Srinagar, India (CNSNews.com) – Pro-Indian parties have been buoyed by a strong turnout in the first two phases of regional elections in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir, but separatists are looking to the next U.S. president for a resolution to the long conflict here.
Despite calls for a boycott by separatists, around 60 percent of registered voters took part in the early phases of voting for the legislature, or Assembly, for the part of Kashmir comprising the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Further rounds will take place between now and late December.
Separatist reject the elections, while pro-India parties have been trying to persuade people that voting was intended merely to provide local government, not to settle the broader Kashmir issue. India and Pakistan both claim the mostly Muslim region, which is divided between the two, with a small portion also controlled by China.
“Assembly polls won’t change the disputed nature of Kashmir, but the activity is only meant to elect a government to run the state,” said the leader of the pro-India National Conference (N.C.), Omar Abdullah.
The N.C. is pledging jobs and infrastructural development in the state if voted to power.
Anti-India sentiments have ran high over the past several months, as Kashmiris demanding independence held mass rallies and protested the killing of at least 70 protestors by Indian armed forces since June.
Maroof Ahmed, 23, said he was taking part in the election not to cast a vote against independence, but “for a candidate who can save us from the wrath of the State Task Force [a security force wing] which has been killing innocent Kashmiris.”
The conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has triggered two of the three wars fought between them. A nearly two-decade revolt by separatists fighting to end Indian control has left at least 70,000 people dead.
India accuses Pakistan of arming insurgents, a claim denied by Pakistan, which says it lends only moral support to Kashmiris struggling for self-determination.
Separatist leaders were jailed or placed under house arrest before the first phase of the elections began last week. Some say they fear India will point to the elections as proof of the legitimacy of its administration in Kashmir.
“India will surely sell the voter turnout as its victory in Kashmir at the international level,” said Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a veteran pro-Pakistan leader.
“People are being wooed into voting by promising them jobs and clean water, but Delhi should bear in mind that people who voted actively participated in the recent independence marches,” Geelani said. “Nobody can hoodwink Kashmiris when their identity is at stake.”
Leader of another key separatist group, the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, challenged India to set free all separatist leaders and withdraw 800,000 troops from the region.
“I question the legality of holding polls amidst heavy troops deployment,” he said, adding that India was using its military might to force elections on the people.
Separatists, who were upbeat over recent comments by U.S. President-elect Obama suggesting outside intervention in settling the Kashmir conflict, have stepped up calls for outside involvement.
“The Kashmir dispute needs Obama’s help,” said Miyan Abdul Qayoom, a pro-independence leader and head of a lawyers’ union.
“And we have already written to him. As the superpower of the world, America has a duty towards the people of Kashmir.”
The letter, written by Farooq and sent to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, drew attention to a 1948 U.N. Security Council on the right of Kashmiris to decide their future.
“The United States was the co-sponsor of this U.N. resolution but since then the people of Kashmir continue to suffer silently awaiting the fulfillment of the promise of self-determination,” it read.
Farooq urged Obama to help solve the Kashmir issue. Without a resolution, he said, a large scale war could erupt between India and Pakistan. And without peace in Pakistan, he argued, the turmoil in Afghanistan could escalate further.
Indian governments have long been opposed to outside intervention in the Kashmir dispute, saying a solution must be found through bilateral talks. Obama’s recent remarks
caused a stir.
Flashpoint
The dispute erupted when India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947 and the predominantly Muslim Himalayan “princely state” was free to opt to join either country.
After Pakistani tribesmen invaded, the Hindu ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh, ceded to India instead, and Indian troops entered to drive out the tribesmen from most of the area.
The Line of Control now divides the region into an Indian-administered region (pop: 9 million) and a Pakistan-administered one (pop: 3 million). China controls a small portion called Aksai Chin (pop: 100,000).
India and Pakistan went to war a second time over Kashmir in 1965 and came close to a third full-out war in 1999. President Clinton the following year called the region the world’s most dangerous flashpoint.
In August 2007, the first-ever poll of Indians and Pakistanis, sponsored by media organizations in both countries, explored Kashmiri’s views on the future of the region.
Of urban dwellers in the Indian-administered portion Kashmir, nearly 87 percent of respondents favored the reunion of Kashmir and independence.
It also found 48 percent of urban Pakistanis and 67 percent of urban Indians want their country’s control of Kashmir to continue.
Separate research in Pakistan-administered Kashmir several years ago found majority support for Kashmir’s full accession to Pakistan, with little support for independence.