India trying to change demography of Kashmir: Expert

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) – India’s move to revoke a constitutional provision that had granted special status to the Indian administered Kashmir, will create a lot of tensions between Pakistan and India, an expert said on Tuesday.

At a panel discussion hosted by an Ankara-based think-tank, the Middle Eastern Studies Center (ORSAM), Umer Karim, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) of London, apprehended that the latest Indian move was aimed to change demography of the region.

“For last 17 years, they have tried to suppress Kashmiri people. But it has not worked,” Karim said.

He added that they [India] wanted to settle Kashmir issue on their own terms, to bring outsiders to settle in Kashmir, that will turn Kashmiris into minorities in their own homes.

He charged that India wanted the territory of Kashmir, without Kashmiris.

Maintaining that Pakistani government was under tremendous pressure from its own people, who want it to react, the scholar said, Islamabad needs to stand with Kashmiri people.

“Kashmiri people are targeted, because of their affiliation with Pakistan, and they are absolutely being punished only for this very reason,” he argued.

Karim also stressed that the move definitely will create a lot of tensions between the two nuclear neighbors, Pakistan and India in near future.

The RUSI scholar said a new Gaza was being created in Kashmir.

Since 1947, Jammu and Kashmir has enjoyed special provisions to enact its own laws.

The provisions also protected its citizenship law, which disallowed outsiders to settle or own land in the territory.

The Himalayan region is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought 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 for 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.

- Pakistan's policy towards Middle East

Talking about Pakistan’s engagements with regional actors, especially in the Middle East, the scholar said the new fault lines have made it difficult for Islamabad to maintain a balanced line.

''Pakistan does not take sides in the Middle Eastern conflicts, but rather it is interested in increasing its individual strategic cooperation and bilateral strategic relationship,'' he stressed.

Karim said that Pakistan has very good ties with almost all the Middle Eastern actors. “There always had been traditional trust with Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates,” he said.

But he added that since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the trust factor between Pakistan and Iran has vaporized.

Describing relations between Pakistan and Turkey as “very good”, Karim said, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had developed a personal bond with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S., China, and India, Karim said Pakistan had no option, but to align with China in the wake of the U.S. projecting India as its favored partner.

“China is not only Pakistan's strategic partner, but is also a neighbor. Pakistan is geographically connected with Beijing,” he said.

He further said that Pakistan was fighting a battle of strategic survival against India.