But there is no question that the Resistance is essentially indigenous. Were Pakistan, for instance, to get completely out of the picture, the movement would still continue, however, bereft and straitened. Actually, it is grossly unfair and unrealistic to expect Pakistan to stand aside when the people of Kashmir are engaged in a struggle for which Pakistan and its people have made enormous sacrifices since 1947, and with which they have heartfelt sympathy. Kashmir and Pakistan are intertwined in such a variety of ways that it is not possible for events in the one not to have strong repercussions in the other.
 
Rendering aid to Kashmiris for their freedom from despotic rule has been a recurrent phenomenon in the areas which now constitute Pakistan. It began as far back as 1835, more than a hundred years before the birth of Pakistan. In 1933-34, as many as 20,000 people from the Sialkot-Lahore area were jailed by the British Indian government to prevent them from marching into Kashmir to agitate against the ruling Hindu prince's repression. In 1947, when there were scattered and large-scale uprisings against the despot in many parts of the State, people from Pakistan felt compelled by what they considered their moral and political duty join ranks with the freedom fighters in Kashmir. It happened again in 1965. It is understandable and consistent with history if it happened (though to a much reduced extent) following the brutal and continuing Indian onslaught against the resurgent movement in Kashmir that we now date from 1989.

Pakistan is an irremovable factor in the Kashmir equation. It has fought two wars to secure the right of self-determination for Kashmiris. The first war in 1947-48 led to the resolutions of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) which called for a plebiscite in the State to ascertain the people's wishes. The second in 1965 was brought to an end with the resolution of the UN Security Council stating the "decision" of the Council to consider after the end of hostilities "what steps should be taken to assist towards a settlement of the political problem underlying the conflict", namely Kashmir. Even the Simla Agreement in 1971 called for a "final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir", though the meeting between the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India which produced the accord, was not convened to deal with Kashmir but with the aftermath of the dismemberment of Pakistan through Indian military intervention in East Pakistan. None of these undertakings has been fulfilled. Pakistan cannot be expected to force amnesia on itself and consign all this to oblivion.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Afghan resistance sought help from volunteers in many Muslim countries. A number of Kashmiri young men also joined the combat which they viewed as a just and even holy war against an invader. When the Soviet Union decided to pull out of Afghanistan, having failed to overcome the popular armed struggle against the communist-backed regime in Kabul, the Kashmiri youth, like their other foreign comrades, had to leave Afghanistan and return home. By then they were battle-hardened and imbued with the zeal to carry on a similar fight against Indian occupation. They were also confident that if a superpower like the Soviet Union could be humbled by disorganized but dedicated Afghan fighters, surely they could also combat the occupation of their land by the India Union.

 The fall of communism is a watershed in history and its impact on developing countries has been especially powerful. The message that went forth to societies as diverse as those of Africa and Eastern Europe was that any system that owed its hold solely to military power and its authority to force and coercion could not endure. The Kashmiris, it must be repeated, never asked for the annexation of their land by India. So the great wind of freedom blowing across the world also swept Kashmir and its youth, leading eventually to the heroic upsurge witnessed in 1989.