Pok and Cok

What is the story behind Pakistan occupied Kashmir?

Interesting facts on the history of PoK
By India Today Web Desk: Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) is that part of the Jammu and Kash
mir (India) which was invaded by Pakistan in 1947. The region is referred by the United Nations and othe
r international organizations, as 'Pakistani-controlled Kashmir' (or Pakistan Administered Kashmir) and it 
was re-named as 'Pakistan occupied Jammu-Kashmir' by the Modi government.

Pakistan occupied Kashmir is divided into two parts:

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)

Gilgit-Baltistan (referred to as the 'Northern Areas' till August 2009)

Azad Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan is also called Azad Kashmir and is attached to the western part of I
ndian Kashmir.

Baltistan was the area of west Ladakh province which was occupied by Pakistan in 1947.

instrument of Accession
1. During partition, Jammu and Kashmir was given the option to join either India or Pakistan but Mahar
aja Hari Singh, the ruler of that time, decided to keep it as an independent state.

2. In 1947, Pakistan's Pashtoon tribals attacked Jammu and Kashmir. To tackle this situation, Maharaja 
Hari Singh sought military help from the then Indian Governor-General Mountbatten.

3. Mountbatten replied saying, "It is my government's wish that as soon as law and order have been res
tored in Jammu and Kashmir and her soil cleared of the invader, the question of the State's accession sh
ould be settled by a reference to the people."

Here’s my thread on today’s significance in Indian History 26th Oct 1947: Maharaja Hari Singh signs on a
ccession of Jammu & Kashmir to India pic.twitter.com/2jAKbz5Mq2 Manjinder S Sirsa (@mssirsa) Octo
ber 26, 2017

4. Following Mountbatten's advice, the Indian government attempted a plebiscite, or referendum, for t
he Kashmiri people to decide if they wanted to stay a part of India, Pakistan, or remain an independent s
tate.

5. The plebiscite could not take place as the Pakistani government and a part of Kashmiri residents ques
tioned the legality of India's accession to Kashmir, which up till now remains a point of debate.

6. Following this, Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession at Amar Palace in Jammu on 
October 26, which India's last Governor-General Lord Mountbatten accepted on October 27.

7. This remark is said to have sowed the seed of the Kashmir dispute.
Why is PoK important?
Because of its location, PoK is of immense strategic importance. It shares borders with several countries 
- the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province provinces (now called Khyber-Pakhthunkhwa) in Pakistan 
to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan in the north-west, Xinjiang province of the People’s Re
public of China to the north and India’s Jammu and Kashmir to the east.

Situation of PoK since 1947

After accession, the Indian part of J&K followed the democratic path as per Article 370 of the Ind
ian constitution while the area under Pakistani occupation was bifurcated into two- 'Azad Jammu 
and Kashmir' (AJK) and the 'Northern Areas,' which consisted of Gilgit-Baltistan.
AJK is governed under the Azad Kashmir Interim Constitution Act passed in 1974. Even though 
AJK has a president, prime minister, and a council, the governing structure is powerless and de
pendent on the Pakistani establishment for the smallest issues.
he leaders of AJK surrendered the Northern Areas to Pakistan under the Karachi Agreement of 
1949.
The Karachi Agreement, which governs the rule of Pakistan over Gilgit-Baltistan, was signed bet
ween the president of Azad Kashmir, the Muslim Conference and a minister without portfolio fro
m Pakistan, Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani.

9 facts on the history of PoK:

. Jammu and Kashmir remained under the rule of Maharaja Hari Singh and never directly came 
under the British rule during their colonisation of the Indian subcontinent.

2. Though India celebrated its independence on August 15, 1947, Maharajah Hari Singh agreed 
to accede to the Indian Union only on October 26, 1947.

3. Accession Day is a holiday celebrated in Jammu and Kashmir, commemorating October 26, 
1947, when Maharaja Hari Singh signed of the Instrument of Accession at Amar Palace in Jam
mu, to India. The agreement made the former independent princely state of 
J&K join the Union of India.
4. The exact date of accession has also been debated on. While Indian historian Prem Shankar 
Jha said that the accession document was signed on October 25, British researcher Andrew Wh
itehead pointed out that it happened a day later.

5. Kashmiri separatists observe Accession Day as Black Day.
6. Early in the morning on October 27, the Indian Army's first Sikh battalion was airdropped in S
rinagar where they resisted the Pathan invasion and officially completed Kashmir's accession to 
India.

7. Azad Kashmir claims to have a self-governing legislative assembly though it is a known fact t
hat it is under the control of Pakistan. The present President of the state is Sardar Masood Khan 
and Raja Muhammad Farooq Haider Khan is its current Prime Minister.
8. Pak Occupied Kashmir (POK) also has its own Supreme Court and High Court.
9. A part of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir's Hunza-Gilgit, the Shaksgam Valley, region of Raksam 
and Baltistan was handed over to China by Pakistan in 1963. This area is called a ceded area o
r Trans-Karakoram Tract.
The tract, called Shaksgam, is technically part of Shigar, a valley of Baltistan region of Ladakh P
rovince. The Raja of Shigar controlled this land until 1971 when Pakistan abolished the Raja go
vernment system.
The Tract is one of the most inhospitable areas of the world, with some of the highest mountains 
including Broad Peak, Gasherbrum and Masherbrum, and is adjacent to the highest battlefield i
n the world at Siachen Glacier.

The Forgotten Fact of “China-Occupied Kashmir”

Summary: China’s role as an interested party and its status as a disputant in the territorial
issue of Jammu & Kashmir has been obfuscated because the international narrative has
been limited to the bilateral dispute between India and Pakistan. Even in Kashmir, the
Chinese subterfuge has largely gone unnoticed, under-reported and under-analysed. This
special feature provides a historical account of Chinese perfidy and unscrupulous
manoeuvres since the colonial days, aimed at surreptitiously acquiring land that rightfully
belonged to the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, and, following its
accession in October 1947, is a part of India.

Following the abrogation of Article 370 and reorganisation of the State of Jammu & Kashmir
in August 2019, China strongly criticised the Indian Home Minister’s statement  in
Parliament, in which he had reiterated India’s long-standing position that the state of
Jammu & Kashmir includes Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) as well as Aksai Chin. 1 The
fact of the matter is that the map of India has always included these territories as part of
Jammu & Kashmir, along with POK, including the trans-Karakoram tract of Shaksgam
which was illegally ceded by Pakistan to China.
China has become increasingly assertive in backing Pakistan’s moves to agitate the issue
at the international level. It has tried to trigger discussions in the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) on four occasions since then. Simultaneously, it has continued to
designate the issue as a bilateral legacy dispute between India and Pakistan.
Even in Kashmir, the Chinese subterfuge has largely gone unnoticed, under-reported and
under-analysed. Following China’s interference in India’s internal affairs, some Kashmiri
leaders have even welcomed China’s growing interest in the Kashmir issue. Former Chief
Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Farooq Abdullah has made an outrageous statement that
Kashmiris would much rather be under Chinese rule!

How China captured Aksai Chin

Aksai Chin is almost the size of Bhutan and little smaller than Switzerland. Most of it is in
occupation of China, which captured the region during 1950s and consolidated its military grip
over the area during the 1962 India-China war, rejecting all Indian attempts to settle border
disputes peacefully.

China occupied Aksai Chin claiming that it was part of ancient and medieval Chinese empire. It
is a convenient claim from an era when boundaries did not have the same sanctity as they do in
the times of nation-states.
If the same logic is extended, Tibet becomes an illegal occupation of China. The same Tibet
had an intricate trade and cultural relation with Ladakh of which Aksai Chin is a part.
Tibet-Ladakh relations continued even after the Mughal Empire extended to Ladakh in 1660s.
Some twenty years later in 1680s, the rulers of Ladakh and Tibet signed a treaty that now
debunks China's claim of Ladakh being an integral part of Tibet.
Later during the times of British rule over India, another treaty was signed in 1842 between the
rulers of Tibet and Kashmir, confirming that Ladakh was part of Kashmir and controlled by its
government. Dogra chief Maharaja Gulab Singh was the king who had conquered Ladakh in
1834.
China did not object to Ladakh or Aksai Chin being part of India until a couple of years after
1950, when Indian Constitution adopted the whole of Jammu and Kashmir as its integral
territory.
Historian Ramchandra Guha writes in his "India After Gandhi": No official Chinese maps
showed Aksai Chin as part of China before the 1920s, and a Sinkiang (Xinjiang) map of the
1930s showed the Kunlun (the mountains) rather than the Karakoram (range) to have been the
customary boundary - which had been the Indian claim all along."
How it started the capture ig
Celebrated French journalist and author of "The Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small
Insects", Claude Arpi has cited the US intelligence agency, the CIA to show that the Chinese
policy on Aksai Chin shifted in 1952.
The Chinese planned aggression beyond the western boundary of Tibet - which had been taken
over by the communist regime in 1950 - through a network of three roads to be built under
military supervision passing through Aksai Chin. One of these three roads is Highway Number
219 that connects Hotan in Xinjiang to Lhasa in Tibet. Claude Arpi also cited a CIA document to
say that the Chinese military first made its appearance in Northwestern Tibet -- that is, east of
Ladakh-Aksai Chin -- in 1951. Construction activities began only after 1953 when Hindi-Chini
Bhai-Bhai was becoming the slogan for India-China friendship.
By 1959, the myth of friendship had been busted and then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru was diplomatically asserting India's sovereign right over Aksai Chin that China had for all
practical purposed occupied.
Five years before the India-China war began, a Chinese newspaper, Kuang-ming Jih-pao,
reported on October 6, 1957: "The Sinkiang-Tibet -- the highest highway in the world -- has
been completed."
It reported that a number of trucks were running on the highway on a trial basis, arriving in Tibet
from Xinjiang.
In 1958, then Foreign Secretary Subimal Dutt wrote to Nehru saying there was "little doubt that
the newly constructed 1,200 kilometre roadpasses through Aksai Chin".
China strengthened its position after the 1962 war and set the LAC entirely unilaterally in
Ladakh including the Galwan Valley area where a violent face-off took place on June 15-16
night last week. In 1962, Chinese troops were stopped by the Indian soldiers near the present-
day LAC in Ladakh unlike the eastern sector, where the invaders had come down to Tezpur in
Assam. When China announced ceasefire unilaterally, it retreated to the McMohan Line in
Arunachal Pradesh but held military control of Aksai Chin.
According to an article having its origin in PLA Ground Forces and written sometime in 2010,
the Chinese leadership of 1960s considered the occupation of Aksai Chin as a brilliant move
coming out of "the strategic vision of a great man, Chairman Mao Zedong".
It argues that "Aksai Chin is like a Damocles sword hanging over India's head" in addition to
being a gateway to Central Asia and an easy route to "easily run over New Delhi, the Indian
capital city. Subsequently sweep across Mumbai etc. India's economic centers, and defeat India
once again."
This explains why China was expressly keen in seizing Aksai Chin.

Best Terrorist News

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Northern Army Commander Lt General Upendra Dwivedi on Tuesday said that the Indian Army is ready to
execute orders like taking back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. "We have almost 160 terrorists sitting at the
launchpad of which there are 130 north of Pir Panjal and 30 south of Pir Panjal. As for the complete hinterland,
a total of 82 Pakistani terrorists and 53 local terrorists are there," Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi stated.

J&K: 2 people injured in targeted attack on non-

local in Anantnag; TRF claims responsibility
Two migrant labourers were fired upon by the terrorists in the Rakh-Momin area of Jammu and
Kashmir's Anantnag, leaving them injured, police said.

India criticizes Pakistan, China for blocking global UN

terrorist designation
India on Thursday slammed Pakistan and China on terror and said that the international community should collectively call out
those who provide safe haven to terrorists and stand with them including in the UNSC sanctions regime.
"We must collectively call out those who provide safe havens to terrorists as also those who stand with them and come to
their defence including in the UNSC sanctions regime," Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said during a UNSC briefing in
New york.
However, India strongly recognises the privacy of national governments and authorities in identifying and driving priorities,
strategies and activities for sustaining peace.

SC affirms death penalty of LeT terrorist in

2000 Red Fort attack case

A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi said that it has accepted the prayers that
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His guilt is proved. We affirm the view taken by this court and reject the review petition," the bench said.
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Army jawans, dead. A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi said that it has accepted the
prayers that electronic records be considered.

Good relationship with India impossible till

BJP remains in power: Imran Khan
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has sought the need for his country to mend ties with India, but made it
clear that a good relationship would be impossible till the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remains in power,
according to a media report.

Like abrogation of Article 370, BJP plans to

take back pok
March 21 2020

Several military veterans have questioned the Narendra Modi government

and the Indian Army’s double standard in declaring intent to wrest control
of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir while at the same time continuing to
maintain silence on the Chinese intrusions in eastern Ladakh. The Indian
and Chinese armies have been locked in a standoff at multiple points in
Ladakh since May 2020, with the Chinese estimated to have taken over
close to 1,000sqkm of India-claimed territory.
A former major general sought to draw a comparison between India’s
aggressive stance and the top leadership’s public statements on reclaiming
PoK vis-a-vis the deafening silence on China’s transgressions.

“The government’s only interest seems to be PoK just to keep the domestic
audience in good humour for the sake of winning elections. At the same
time, the government has failed to even acknowledge the Chinese
intrusions in Ladakh. Who are we deceiving?” he said.

Prime Minister  Narendra Modi had told an all-party meeting on June 19,

2020 — four days after the Galwan Valley clash in which 20 Indian soldiers
and several Chinese troops were killed — that “neither have they intruded
into our territory, nor has any post been taken over by them”.

I cannot say for sure if BJP is planning to get back POK.

Whether India can do it - well anything is possible if executed with precision.

Pros of taking POK back -

1. It will be a good blow to Pakistan’s security establishment and can compel

them to rethink their aggression towards India.
2. Massive political benefits for India at the national level.
3. Direct access to Afghanistan
Cons of taking POK back -

1. Massive military effort required and this can lead to an all out war with
Pakistan where both sides stand to lose much.
2. Pakistan military has major bases in POK and so it will be difficult to control
even if India manage to occupy POK.
3. Difficult terrain of POK will always ensure Pakistan have the edge.
4. Population of POK may not be ready to accept India. This will be a double
problem because population of Indian Kashmir is also not very friendly with
Indian government and both together can prove to be a major problem .
5. Terrorists and Jihadis will get a new life if this is to happen and India can
see major terror attacks but this is a relatively simpler problem to resolve.