A senior Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar termed Kashmir as an emotional issue in his article Composite dialogue (Nation May 9) He also praised the Indus Waters Treaty and talked about river waters. Comments further to my letter (Nation May18) follow. Branding Kashmir as an emotional issue is a pet gimmick of Indians and others to make light of a very vital question for Pakistan and Kashmiris almost all of whom are our brethren in faith. A brief background of the whole issue may help understand it in the right perspective. The State of Jammu and Kashmir henceforth referred to as Kashmir since it had 85 percent Muslim population. It was ruled by a Hindu Maharaja. Geographically it happens to be contiguous to Pakistan. It had no land access to India. All its road, postal and telecommunications links and trade and commerce were through Pakistan. According to the partition criteria the state had but to accede to Pakistan. This was what the Kashmiris wanted too. But India had other designs to annex Kashmir by hook or crook. Her first priority was to gain land access. It could be only through Gurdaspur district. But being a Muslim majority district and contiguous to West Punjab it automatically fell in Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten came handy. In order to please his future boss Pundit Nehru he got the district placed in India through Radcliffe who was assigned the task of dividing united Punjab into Muslim/Hindu majority parts. He manoeuvred the boundary line to put Gurdaspur district unjustly in East Punjab (except Shakargarh tehsil west of the Ravi). Later Mountbatten pressed the maharaja to accede to India helped by his senior advisor Krishna Menon who was Nehru's mole in the Vice Roy's staff. A false accession document was said to have been forged by Mountbatten-Nehru-Menon nexus. When Kashmiris became aware of Indian moves to annex their state they revolted. The ruler fled to Delhi. India intervened by landing her forces in Kashmir. Pakistan ordered its British Commander-in-Chief to move troops against Indian attack. He defied government orders. It was another Mountbatten move to help India gain a foothold in Kashmir. Resistance by Kashmiris intensified and spread far and wide. In January 1948 India complained to the UNO Security Council accusing Pakistan of intervention in Kashmir. Nehru's sister Mrs Vijay represented India. The council passed resolutions inter alia for immediate ceasefire and to hold a plebiscite to give the people of Kashmir free choice to decide whether the state should join Pakistan or India. Both India and Pakistan agreed. Admiral Nimitz an American was appointed as the Plebiscite Administrator. Although it may appear strange, Kashmir was really an emotional issue for Nehru who hailed from there. According to Lady Mountbatten, Nehru used to get visibly emotional whenever Kashmir was mentioned. His emotional attachment happened to be so strong that in 1954 after realising that Kashmiris would vote for Pakistan he backed out of the Indian commitment on plebiscite. The issue still remains on the council's agenda. In the wake of Nehru's volte-face on the plebiscite albeit emotional, Kashmir remains mired in a terrible turmoil. Besides three Indo-Pakistan wars Kashmiris in 1989 launched a renewed campaign against Indian occupation. Over 100,000 men, women and children have since been killed and many more wounded, jailed, tortured and their woman folk disgraced by 700,000 Indian troops deployed in the state. Kashmir is a very important unfinished agenda of the partition. For Kashmiris it is the question of right of self-determination. For Pakistan it was not a matter of territory only that should have rightly been part of her. But more so a question of her survival since all her main rivers namely Chenab, Jhelum and the lndus flow in from Kashmir. They are ab-i-hayat for its vast irrigation network. It is the source of food, fibre, power and socio-economic backbone of the country. Kashmir is "truly jugular vein of Pakistan" as was rightly declared by Quaid-i-Azam. That was however not the end of the story of India's deceit and usurpation of what rightfully belonged to Pakistan since day one. On first April 1948 India suddenly closed canals carrying water to Pak Punjab as was noted in my article No April fool joke (Nation Apr 1). People were shocked. Mature wheat crops standing on hundreds of thousands of acres waiting for the crucial last watering was affected. Livelihood of millions of poor people was in jeopardy including newly settled refugees from Indian Punjab. There was no water even for drinking in regions underlain by brackish groundwater. Such a dastardly attempt at genocide by the followers of Ahinsa (non-violence) preached by Gandhi was unbelievable. Not the least it was a culpable act at destabilising the infant State of Pakistan. The treacherous act of closing the canals was in blatant breach of the Punjab Partition Agreement on July 28,1947. A question arose: why India did not close the canals in question soon after Independence or earlier than April 1, 1948? An Arbitral Tribunal was set-up on August 14, 1947 to decide on references received inter alia from Punjab Partition Committee regarding division of physical assets between West and East Punjab. Tenure of the Tribunal expired on March 31, 1948. As the clocks struck midnight on March 31 India dropped head gates of canals carrying water to Pak Punjab. Had she done so earlier Pakistan would have made a reference to the Arbitral Tribune. After March 31 there was no Tribunal to whom Pakistan could turn for help. It was the height of Chankian duplicity and deceit. Through this culpable act of deception India ultimately succeeded in swindling our Sutlej, Beas and Ravi Rivers for her exclusive use. Loss of these rivers is the primary cause of unprecedented food, water and power scarcity prevailing in the country. The claims that the lndus Waters Treaty "... has served both countries well." Nothing could be far from the truth. The Treaty in my judgement was so designed as to serve interests of only India well. For Pakistan it has been an unending nightmare of unremitting losses and Indian infringements. According to press reports she has built besides Wullar Barrage and diversion tunnels as many as 52 dams and power plants (10 in the pipe line) on our rivers: the Chenab Jhelum and the lndus in Indian held Kashmir. It is in flagrant violation of the Treaty despite Pakistan protests. It all seemed part of a plan to starve Pakistanis by turning their homeland into a desert waste. In the face of it all how could one claim that the Treaty has "served both countries well?" Mr Nayar says that there can be a "mechanism where all six rivers are controlled by both countries." He also refers to Manmohan Singh's statement that India was ready to accommodate Pakistan on the river waters. Having a bitter experience in the past of India's duplicity one should be cautious of such alluring statements by its leaders ostensibly to favour Pakistan like "composite dialogue. They never in reality meant what they promised. There was always some hidden agenda of self-interest. However if India is really serious for accommodating Pakistan on the issue of river waters let us have an outline of the mechanism she has in mind so that one could judge how viable and acceptable it would be? Without a feasible mechanism it would be another one of the cosmetic ideas floated every now and then. In short, notwithstanding enticing slogans and media hype of confidence building measures and composite dialogue etc one would like to know how much India so far really yielded on her stand on the core issue of Kashmir in lieu of what Pakistan gave in?. It should serve as an eye opener for our leaders placing implacable trust in their crafty counterparts Nonetheless the bait of composite dialogue and free trade etc still seemed attractive to top Pakistan leadership putting Kashmir on the back burner. Zardari head of PPP says that trade with India will open a very big market to Pakistan. One wonders how? India is a well-developed economy. Its products are heavily subsidised. For example, farmers in Indian Punjab and Haryana states are supplied free electricity for their tubewells. Their counterparts in Pakistan on the contrary are burdened with ever increasing power rates for tubewells which remain inoperative due to prolonged spells of loadshedding. Indian farmers are supplied other inputs like fertilisers and pesticide at a fraction of the price paid by ours. Indian prices are therefore highly competitive. That was why we imported mostly vegetables like potatoes and tomatoes from India being much cheaper than here. Similar is the case with industrial manufactures. Cement perhaps was one item India imported from Pakistan. What an irony India is using our cement to build 62 dams on our rivers in Kashmir to turn Pakistan into a desert. Could there be anything more counter productive? India is keen for trade with Pakistan because it provides a ready market next door. Trade between the two countries would be advantageous to her. But for Pakistan it would mean a huge trade deficit. Nawaz Sharif head of his own faction of Muslim League seems so eager for easy travel that he wants Pakistan to abolish visa requirement unilaterally to enable Indians visit Pakistan freely. Will it not also open floodgates for agents of Raw and Israel's Mosad to enter into Pakistan freely posing as Indians? Why don't we abolish visa for visitors from Iran, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries first? The idea of composite dialogue and confidence building measures etc in my assessment is a deceiving device or a camouflage to deflect attention from the burning question of Kashmir - as hot today as it was 60 years ago. How could real peace much less composite dialogues, open trade and visa free travel between the two countries be possible in the face of continuing hostile Indian occupation of Kashmir in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, on going slaughter of Kashmiris by Indian troops and not the least important her building of 62 dams and tunnels to divert waters of our rivers to starve Pakistanis in blatant infringement of the Indus Waters Treaty? The writer is a chief technical advisor at UNO