India-China contention benefits Kashmiris, Tibetans

Since China has started issuing special visas to Kashmiris, India retaliated by not declaring Tibet as a part of China in the joint statement of the prime ministers of both the countries after their meet in New Delhi, Wednesday and Thursday. For the last 30 years as a prerequisite for dialogue with China, at every meet of both the countries India was reiterating its official position that Tibet was part of China. The long oppressed and suffocating Himalayan states, hemmed between the two powers, could see new light if the states and the concerned peoples concertedly come forward to intelligently negotiate the unfolding equation between the two powers, political analysts on South Asia said.

The status of the kingdom of Kashmir was undecided when Britain granted independence to India and Pakistan. But both the new countries militarily occupied it in 1947 and to this date refuse to conduct the plebiscite they promised to the UN. Instead, long oppressing the people of that nation, they have made the occupied territories as ‘integral’ parts of their countries.

The Lamaist states of Tibet and Ladak were militarily occupied and brutally subjugated by China in the late 1950s and early 1960s. India managed an anschluss of the kingdom of Sikkim in the 70s. Nepal and especially Bhutan are long under the shadow of India.

The boundary issue is a historical problem and that would take time to resolve, said the Chinese Primier, Wen Jiabao, addressing the Indian Council of World Affairs.

From India, Mr Wen will be going to Pakistan on Friday on a three-day visit.

China has recently increased its investments in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, says the Indian side.

While China maintains that the stapled visas it issues to people of Indian-occupied Kashmir is an “administrative” matter and it is a basis for India and China to “continue without constrains,” India says, the main constrain is the stapled visa, as it challenges India’s sovereignty and territoriality.

For many years now, India is discriminating Eezham Tamils in the issue of visa, even after they becoming citizens of countries in the West.

For instance, people of Eezham Tamil origin in a western country, even after becoming citizens of that country, were issued with visas that were valid to land only in Chennai. ‘Special’ time is always needed to process the visas of the people of Eezham Tamil origin. Any foreigner married to an Indian is eligible to get the PIO (People of Indian Origin) status. But by some special administrative protocols that are never revealed openly, Eezham Tamil spouses of Indians are never considered for the grant of this status.

Even though negative, such administrative ways may perhaps mean India’s indirect recognition of the separate national identity of Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka. But for the genocidal Sri Lankan state these are not matters challenging its ‘sovereignty and territoriality’.

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