Had India not surrendered so tamely at Tashkent, the China-Pakistan axis would have been under conspicuous pressure pertaining to their illegal actions

Union Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj’s statement in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, undoubtedly makes for a perfect politico-diplomatic posturing by India towards Pakistan. However, what made Swaraj’s statement stand out was its carefully crafted semantics. Thus read the stated position of New Delhi over Jammu & Kashmir: “India’s ‘consistent and principled’ position is that the entire State of Jammu & Kashmir has been, is, and shall be an integral part of India”.

Spot on the Minister was, as she continued and concluded: “Pakistan has been in an illegal occupation of approximately 78,000 square kilometre of the Indian territory in the State of Jammu & Kashmir…under the so-called ‘Boundary Agreement’ signed between China and Pakistan on March 2, 1963; Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 square kilometre of the Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir to China.

“We have repeatedly and consistently called upon Pakistan to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation, most recently on November 30, 2018,” the Minister informed the Parliament. Yet, the picture appears grim as “Pakistan continues to be in illegal and forcible occupation of a part of Jammu & Kashmir”, she asserted. What then does this mean to India? It’s simple, yet adverse, to say the least.

That the “illegal occupation of approximately 78,000 square kilometre of the Indian territory” by Pakistan does not figure in Delhi-Islamabad bilateral any more. Swaraj’s clarification to the Parliament on Pakistan, however, did not mention that with the “so-called ‘Boundary Agreement’ signed between China and Pakistan on March 2, 1963”, and with the ceding of “5,180 square kilometre of the Indian territory in Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir”, China automatically emerged as a stake holder with the very physical presence of its troops and civilians. This amounts to Chinese occupation of the Indian territory. It’s the presence of foreign China as ‘third party’ deep inside Jammu & Kashmir. It’s a live ‘dragon in the room’.

In other words, China has been ‘existing’, though illegally, deep inside the Indian territory since more than 55 years.  And there is no way that China is going to withdraw voluntarily, or show some diplomatic niceties like Jawaharlal Nehru consistently did throughout the 1950s towards China, or give up illegal occupation of the Indian territory and retreat from there in the foreseeable future.

Especially, since (now) China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are deeply entrenched within, and pass through the State of Jammu & Kashmir.

For China, it’s a question of geo-politics, geo-economics and geo-strategy for its super power status-aspiration. It constitutes an hydra-headed future game-plan: Control, rather than visible physical occupation, of key land-locked territories, where the ‘great game’ was played by the empires of Russia and Britain. It’s also the terrain which was dreamily aspired by Han rulers from far off Hwang Ho valley and who saw recurring aggression by numerous hostile sultans, badshahs and principalities across the corridor connecting Istanbul with the great alluvial soil of South Asia. The terrain of Jammu & Kashmir also connects the mighty and lofty landmass of Euro-Asia around the Pamir and the Karakorum with declining demography and promising mineralogy with easy access to warm water ports of the Indian Ocean (which the Romanovs and Czars of Russia always dreamt of, and yet always failed to turn it into reality).

Plain speaking, therefore, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way out (especially in the 21st century), to either alter the possession of physical geography of Jammu & Kashmir by the menacing tri-flanking China-Pakistani axis, or owing to the immensely complicated demography and distribution thereof across South Asia.

India has been badly cornered for its own past inability to reclaim (and even retain) its own land from ‘illegal occupation’ of Pakistan and China. Unlike China, India has shown a peculiar propensity to cede its own territory to foreign country, thereby diluting its own professed stand at the diplomatic table; tamely capitulating even when there simply did not exist any ‘cause of action’ to do so.

It may sound bizarre, unpleasant and harsh, but recalling past reality of India’s conspicuous failure on Jammu & Kashmir may be of some consolation and form a lesson for the future. It should not be repeated, else things can go worse than what it was in the past.

Thus, when the Minister of External Affairs was referring to “illegal occupation of Jammu & Kashmir,” her words pertained to the whole territory thereof which legally acceded to India on October 26, 1947, following the same procedure and documentation as done by 548 other princely States vis-à-vis New Delhi (with 16 acceding to Pakistan).

Logically and legally, it, therefore, follows that when any of the “illegal occupied land of Jammu & Kashmir” is reclaimed by India, as was done by the valiant soldiers of the Indian Army (under the able military leadership of Zorawar Chand Bakshi and Ranjit Singh Dayal) in Haji Peer Pass in the 1965 India-Pakistan war, was it not a case of supreme folly to return India’s own territory in the diplomatic table of Tashkent in January 1966 by the galaxy of Indian stars themselves?

All the more, as it happened within 35 months of the China-Pakistan illegal occupation of Indian territory of Jammu & Kashmir? Had India not surrendered so tamely at Tashkent, the China-Pakistan  axis would have been under conspicuous pressure pertaining to their illegal actions.

Hence, this one single act damaged India till no end. Suddenly, India’s avowed legal position on Jammu & Kashmir appeared fragile and illegal when our country surrendered its own territory to Pakistan, thereby giving the world an impression as if Haji Peer Pass was Pakistan’s bona fide possession and that India had illegally usurped it during the course of the war in 1965.

Hence, New Delhi was morally, logically and diplomatically bound to “return the Jammu & Kashmir land to Pakistanis”, thereby legitimising their illegal act. What an irony! In one stroke, legal India became illegal! And grossly, illegal China-Pakistan occupation of the Indian land continued, unchallenged, unharmed and unaffected, thereby transforming Islamabad-Beijing duo’s perfidy and illegal act into an indisputably ‘legal act’!

Seen in this background, the bona fide statement in Parliament by the Foreign Minister needs to be supplemented with/by a sustained teaching of the Constitution of India to the members of Indian legislature who act as executive and guardians of law while protecting the territory and sovereignty of India.

Article 1 (1) of the Constitution is explicit and categorical: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States” and Article 1 (2) stipulates “The States and the territories thereof shall be..” “(c) such other territories as may be acquired.” The point is loud and clear. India can ‘acquire territories’. India cannot surrender territory, least of all, its own territory. That is the crux, and the ruling class of India has to follow the Constitution thereof, in letter and in spirit.

(The writer is an alumnus, National Defence College)