PDP gives away J&K parts to China in slide show

SRINAGAR: In an act that might stir a political storm in New Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir's main opposition party, People's Democratic Party ( PDP) led by Mehbooba Mufti, has ceded both Aksai Chin and the Karakoram region to China on a map shown in its 'vision on Kashmir' power-point presentation.

Going well beyond it's argument for self-rule in the state, the PDP leadership made a power-point presentation of its vision on Kashmir in which PDP has accepted China's sovereignty over Aksai Chin and the Karakoram region. This contradicts the official Indian stand that states all these areas are Indian territory. Besides, PDP has tacitly acknowledged China's stakes and role in Kashmir in its vision document.

The PDP wants Srinagar to be connected to Yarkand in China, and beyond that to the Karakoram highway, constructed by China after Pakistan ceded it some 4,000 sq km of Kashmir in 1963. It's deemed illegal by India. This is the first time a mainstream political party has acknowledged Chinese role or presence in Kashmir.

China's moves in Kashmir have picked up momentum in the past few years. While the stapled Visa issue has been widely reported, the strategic community in India is more alarmed by China's presence in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, where China is building the 7,000 mw Bunji Hydroelectric Project. Also on the anvil is a proposed railway line along the six-lane Karakoram highway. Few doubt the ability of the Chinese to accomplish this after its staggering achievement of a railway line to Lhasa.

The Northern Areas has now been incorporated in Pakistan and renamed Gilgit-Baltistan. In 2010, Pakistan, after 63 years of direct rule, gave the province an elected assembly. One of the first comments of the elected chief minister, Mehndi Shah, was, "Gilgit was never a part of Kashmir."

This Pakistan government move is consistent with the line that the 72,000 sq km that form this province were never a part of the Hari Singh's state of Jammu & Kashmir, citing the 1935 treaty of the Maharaja leasing the territory to British India for 60 years. The fact that Mountbatten terminated this treaty in July 1947 and returned Gilgit to Hari Singh is ignored. As is the fact that Article 6 of the Sino-Pakistan treaty giving the Karakoram region to China clearly states that the treaty will be "renegotiated pending the settlement of the Kashmir Dispute."