Face it: PoK, not J&K, is the core dispute between India and Pakistan

How deeply Pakistan cares for Kashmiris was on stark display last week. Television footage from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) bared the tyranny Islamabad inflicts on Kashmiris who have the misfortune to live in PoK.

For the first time, India has changed the grammar of its dispute with Pakistan over Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The core issue is PoK, not J&K. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj made the point clinically at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on October 1. Responding to Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif's four-point formula for normalising relations, Swaraj placed PoK at the heart of the dispute.

"Vacate PoK" was her blunt message. She added: "None of us can accept that terrorism is a legitimate instrument of statecraft. We all know that these attacks are meant to destabilise India and legitimise Pakistan's illegal occupation of parts of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir."

Pakistan has successfully "gamed" world opinion for decades that it is the victim of both terrorism and Indian perfidy in Jammu and Kashmir. Let's dismantle the lies.

Lie 1: "United Nations resolutions require India to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir."

Fact: The relevant UN resolution dated August 13, 1948, requires Pakistan to vacate PoK before a plebiscite is even considered. Since this is a long-running lie used frequently by both Pakistani leaders and analysts on Indian television debates, it's important to reproduce the relevant UN resolution in full:

PART I: Ceasefire order

A. The governments of India and Pakistan agree that their respective high commands will issue separately and simultaneously a ceasefire order to apply to all forces under their control and in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as of the earliest practicable date or dates to be mutually agreed upon within four days after these proposals have been accepted by both governments.

B. The high commands of the Indian and Pakistani forces agree to refrain from taking any measures that might augment the military potential of the forces under their control in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. (For the purpose of these proposals forces under their control shall be considered to include all forces, organised and unorganised, fighting or participating in hostilities on their respective sides.)

C. The commanders-in-chief of the forces of India and Pakistan shall promptly confer regarding any necessary local changes in present dispositions which may facilitate the ceasefire.

D. In its discretion and as the commission may find practicable, the commission will appoint military observers who, under the authority of the commission and with the cooperation of both commands, will supervise the observance of the ceasefire order.

E. The government of India and the government of Pakistan agree to appeal to their respective peoples to assist in creating and maintaining an atmosphere favourable to the promotion of further negotiations.

PART II: Truce agreement

Simultaneously with the acceptance of the proposal for the immediate cessation of hostilities as outlined in Part I, both the governments accept the following principles as a basis for the formulation of a truce agreement, the details of which shall be worked out in discussion between their representatives and the commission.

A.

1. As the presence of troops of Pakistan in the territory of the state of Jammu and Kashmir constitutes a material change in the situation since it was represented by the government of Pakistan before the Security Council, the government of Pakistan agrees to withdraw its troops from that state.

2. The government of Pakistan will use its best endeavour to secure the withdrawal from the state of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the state for the purpose of fighting.

3. Pending a final solution, the territory evacuated by the Pakistani troops will be administered by the local authorities under the surveillance of the commission.

B.

1. When the commission shall have notified the government of India that the tribesmen and Pakistani nationals referred to in Part II, A, 2, hereof have withdrawn, thereby terminating the situation which was represented by the government of India to the Security Council as having occasioned the presence of Indian forces in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and further, that the Pakistani forces are being withdrawn from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the government of India agrees to begin to withdraw the bulk of its forces from that state in stages to be agreed upon with the commission.

2. Pending the acceptance of the conditions for a final settlement of the situation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government will maintain within the lines existing at the moment of the ceasefire the minimum strength of its forces which in agreement with the commission are considered necessary to assist local authorities in the observance of law and order. The commission will have observers stationed where it deems necessary.

3. The government of India will undertake to ensure that the government of the state of Jammu and Kashmir will take all measures within its powers to make it publicly known that peace, law and order will be safeguarded and that all human political rights will be granted.

4. Upon signature, the full text of the truce agreement or a communique containing the principles thereof as agreed upon between the two governments and the commission, will be made public.

PART III

The government of India and the government of Pakistan reaffirm their wish that the future status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people and to that end, upon acceptance of the truce agreement, both governments agree to enter into consultations with the commission to determine fair and equitable conditions whereby such free expression will be assured.

Effete Indian diplomacy

Since Pakistan has not withdrawn its troops from PoK as Part II of the UN resolution reproduced above requires it to do, as a precondition, the remaining steps in the resolution are rendered invalid. The question of a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir, therefore, does not even arise.

Indian diplomacy over the decades has been effete. It has not challenged Pakistan's untruths either internationally or at home. The result: Pakistan has been allowed to repeat its plebiscite bluster till it has acquired a sheen of truth. That was finally stripped away last week at the UNGA. Swaraj rightly called PoK the core dispute between India and Pakistan. This will now - to Islamabad's discomfiture - be the template for future talks.

Lie 2: "Pakistan is the victim of terrorism."

Fact: It is not. Pakistan is the victim of home-bred terrorists like the Tehreek-e-Taliban, many of whom have turned on their former trainers - the Pakistani army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan is not the victim of terror. It is the perpetrator of terror. The fact that terrorism has now struck it at home is collateral damage.

Lie 3: "Demilitarising Jammu and Kashmir, says Nawaz Sharif, will lead to peace."

Fact: "Demilitarising" is a code for dismantling Indian border checks to give free entry to Pakistani terrorists. This will lead not to peace but to a creeping, back-door entry for Pakistan to achieve what it hasn't been able to after four wars and 68 years - occupy the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. The recent book by Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri on how back channel talks had almost led to India agreeing to making borders in Jammu and Kashmir "irrelevant" is part of this mythology.

Lie 4: "The two countries' armies should mutually withdraw from Siachen."

Fact: Since only the Indian Army holds Siachen, Sharif's talk of "mutual withdrawal" is a bad fib even by Pakistani standards. It is again a code for occupying a strategic military post without firing a bullet. What the Pakistani army couldn't achieve in the Kargil conflict it almost manoeuvred the Manmohan Singh government into doing - giving up control of Siachen. Fortunately, the then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf was ousted before that could happen.

Swaraj's speech at the UNGA dealt with most of these points. The challenge now is to not allow sections of the ossified external affairs ministry bureaucracy and its back channel ecosystem to let Pakistan off the hook by diluting India's robust new position on Jammu and Kasmir.

The atrocities in PoK have turned the focus on how brutally Islamabad has governed the part of Jammu and Kashmir it has illegally occupied since 1948. It is appalling, too, how pusillanimous Western media and sections of the Indian media have been in exposing the brutalities in PoK over the years. Till the recent images were telecast, mainstream Indian and Western media as well as human rights organisations had employed only one narrative in Jammu and Kashmir: human rights "violations" by the Indian army. PoK was a blind spot. If deliberate, that smacks of dishonesty. If inadvertent, it reflects incompetence. (Not having access to PoK is not an excuse. Lack of access should itself have triggered a journalistic exposé on PoK.)

The Pakistan-China economic corridor passing through Gilgit-Baltistan too is now under attack by terrorist groups ironically fathered by the ISI. The recent spate of explosions in China and the unrest in Gilgit-Baltistan as well as in Muslim-dense Xinjiang province could make Beijing rethink its infrastructure plans in PoK.

The focus on PoK has transformed the India-Pakistan narrative on Jammu and Kashmir. The Modi government's Pakistan policy must now be clear and consistent. Talks, yes. Terrorism, no. If you want the former, end the latter. No ifs, not buts, no caveats, no backtracking.