April 05, 2013

The Kashmir dispute has set a number of records, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, none of them bringing credit to either Pakistan or India, both countries also figuring in the records. Along with the records, the Guinness Book presents an analysis of the situation as it must appear to any neutral observer. According to a report appearing in the held state’s press, the Guinness Book has found that India and Pakistan have together got a million troops manning the Line of Control, and have fought two wars. The Guinness Book identifies the refusal to grant the Kashmiri people the right of self-determination as the reason not just for the wars, but also the continued tension in the whole South Asian region. One of the records set has been that for the highest battlefield in the world. That would not be the case if India had not added the Siachen dispute to the Kashmir issue. The longest speech at the UN was also delivered on the Kashmir issue, an eight-hour marathon. It is also the most heavily militarised boundary in the world with a million troops. It also holds the record for the most military bases in the world. The Guinness Book also notes that the Kashmiri people also had begun an armed struggle for the right of self-determination and that the world community seemed to have gone to sleep over the matter.

That the only true solution of the Kashmir issue is to be found in the UN Security Council Resolutions on the subject is becoming obvious to the world community, but it is time that this realization was also brought home to New Delhi. Not only that, but the world community must also make it clear that there will be consequences for India to go on ignoring its will even after it had itself brought the issue before it, and to go on committing the sort of human rights abuses that the Guinness Book notes.

The Kashmir issue may not have set a record yet as the oldest dispute before the UN, but it will very soon. If the world community continues to look upon India as an emerging power and a potential market, and allows itself to be taken in by Indian propaganda about being the world’s largest democracy, it will continue to present a skewed view of the Kashmir problem, as in the Guinness Book, where the Indian record for obduracy has not been noted, even though that obduracy is at the root of the dispute. India must realise that the issue will be resolved by implementing the UN Resolutions, not pressurising Pakistan.

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