Following the entry into force of the cease-fire the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), set up by the Security Council, adopted yet another resolution on January 5, 1948.

It reiterated that the question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan "will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite". The issue of Kashmir was on the table of the Security Council following a request by the then Indian Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Was he honest and sincere in making that request for whatever reasons?

The answer is: His predecessors have, however, persevered in defiance of their founding father Nehru. Nearly seventy years on the people of Kashmir are yet to have that UN-sanctioned plebiscite. But they are not disheartened.

Their struggle to exercise their right for self-determination has not waned; in fact it reinvigorated as the time passed, attaining a kind of climax over the last five months or so. Braving bullets, they return to the streets yet with more vigour and determination to take their cause to its logic conclusion. Their grim struggle is taking place right under the full glare of international media while the warmth of their blood spilled on the streets of Srinagar and across the Valley is palpable.

Unfortunately, however Kashmir is in flames but the world body is merely a silent spectator. "Enough is enough," a visibly upset Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had to tell the world at large. Whatever the risks the support to the Kashmiris right of freedom may entail Pakistan is determined to stand by them - even at the risk of a much wider conflagration in the region. "Our hearts beat and sink with our Kashmiri brethren," the prime minister points out. Let India's new army chief subject them to his "surgical strikes".

He will get the response in full measure. But given both Pakistan and India are nuclear-capable states jingoistic idiom should be avoided. The emerging ground realities should be accepted; one quite detectable among these being growing realisation in New Delhi that sheer use of force has failed to snuff out the uprising now buffeting length and breadth of Occupied Kashmir.

As an alternative it is now working to change the demographic pattern of occupied land. Not only is New Delhi encouraging Hindus to build settlements - a la Israel - in Occupied Kashmir, it is also issuing Kashmir domiciles to non-Kashmiris and allowing them to buy property. Enough is enough, indeed. -Business Recorder