Kashmir dispute remains unresolved even after nearly 8 decades

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - The Kashmir dispute has remained unresolved even after the passing of nearly eight decades with Islamabad on Monday reiterating its support for the right to self-determination of Kashmiris.

India says the issue has been settled for good.

Several resolutions by the UN Security Council grant the right to self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, while the Muslim-majority erstwhile princely state is held by the nuclear-armed neighbors in parts with both claiming it in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since the early 1990s, Pakistan commemorates Feb. 5 as Kashmir Solidarity Day to reiterate its support to the people of the disputed region and highlight the long-smoldering dispute that has remained unresolved for over seven decades.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965, and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.

Islamabad dubs the Kashmir issue as an “unfinished agenda” of partition of South Asia in 1947, insisting that the dispute should be resolved in accordance with a 1948 unbinding UN Security Council resolution that demands a referendum in both parts of the region to decide its future.

New Delhi, for its part, insists that the proposed referendum has become unnecessary since elections in the Indian-administered Kashmir-backed accession to India.

Following the 1971 war that ended with the creation of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan signed the famous Shimla Agreement, which turned the Kashmir cease-fire line into the Line of Control (LoC), and pledged both sides to settle their differences through negotiations.

In 2003, the two sides inked an agreement to ensure a cease-fire along the LoC, however, two border forces still fight border skirmishes at short and long intervals.

Last December, India's Supreme Court upheld the legality of legislation passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government in 2019 that stripped the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region of its standing as a state, as well as its special status.

In August of that year, New Delhi ended the special status of the region, and divided it into two Union Territories, run by an official appointed by New Delhi.

On Monday, rallies, human chains, and public gatherings were held across Pakistan as Islamabad pledged to continue to provide “political and moral support” to the pro-freedom struggle in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Interim Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar along with the army chief Gen. Asim Munir visited Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and the LoC, a de facto border that divides the Himalayan valley between Pakistan and India.