Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal
Map of Jammu and Kashmir seems to be the latest tickler between India and China, after the visa row. India has taken exception to use of Indian maps in China without the territory of J&K. If reports are to be believed then China has chosen to show J&K as a separate country. China may not be the only exception. Around the globe, one finds the state mapped differently with different contours and different territorial boundaries. A USA-based Pakistani scholar I met in Karachi during the World Social Forum was quite intrigued after looking at the map of Kashmir displayed by an Indian participant while delivering a lecture. "I have never seen Jammu and Kashmir like that," he remarked. The utterances were not a reflection of a certain ideology, they were simply a candid confession of ignorance about cartography of J&K other than those by America and Pakistan. The problem of Kashmir does not get exacerbated by wide usage of maps that are in absolute contrast and contradiction to each other. Rather, the problem exists because different people around the globe see the map of J&K differently, as political cartographers would argue that mapping is not just about territorial geography, it is also about politics.
The basic problem of the borders of J&K lies in how various parties involved see the map of this troubled and disputed state. There are competing claims of how India positions J&K, how Pakistan sees it, how China sees it and how the international community does. India's official position is that J&K is an integral part of India, confirmed and ratified by the Instrument of Accession and later the Article 370 that is a constitutional link between India and this state. It maintains claims over the Indian administered part of the state as well as the parts of the state under Pakistan's occupation since 1947-48. Pakistan divided its occupied territories and carved out a separate state called Northern Areas and reserved a chunk to the far north-east of the state, ceding it to China. Officially, it maintains that the entire territory of J&K is disputed, though this is marked by dichotomy since it does not spell the fate of the Northern Areas which have been linked to the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan administratively or the uninhabited area under Chinese control. The Chinese position on Kashmir is much in line with the Pakistani position; though it is more flexible on the Pakistani administered territories, it maintains the part of Kashmir under its occupation is legal and final. The international community sees entire Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory with divisions marked by Line of Control between Indian and Pakistani administered territories and Actual Line of Control between Indian and Chinese control. The borders to the south of the state which merge with the landscape of Pakistan's mainland, despite being recognized as International Border, just before the Line of Control starts are not without dispute either. While India calls this an International Border, Pakistan maintains this as a working boundary, owing to its stated official claim over entire territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Many Indian leaders would like to refer to J&K as the crown of India, though it may be amusing for none that the crown appears in a different shape and size for everybody.
It is easy to distort maps as per the political requirements of anybody. Amusingly, the only tourist map on J&K available shows the entire territory of J&K as it stood on 15th August 1947 with the area that is now called Northern Areas and Pakistan Administered Kashmir as well as the Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin area as one entity, without even demarcating these areas with a Line of Control, and deeming them as 'disputed' to suit the political stand of the country.
Beyond the lines drawn on pieces of paper to map the territory of J&K as per the political ideologies of various powers in play, the way the territories are mapped also impact the lives of the people living on the fringes - the border areas. It is interesting to find in Poonch borders, villages of same name across the deadly Line of Control, revealing how brutally the political cartographers have sliced everything - homes, villages and mountains. It is even more ironic to find villagers talk about war times when villages have been occupied and unoccupied by the other side for intermittent periods. Turtuk in Ladakh area best exemplifies the changing maps and contours of the state. Turtuk, an area close to the base for Siachen glacier, which too has not been spared of the ordeal of conflicting maps, continued to be a part of Northern Areas under Pakistan's control till it was ceded by the Indian army alongwith its people in 1971. Ever since, it continues to be on the Indian side of the Line of Control. The fate of people in such areas is a revealing fact about how people have no control over how they are mapped, included and excluded, even as big powers continue to play with pieces of papers, marking their territories in the way the latter deem fit.
[Kashmir Times]
Posted on 25 Oct 2009 by
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