There seems to be a perennial story of monkeys and cats in the sub-continent. As in the school book story a monkey is requested by two cats to equally divide a piece of bread between the two. The monkey gets a balance and tries to equally divide the bread and in making the two parts equal eats away the entire bread. However, there is another ancient fable which tells the story of a monkey who came upon some chestnuts roasting in a fire. Lacking the means to retrieve the tasty chestnuts from the fire, the clever monkey managed to convince a somewhat dim cat to reach into the flames with his paw and fetch them. The monkey got his chestnuts, the cat was rewarded with a nasty hotfoot, and a metaphor for "chump" was born. While the original "cat's paw" was someone who is tricked into doing something dangerous or foolish on behalf of someone else, the term has broadened somewhat over the years. Today's "cat’s paw" may know very well what he or she is doing.

The Kashmiri Cat has been facing two monkeys fighting for the chest nuts. The two monkeys who are neighbours have been making it pull their chestnuts out of the fire. In the process, the Kashmiris have only been burning their paws! One monkey’s chest nut is called the “Two Nation Theory” while as the other monkey’s chest nut is called the “Secularism”! These two sub-continental monkeys in turn have become cats for bigger monkeys like USA, Russia, China, and Britain. Thus there is a chain of monkeys and cats in the sub-continent pulling out chest nuts from the fire which has been raging for last six decades. The fire was originally started by the British colonizers by dividing the sub-continent into two antagonistic countries. In fact, as revealed by the declassification of documents relating to partition, the whole plan was engineered by the British who went to great lengths not only to start a fire but ensured its perennial burning!

The chest nuts these foreign monkeys are pulling out of the sub-continent are massive defence contracts. India is at the moment biggest buyer of weapons. Recently Britain sold them Hawk fighters worth $1.2 billion. Russians are finalising deal for Mig 35 worth over $ 8 billion. Americans are trying for F-18 fighters and so on. Russians have been refurbishing aircraft carrier Grushkov for probably last couple of decades? The cost keeps on escalating. Pakistanis are receiving more military aid than urgently needed economic aid. They are virtually starving if we go by the health of their economy yet they prefer to get weapons than food! Sale of F-18 fighters would generate 8,000 jobs for Americans. Same is the story with all other armament sellers. In 2003, the total armament sales were $ 956 billion and half the share was American! Now it must be over a $1,000 billion and American share may be more than half!

Probably, armaments are the only means to keep their economy going? To keep on retrieving these sweet chest nuts these powers need to keep the fire in Kashmir burning. This explains their apologetic attitude in refusing to mediate in the dispute. They would never like the conflict of which they are the main beneficiaries die down! Secondly, these days American economy is in doldrums. There are massive job losses. Americans have been going all over to create more jobs by acting as salesmen. They are more interested in large markets than Human Rights!

As mentioned earlier the original "cat's paw" was someone who is tricked into doing something dangerous or foolish on behalf of someone else. This stratagem was applied to Kashmiris by the Indian side in 1947. The partition of the country was not to the liking of many and the best way to show that it was wrong step was to keep a Muslim majority state in India to be an example of the Indian “Secularism”. The Kashmiris fell for it. However, the events of 1953 gave them a jolt and they realised their mistake. One would have thought that this disclosure would make them wiser but unfortunately, it was the Kashmiri elite which continued to act as the “Cat’s Paw” willingly. From the Pakistan side the people continued to fall for their so called moral and political support. In fact, the support went beyond that and a sizeable section of the elite got material support also. The people in general believed that the Pakistanis were self-less and were genuinely for their liberation.

The truth dawned on the people during the two decades of militancy. The Pakistanis could have trained a full fledged Kashmir Liberation Army out of a hundred thousand youth who had crossed over. Instead, they just gave them three to six weeks training and pushed them back to face the most professionally trained and battle hardened Indian Army. A large number of youth were massacred while crossing the LOC itself. Pakistan was using the Kashmiri shoulder to fire their guns on Indians. If there had been some other country on the border of Kashmir not itself interested in grabbing the area, they would have by now created a full fledged Independent and Sovereign State of Kashmir on their side. A large number of youth who returned from across were completely disillusioned by the attitude of Pakistanis.

Unfortunately, people still look towards outsiders even beyond the borders of the sub-continent to bail them out. These days maximum attention is being focused on the forthcoming visit of the American President Barrack Obama to India. Many people in Kashmir are hoping for President Obama to intervene on their side. Interestingly, President Obama is visiting India with his Commerce Secretary and not with his Foreign Secretary. He is coming as a shopper and seller of goods and services and not as a Humanist and upholder of Liberty! In spite of all the Indian government hype he has refused to confirm US support for the Indian permanent membership of UN Security Council. He says it is a difficult proposition. He has even made it clear that his primary aim is to get more jobs for US Citizens which may cause heavy job loss for India! So if he is not too loyal to Indians, how can he bail out Kashmiris?

Similarly, the Chinese stand on the stapled visas is convincing Kashmiris that China will do something! Again Chinese have their own interests and will go as far as it suits them! The new generation brought up in the conflict of last two decades is equally disillusioned with both the countries of the sub-continent and outsiders. However, unless the Kashmiris are prepared to sort out their problems themselves, their ills will not go away. The ideal thing for Kashmiris is neither to become themselves the “Cat’s Paw” nor use others as their “Cat’s Paw”! They have to develop the individuality and the self-confidence to be totally on their own. If they claim to be a nation then the first and the foremost quality of an Independent Nation is to be independent both physically and mentally! They should not expect others to pull their chest nuts out of the fire!