I am not giving even the weakest support for the recent terrorist activities in Mumbai, but I want to draw attention to the history of Kashmir, and make a point: Kashmir is a regional conflict, one that has been in a stalemate for decades, and is a flashpoint for larger conflict, involving India, Pakinstan, and China.

[from Kashmir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Kashmir (Balti: کشمیر; Poonchi/Chibhali: کشمیر; Dogri: कश्मीर; Kashmiri: کٔشِیر; Shina: کشمیر; Uyghur: كھسىمڭر) is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term “Kashmir” referred only to the valley lying between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal range; since then, it has been used for a larger area that today includes the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir consisting of the Kashmir valley, Jammu and Ladakh; the Pakistani-administered provinces of the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir, and the Chinese-administered region of Aksai Chin.

In the first half of the first millennium, Kashmir became an important center of Hinduism and later of Buddhism; later still, in the ninth century, Kashmir Shaivism arose in the region.[1] In 1349, Shah Mirza became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir and inaugurated the line Salatin-i-Kashmir.[2] For the next five centuries Kashmir had Muslim monarchs, including the Mughals, who ruled until 1751, and thereafter, the Afghan Durranis, who ruled until 1820.[2] That year, the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir.[2] In 1846, upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Dogras—under Gulab Singh—became the new rulers. Dogra Rule, under the paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted until 1947, when the former princely state became a disputed territory, now administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and the People’s Republic of China.

In the power vacuum left by the departing British Raj, the Indians, Pakistanis, and Chinese all moved to claim territory. The history of the region is fractious, with a seesawing of control between Afghan, Sikh, and Mughal ruling dynasties.

The fall of Hari Singh and the Princely State of Kashmir in 1947 was precipitated because these rulers had the right to opt for integration with either India or Pakistan. Kashmir was 77% Muslim, so it was assumed that Singh would join the state to Pakistan. Jumping the gun, and presumably hoping to gain from it, Pakistani ‘tribals’ invaded prior to the signing of the formal agreement. Singh lost control of much of Kashmir, and appealed to the British for assistance. Montbatten, the Governor-General of India agreed on the condition that Kashmir be joined to India, which led to Indian soldiers moved in an pushed the tribals out of all but a small portion of Kashmir. The document that bound Kashmir to India, the Instrument Of Accession, requires that the wishes of the Kasmiri people should be taken into account. The UN insisted that no plebiscite was possible until all ‘irregulars’ — the tribals — had left the region: basically calling for a withdrawal of Pakistani’s informal army there.

In the early 1950s, while the standoff between India and Pakistan bubbled, China moved into Aksai Cin, the easternmost portion of Kashmir, initially for better roads into Tibet. The Chinese have never accepted the borders created by Russia, Britian, and Afghanistan in the 1800s. Pakistan also cedded an additional portion of Kashmir to China, the Trans-Karakorum Tract in 1965.

As you can see from the map, the ‘Northern Areas’ of Kashmir are the region closest to Afghanistan and the unruly provinces of Pakistan: the North-West Frontier Provinces, and just to the west of that, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. This area is a very strange place, as I have related before (see Tribal Armies in FATA, and Pakistan And The Future Of The Federation, A Call For Decentralized Governance in Afghanistan and Pakistan: Falling Back To The Timeless). The Federally Admistered Tribal Regions were governed, until quite recently, by different laws than the rest of Pakistan, a holdover from the British rule. The only analogy that makes sense to Americans is something like the way Native Americans are governed in the US, with tribal law in force on reservations, and the odd relationship to the US Department of The Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs to tribal Native Americans is similar ot the way the Pakistani government interacts with tribal leaders.

So, the point that I am making — after the history lecture — is that the recent terror in Mumbai is linked to this unsettled border between India, Pakistan, and (to a lesser extent) China and Afghanistan. I am not suggesting that the Pakistani or Indian position is correct, in any philosophical sense, and I have no idea really what the Kashmiri people want, if there really is a coherent Kashmiri people any more, after 50+ years of being divided.

What I am suggesting is that this mess is part of a greater mess, and that does not make it simpler, but maybe puts it in context. The entire region, but most significantly Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir, are not truly ‘nations’ in any sense that we would understand in the West. There are national boundaries on the maps, but they generally have little meaning within the three regions. China and India are truly nations, as we would use the term, but Afghanistan and Kashmir are two areas riven by factionalism, and where a state of war has been going on for decades. Pakistan is a psuedo-state that has been propped by by the US and others, but is actually a confederacy of interests on the verge of dissolution, and where large regions on the border with Afghanistan and Kashmir are largely ungoverned by the state, and which harbor groups like Al Queda and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

This region is a seething mess, with dozens of language and ethnic groups, theoretically united by Islam, but in practice divided by language and tribe.

I am not suggesting that the US or the UN swoop in and begin ‘region building’: we can’t even get nation building right. But I am arguing the contrapositive: if the region is not stable, then no ‘state’ or locale within the region will be stable. There is no ‘solution’ for Afghanistan without a ‘solution’ for the Federally Administered Tribal Regions. There is no ‘solution’ for Kashmir without a solution for a stable Pakistan.

Many commentators have praised the forbearance of India in this calamity, and so do I, However, India and Pakistan have allowed Kashmir to fester for 50 years, and have entered into three wars since 1947. India’s desires and claims for Kashmir play a part in this tragedy to some extent, although that does not justify Lashkar-e-Taiba’s indiscriminate killings in Mumbai. But there must be a real plan to solve this impasse, just as there must be real progress in Israel regarding Palestinian claims to sovereignty and self-government.

The real answer might lie in a real plebiscite, which would require India and Pakistan to pull out their troops, and the occupation by UN peace keeping forces, as was done in the Balkans. After some period of time, the actual inhabitants of Kashmir could make their wishes known, and the belligerents would be compelled by world opinion to go along with it. Remember Kosovo.

In the meanwhile, clashes in Kashmir between Muslin inhabitants favoring secession from India continue, and hundreds have been jailed in recent months.