. So, in almost concurrent succession, they pulled out of Palestine, Greece, Turkey, and India. The division of the India into two states had been worked out by two Indian bureaucrats 3 years earlier (1944-45), and provided it to the British. But in this design, two states were problematic. Hyderbad and Jammu and Kashmir. J&K was the larger of the two because of its border with Tibet (China) and its proximity to the Soviet Union. The concern was, ‘who would control this frontier?’ But foreign policy in that era was left to a small group of elite academics, most people didn’t pay much attention to it. Interestingly, in 1935 India secured a 60 year lease from the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir over certain northern portions of this region, this fell under British rule. Two weeks before the British departed the sub-continent, the Viceroy (British leader) decided to transfer this area back to the Maharajah (the ruler of J&K) to ensure the Gilgit area was in his hands before Partition. Had this not occurred, the region would’ve been part of the Northwest Frontier Province.Essentially, through it all, two nations, India and Pakistan, are trying to take control of an area that was never formally assigned. Both sides accuse the other of deceit and fraud. In 1964/65 infiltrated external agitation began to occur in the area. Karachi (then the capital of Pakistan) concluded the population was ripe for riots due to an incident in which Indians were accused of removing an artifact from a local (J&K) mosque. However, the people there did not wish for rebellion and this policy failed. However, it gave the Indians and idea – they too decided to infiltrate militants and try their hand at the same tactics. Things have become blurred over time; but it is clear that after the Afghan war, mujahadeen from the battles there, now ‘unemployed’ may have been involved in infiltrating and causing terror in the Indian held portion of Kashmir. In the end, the Kashmiris must define what it is they want (note too that Kashmiris are not entirely a homogenous people, in fact many are not even Muslim); it is a culture that spans centuries, made up of many ethnic groups. One interesting fact is that there are 7.7 million Kashmiri people on the Indian side of the “line of control.” There are also 700,000 Indian soldiers – a 1:10 ratio, which is the greatest ratio of soldiers to civilians anywhere in the world!
So much on Kashmir, I don’t think I want to hear it again. Also I promise not to write anything about it, ever… Dah naik muak…
posted by besutian at 11:51 PM
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