Azad Kashmir claim on Gilgit Baltistan

Saiyan0321

Contributor
Moderator
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,209
Reactions
101 1,891
Nation of residence
Pakistan
Nation of origin
Pakistan
We hold trials under the legal system of Bangladesh when its set up. The crimes were perpetrated there....we hold every POW till then and get them processed when BD is good and ready for it...rather than as some bartering agent for our personal politics with Pakistan's cabal, that we squandered away for paper promises and platitudes anyway in simla regardless...which Pakistan was quick to break at earliest opportunity.
POWs nilgiri, you cant do that. A person that is legally a POW cannot be prosecuted like that. You need to call an international tribunal for him to be prosecuted for war crimes. Legal system of the capturing country is no authority to do that and doing so and punishing so is actually breaking the laws of IHL and Geneva convention laws of 1929. So this plan not being implemented was actually India adhering to international law and agreements.
I would ask you to take up the matter with Panzerkiel. He has given quite a different appraisal of the situation if India decided to push after defeating 1 army given concept of getting an army split into 2 to defeat 1 at a time. He spoke to me and Joe on it couple of times even, what he would have done if he was in India's shoes....purely matter of fact in the way he likes to do...even telling us how long it would have taken India to move its eastern theatre forces to be deployed in the west to bring it to bear there.

hmmm i havent seen those posts. I blame @Joe Shearer on this. He kept asking him to work with him on 1971 but joe was missing in action.
No doubt it would be costly affair still, but like I said in hindsight, it was one needed to be grimly done right then and there....be it 1, 2 weeks or a month even....or restart the conflict after a ceasefire at our discretion.
Wars are seldom predictable affairs. The conflict may not have turned up as you predict.
 

Nilgiri

Experienced member
Moderator
Aviation Specialist
Messages
9,800
Reactions
120 19,878
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
India
anyway with 7pm i am going to prepare for the night and simply state, i truly wonder if this arrangement would have worked at all in the future even if mujib had formed government in East Pakistan. Before 18th amendment people had problems from being ruled from a city 300km away from them much less a city 2000+km away

Well I feel it would have been better than the alternative. At least give the guy a chance.

If it fails, devolve more powers into each wing over time.

There was so much that could have been done peacefully and logically.
 

Saiyan0321

Contributor
Moderator
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,209
Reactions
101 1,891
Nation of residence
Pakistan
Nation of origin
Pakistan
It would have just been better for all involved if Pakistan power-wielders (by design or chance) had a different attitude to its citizens...and stayed united and built up a better peaceful progressive relationship with India over time.
I dont think so. I just dont see it happening. Dhaka is 2000 KM away. We have south Punjab whining about Lahore. Sorry but there was every chance the country was eventually going to split. Werent there CIA releases that Yahya was going to let them be separate later on.
Without operation searchlight and the following mass scale degenerate actions on a civilian population....of course there would have been no war....and it wouldn't have gone down like how it did at all.

War with India? perhaps but civil war in Bangladesh was inevitable. Before operation searchlight there were some extremely degenerate actions taken by the nationalists againt the non-bengalis and frankly when i read reports and news from them the military justified its own heavy handedness as a form of revenge and i have spoken to those that have served there, my neighbor served then and he had a very interesting talk with a lawyer who had read up on the subject. There was alot of anger amongst the soldiery, the Razakar groups and alot of them. I am not justifying anything. I am saying Civil war has started long before India had even dreamt of entering
 

Nilgiri

Experienced member
Moderator
Aviation Specialist
Messages
9,800
Reactions
120 19,878
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
India
POWs nilgiri, you cant do that. A person that is legally a POW cannot be prosecuted like that. You need to call an international tribunal for him to be prosecuted for war crimes. Legal system of the capturing country is no authority to do that and doing so and punishing so is actually breaking the laws of IHL and Geneva convention laws of 1929. So this plan not being implemented was actually India adhering to international law and agreements.

Bangladesh could convene one as required....on their terms and diplomatic backing given by India and USSR. Get some NAM countries on board too.

Wars are seldom predictable affairs. The conflict may not have turned up as you predict.

Well that was the best time to go for it (again panzerkiel is good to approach on his views on it). This is all mostly a futile conversation now anyway, we are in the downstream reality solidly. This is not even in my top 50 "what ifs" that I have considered at length to be perfectly frank about it.
 

Saiyan0321

Contributor
Moderator
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,209
Reactions
101 1,891
Nation of residence
Pakistan
Nation of origin
Pakistan
Well I feel it would have been better than the alternative. At least give the guy a chance.

If it fails, devolve more powers into each wing over time.

There was so much that could have been done peacefully and logically.
The alternative was what happened. Anything was better than that. Frankly this entire battle would have started in the 60s. Think of it this way the legal argument was the nature of the constitution since he argued that he held the majority and bhutto argued that he held the most provinces. The argument was constitutional in nature but we didnt have any working constitutionalism till 1970. the 1956 constitution was abrogated in 1958 and there was no legal argument to be had since Ayub, a dictator came to power. The moment a constitutional setup was being discussed, the problem and it arose at such a level that it would have risen irrespectively. largest population but one province all 2000+ away vs Lesser population but more provinces.

It was botched and the end result was either have a very weak federation infact a little more than arab league not even EU. EU has its own currency, East wanted their own.
 

Saiyan0321

Contributor
Moderator
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,209
Reactions
101 1,891
Nation of residence
Pakistan
Nation of origin
Pakistan
Well that was the best time to go for it (again panzerkiel is good to approach on his views on it). This is all mostly a futile conversation now anyway, we are in the downstream reality solidly. This is not even in my top 50 "what ifs" that I have considered at length to be perfectly frank about it.
Well if you ask me if it was the most desirable of time to go for it then i would agree. Most certainly. Yeah i agree. The past is the past. For me East Pakistan is a chapter that is closed.
So coming to the topic. Azad Kashmir has no claim on GB, We are holding elections and by God if PPP wins, i am gonna be pissed
Bangladesh could convene one as required....on their terms and diplomatic backing given by India and USSR. Get some NAM countries on board too.
now that is breaking law there :p
 

Nilgiri

Experienced member
Moderator
Aviation Specialist
Messages
9,800
Reactions
120 19,878
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
India
I dont think so. I just dont see it happening. Dhaka is 2000 KM away. We have south Punjab whining about Lahore. Sorry but there was every chance the country was eventually going to split. Werent there CIA releases that Yahya was going to let them be separate later on.

You are not coming at this from an angle that would have been conducive from say original initiation of Pakistan. Where there is a will there is a way...given the infinite potential and possibility of mankind.

Thing is Pakistan's powerful had already cast their lot on what they saw for their larger country....and learned the hard way it wasn't.

If all this was inevitable, then why chide @VCheng when he feels certain things now are inevitable too?

In the end hope springs eternal in every case (and its matter of major mistakes/flaws done by action of a few largely specific people in positions to do so).....or everything is essentially brought down to excuses in the rearview mirror and there is hope and potential only moving forward?

That is not correct, there was more than fair share of intelligent rational people in both wings of Pakistan back then...the question is why weren't more of them brought together? Think of what powers could have been devolved as required at local level and what was to be left to federal level....the same can be brought to larger argument for united India too. Why a particular concrete mold that you have to squish things into however they fit and regardless of what spills over now or later?


War with India? perhaps but civil war in Bangladesh was inevitable. Before operation searchlight there were some extremely degenerate actions taken by the nationalists againt the non-bengalis and frankly when i read reports and news from them the military justified its own heavy handedness as a form of revenge and i have spoken to those that have served there, my neighbor served then and he had a very interesting talk with a lawyer who had read up on the subject. There was alot of anger amongst the soldiery, the Razakar groups and alot of them. I am not justifying anything. I am saying Civil war has started long before India had even dreamt of entering

I will let @Joe Shearer answer if he wants. This is just going to get into deja vu for me again.

You can always dig back in butterfly effect to see what were the appropriate better ways to do things that would not have led to some snapshot.

There are proper ways to set up a country and run it when it's come out of already bloody inception. I do not think anything that happened (or even that bloody inception) was inevitable, it just matter of perspective how far back you want to go for the seeds of every conflict and resolution recourse.
 

Nilgiri

Experienced member
Moderator
Aviation Specialist
Messages
9,800
Reactions
120 19,878
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
India
So coming to the topic. Azad Kashmir has no claim on GB, We are holding elections and by God if PPP wins, i am gonna be pissed

OK lets see heh.

It was fun debating you as always...I have to take off now.

I feel joe needs to add some stuff to the convo as he sees fit too in the interim.
 

Kaptaan

Experienced member
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,734
Reactions
4,073
Nation of residence
United Kingdom
Nation of origin
Pakistan
Bangladeshis against you is on your cabal. Yahya, Bhutto and the rest.
They turned on Pakistan from day one. The idea that in a two wing country the capital would be in Wst Pakistan with 45% of the population and not the majority Bangla wing began the rolling of the ball. In addition imposing minoriy Urdu over the Banglas was second factor. Rest of the factors are irrelevant. You through something in the air it WILL come down because it goes against natural state. I already said to you find me a two wing country with the demographic profile Pak had and then axpect that formula to work. If that was the case why do we have USA, Canada, Ireland separate from UK? Most were Anglo Christrians from the British isles. But geography predicated USA, Canada, Australia, New Zraland despite they being children of the same father. Unlike us and Banglas who only shared religion. Turkey by the way is about the same distance from Pakistan as Bangla.
 

Kaptaan

Experienced member
Think Tank Analyst
Messages
1,734
Reactions
4,073
Nation of residence
United Kingdom
Nation of origin
Pakistan
Banglas was born in 1947 [same year as India and Pakistan] just that it took 23 years to gestate. Below is where the snow ball began to roll and got bigger by turn of every year.

When the Dominion of Pakistan was formed by the partition of India in 1947, it was composed of various ethnic and linguistic groups, with the geographically non-contiguous East Bengal province having a mainly Bengali population. In 1948, the Government of the Dominion of Pakistan ordained Urdu as the sole national language, sparking extensive protests among the Bengali-speaking majority of East Bengal. Facing rising sectarian tensions and mass discontent with the new law, the government outlawed public meetings and rallies. The students of the University of Dhaka and other political activists defied the law and organised a protest on 21 February 1952. The movement reached its climax when police killed student demonstrators on that day. The deaths provoked widespread civil unrest. After years of conflict, the central government relented and granted official status to the Bengali language in 1956.

Do you see any horrid Pakistani generals in this? The protests began in front of Jinnah in 1948.
 

Saithan

Experienced member
Denmark Correspondent
Messages
8,714
Reactions
37 19,918
Nation of residence
Denmark
Nation of origin
Turkey
Too much off topic ?

I know there is a lot to be said about west and east pak, but perhaps another thread would be better ?

Also todays Pak needs to do some thorough cleaning too, on a serious bloody level.
 

Nilgiri

Experienced member
Moderator
Aviation Specialist
Messages
9,800
Reactions
120 19,878
Nation of residence
Canada
Nation of origin
India
Too much off topic ?

I know there is a lot to be said about west and east pak, but perhaps another thread would be better ?

Also todays Pak needs to do some thorough cleaning too, on a serious bloody level.

Yeah I might move some of them later to the IND - PAK debate thread...given straying of topic ...., I was bringing up a point on narratives entrenched (so it just depends on your narrative in the end) and fact India has recognised "rebel" govts in conflict with their larger govts before. This stuff all plays role now in how we perceive things at this moment, it rests heavily, its not easy to just compartmentalise and delineate clearly....lot of things have merged and subsumed.

Sheikh Abdullah of the NC that Joe mentions earlier for example made bunch of moves specifically with I.G govt after 1971 war. You can look up Indira-Sheikh accord and article 370 relation to it (it was finally operationalised for NC and with time other parties to wield political power as a credible rep of the kashmiri people....in exchange for dropping demand for plebiscite)

This was part of key reason it was really stupid to repeal it now....it was working just fine as is with weight of precedence.

In effect India did nothing for any real gain (except political hoo-hah for lot of non-kashmiri vote bases in rest of India) but upset lot of Kashmiris that had bought into a system in place already...and we had to really clamp down on the state for their own security blah on top when there was enough existing recourse for security matters to be handled (in fact they needed to be reformed).

It is just ironic I suppose that even back then in 70s, there was jammu jan sangh types protesting for its repeal.

Our whole region is identity politics to the absolute near extreme....especially where one borders another (relative to their hearths).

In many ways we are all a special people to endure this and survive this like we have (we do have the civilisational inertia everywhere to do so I suspect), I venture most if not all... other regions of the world would not have endured like this with same conditions.
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
It is that position that we took in the UN that while the construct called Princely state of Kashmir was legal, the government in power had lost its mandate when the people of Kashmir revolted.

There remains, of course, that the people of Kashmir did not revolt; the people of Sudanauti and the people of Gilgit did. No one else. No one in Jammu, no one in Baltistan, and no one in Ladakh.

Minor matter of semantics, of course.
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
When you make a claim, you need to make a claim and it was far more beneficial for the government at that time to declare the Azad government as the rightful government of all the people of the princely state of Kashmir then just kashmir because by doing only that, we would truly make it a rebel government then a revolutionary government for the entire state which would, as i mentioned before, implode the state itself. We must not look from our own hindsight but from the eyes of those in 1947 and at that time, it seemed the most legal of decision which was strengthened by the resolutions passed in 1950s where the Azad forces and the Azad government was given equal legitimacy to the state forces, something India did not like.
That is very fine, but amounts to saying that we are doing so and so in 2020 because in 1947, we thought of 2020, and acted such and such.
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
That resolution is made of gold for us because there in 1957 we got them recognized not as a rebel government or a government of a small sliver but as an opposing government to the state forces.

Umm, just curiosity: isn't that more or less self-certification as being a legal and valid constitutional entity? Recognition by the Government of Pakistan, a rather deeply interested party, however deep and sincere, really doesn't quite cut it, does it?
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
If these were independent states on par with India or Pakistan then who are Pakistan or India to decide their integrity or declare them artificial when they are themselves constructs formed by the conquests and working of the British.
These were independent states, on the face of it; that wholly ignores the inconvenient fact that this independence did not come about in a vacuum. The princes had been involved in discussions on the devolution of power, and had voluntarily come together under the leadership of the Aga Khan, that famous prince without a state, and had already agreed to merge with the Dominion of India.

If you look up the proceedings of the Round Table Conferences, you will discover that even the much bandied about Instrument of Accession was a summary sheet of paper that was taken for granted, because at the date of the discussions, it was well understood that ALL the states would merge with the Dominion of India; there was then, in the 30s of that century, no thought of the possibility of another Dominion.

In the event, in 1947, because of Mountbatten's tearing hurry to wrap up proceedings and get back to climbing back to his father's job as First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy, various shortcuts were taken. The princes were individually counselled by Mountbatten, following the advice of his sambandhi, George VI, that no independence would be countenanced by any of the supposedly independent states, that Great Britain would neither recognise any further, third Dominion, nor encourage the rest of the world to give such an entity sustenance. Furthermore, it was neither India nor Pakistan that decided their integrity, but the British; first, in terms of the India Independence Act, second, in terms of the clear guidance given by Mountbatten over and above the provisions of the Act.

Thirdly, the Crown Colony of India, that was formed into the Dominion of India, was by no means a construct of the British. This is a very common Pakistanophile misunderstanding, sometimes a forced and somewhat disingenuous misunderstanding.

Let me explain.

"Following the 1857 Rebellion, the East India Company's rule in India came to an end. Queen Victoria's Proclamation of 1 November 1858 declared that thereafter India would be governed by and in the name of the British Monarch through a Secretary of State." The British superseded the East India Company. What was the locus standi of that commercial entity, a joint-stock company that was not comprehensible in the legal framework of the Mughal Empire? Simply that of an agent of the Mughal Emperor.

Simultaneously, the Mughal Emperor was deposed.

Both the supersession of the agent and the dethronement of the principal are not new creations by any means; they are merely an annexation of the positions that already existed.

On the contrary, it was the Dominion of Pakistan that was an artificial construct. Do, please, go through the very clear language of the India Independence Act. It gives Dominion status of India, being the former British Crown Colony, less those portions to be separated and known as Pakistan.

So the constitutional successor of the forcible successor to the Mughals was by no stretch an artificial construct, it was an extension of what had prevailed from the 10th century onwards. The Indian states themselves, incidentally, were specifically artificial constructs, being constitutionally and judicially extensions of the East India Company through a series of treaties that formed the Subsidiary Alliances; every single one of the 536 principalities that co-existed with British India, the Crown Colony, fell into this category, except for the Khanate of Kalat.

While a goldfish-bowl view of the situation may seem to Pakistani eyes to be a case of two artificial constructs of the British seeking to determine the status of other artificial constructs, as you have proposed, I hope I have been able to explain that the matter was far more advantageous to India than is commonly understood, or if understood, acknowledged in public.
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
'Why not?' is what Azad kashmir says and it uses the argument that they never declared the rule of the dogra but as the ruler that had lost the mandate of the people thus the legitimate right to rule the region and the Azad government being the sole representative of the people was the inheritor of this right. They claim legitimacy as the government that was not meant to divide kashmir to pieces but its rightful ruler and thats where our headache came and i have explained the solution we came to to answer the headache.

That is precisely the point. It was not possible to argue so speciously that the Azad Kashmir government was the sole representative of the people.

The headache is that of Pakistan. If a state seeks to claim at one and the same time legitimacy in terms of constitutional provisions made by a superordinate constitutional entity, and the right to flout those constitutional arrangements and substitute the right of conquest in their place, there is bound to be a headache!

Consider, for a moment, if India had decided to extend to parts other than Hyderabad (somewhat later) and Junagadh the exercise of brute force. Just a thought; just to point out that one side cannot in perpetuity seek both the cover of a constitutional arrangement, and wherever inconvenient, throw off that cover and plead (effectively) the Doctrine of Necessity.
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
Do you find this position to be be weak and devoid of logic? Perhaps but that is where enter the world of Dejure, Defacto and revolutionary constitutionalism and constitutional revolution. Legal tenants that we use to explain the happenings of these events. This was not something unique. It had happened before and happened afterwards and the legal arguments that were used to justify the claim of Azad KAshmir found precedents before and precedents afterwards.
Oh, no argument with the essence of those doctrines. However, if the Soviet Government had claimed jurisdiction over Poland and Finland in 1919, that would have rung hollow; that is also precisely the reason why the PRC claims to Tibet/Xijang and East Turkestan/Xinjiang ring hollow, and why also their claim to Hong Kong was legitimised by constitutionally proper and comprehensive legal agreements, and their claims to Taiwan, again, ring hollow.

If the Government of Azad Kashmir had declared themselves sovereign in their portion of West Jammu or Sudanauti, it would have been objected to very strongly by the Government of India and by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, that never stopped functioning in Jammu, in East Jammu, in the areas of Poonch, and Kargil, a part of the older realm of Baltistan, and Leh and its territory of Ladakh, but that objection would have been patently untenable in de facto terms.

As it declared itself sovereign over the whole territory, almost 60% of which remained outside their control, their position was clearly a bargain position.

The bottom line is: could the Azad Kashmir legally lay claim to being the successor government to the Maharaja, when an uninterrupted rule of law prevailed in Srinagar and many parts of the princely state out of the control of the Azad Kashmir government?
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
If the part claimed itself as representative of the part alone then yes but Azad government always claimed itself as the representative of the entire princely state. They decided it by declaring themselves as a separate government and launched a military campaign for such. The question is did they ever declare themselves solely for Azad kashmir or jammu alone or did they declare themselves as all of Princely state. The same way the national conference was declared as the representative of the entire people when it had no presence outside its sphere of influence. Where was NC in modern day Azad Kashmir or in GB? Nowhere. When they declared that they were bringing forth a revolution, they declared themselves and always have as not rebels but ones who were bringing revolution to the entire state of Kashmir. Their claim may clash with the locals claims of fighting their own independence but their claim was made and Pakistan recognized that claim. You see this all the time in International nations and revolutionary constitutionalism. The subject is controversial itself.
I see this as two equal parties fighting on the same grounds for recognition, with the added refinements that one party was a break-away faction of the other, and that the other party had the support of the still-existent and still-ruling former constitutional authority. Let us not forget that the Muslim Conference was nothing but a splinter of the National Conference; it renamed itself in opposition to the Sheikh's acknowledgement of secularism and rejection of parochial affiliations. Let us also not forget that while the Azad Kashmir Government fought tenaciously and successfully for its sliver of territory, it never ever had effective control over the rest.
 

Joe Shearer

Contributor
Moderator
Professional
Advisor
Messages
1,111
Reactions
21 1,942
Nation of residence
India
Nation of origin
India
This is where defacto dejure recognition comes in. We provided recognition to the Azad government, you provided recognition to the maharaja.
The difference being that the Azad Kashmir Government had claims to a revolutionary status, whereas the Maharaja was recognised by the constitutional authority that had itself created the Dominion of Pakistan. So while the Azad Kashmir Government making a claim is understandable, the Government of Pakistan legitimising such a claim effectively undermines, not the position of the Azad Kashmir Government, but the position of the Dominion of Pakistan.
 

Follow us on social media

Latest posts

Top Bottom