Equating Balochistan with Kashmir

Despite the hostility between the two neighbours, Pakistan and India, the news of a seminar titled India-Pakistan conference - a road map towards peace, is like a whiff of fresh air. Former Indian Prime Minister I K Gujral is likely to open the colloquium. What better way is there to iron out the wrinkles in Pak-India ties than a people-to-people contact in which intellectuals and erudite scholars of both erstwhile alienated neighbours will sit and discuss peace. However, amidst the promise of thaw in the deep chill, an apparent spanner has been thrown in the works; in the three-day event titled Issue of Autonomy: Kashmir and Balochistan in which peace activists from the two countries will discuss autonomy to Kashmir and Balochistan. The session will be addressed by human rights activist Asma Jahangir and Balochistan Senator Hasil Khan Bizenjo from Pakistan, and Kashmiri leaders Yasin Malik and Sajad Lone.

Key speakers from Pakistan include former ministers Sherry Rehman and Iqbal Haider, advocate Aitzaz Ahsan and controversial defence analyst Ayesha Siddiqa. From India, the conference will be addressed by Kuldip Nayar, former minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, former navy chief L Ramdas, Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti and Kamal Chenoy of the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Very slyly, Kashmir and Balochistan have been bracketed as if the two issues are at par. For the record, Kashmir is a disputed territory, an unfinished agenda of the partition of the subcontinent into Bharat and Pakistan. Indian forces illegally occupied the Valley of Kashmir in 1948. Both fledgling nations went to war and the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru approached the United Nations, which brokered peace and passed Resolutions 47 on April 21 and 51 on June 03, 1948, asking for a plebiscite for the people of Kashmir to decide whether they would accede to Pakistan or India. Unfortunately for the last 62 years India, in total disregard to the UN Resolutions, not only has failed to fulfil the demand of the plebiscite, but also has committed massive genocide and rape of Kashmiri Muslims.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/13-Jan-2010/Equating-Balochistan-with-Kashmir