In less than a week, on September 18,  residents of Scotland will get a chance to vote on whether they want to remain a part of the union that binds the United Kingdom together. The referendum could see the end of a 300-year-old union and has the potential to alter the trajectory of the UK. Yet in the British House of Commons on Thursday, Members of Parliament were discussing an entirely different public poll: the promised plebiscite for the people of Kashmir.


“I long ago ditched the party line that peace can be attained through a plebiscite,” said David Ward, the MP who had proposed a Parliamentary debate on Kashmir. “Would we be having a Scottish referendum if we believed that whoever lost would take up arms?”

The House of Commons is no stranger to discussions about what the British should be doing in South Asia. More than a 100 years ago, National Secular Society founder Charles Bradlaugh was using the floor to quiz the British government on its virtual annexation of Kashmir from the Maharajah. On Thursday, Brent North MP Barry Gardiner asked his fellow members whether they should be talking about Kashmir at all.

Odd timing

“Imagine the outrage on both sides of that debate if the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha, were today debating the merits or demerits of Scottish independence and passing judgment upon what we in the United Kingdom see as a matter for us, and us alone, to decide,” the Labour MP said.

The timing of this debate on Kashmir was odd, not just because of the impending Scottish referendum, but also because of the devastating floods that have affected the lives of people on both sides of the Line of Control. The sight of British lawmakers, whose predecessors could plausibly be held responsible for the partition of the subcontinent, arguing that India and Pakistan were doing little to end the conflict while thousands were still stranded due to the floods was too hard for some to ignore.

“It is ill-judged for British politicians to be debating the history and status of people who are currently facing the most devastating floods in 50 years,” Gardiner insisted.

Yet, they went on. The debate, the scheduling of which alone prompted angry retorts from political parties in India, has much to do with local politics in Britain because of the large numbers of those from the South Asian diaspora.

Ward, the MP from Bradford East, made it clear that he had called for the debate because of pressure from his constituents, of whom Pakistani-origin Britishers constitute a huge number. Ward, in fact, was encouraged to petition for the debate by an organisation called the Jammu Kashmir Self Determination Movement Europe, which had organised a signature campaign calling for the first comprehensive House of Commons discussion on Kashmir in 15 years.

Vote-bank politics

“If further justification for Parliament’s interest in the conflict is necessary, I return to my constituents,” Ward said. “Each time I meet members of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front or the Jammu Kashmir National Independence Alliance, it becomes clear to me that the Kashmir conflict is not a mere matter of interest to them or just something that they read about; it is an anguish that burns within them and never leaves.”

The debate itself was primarily posturing, and in some cases a direct India-Pakistan face-off. India has long insisted that Kashmir is a bilateral issue that should be decided by the two countries involved, a view that was ratified by both countries in the Shimla Agreement. Pakistan, however, has repeatedly tried to internationalise the issue and make it one that will involve third-party mediation.

Even though there have been plenty of new developments, the most significant being the change in leadership on either side of the Line of Control, statements by various British MPs mostly covered well-trodden ground. Most agreed, as would be expected, that both India and Pakistan should do more to achieve. The real debate, as it were, became more about whether the British parliament should be playing host to such a discussion at all.

White men discussing conflicts

“I cannot help but be struck by the irony that most of the contributors to this debate, although not all of them, have been white, middle-aged men talking about what we should be doing in such conflicts,” said Paul Uppal, an Indian-origin Conservative Party MP. “That does not stick in the craw of many people watching this debate, but they will be acutely aware of the history and the heritage.”

On the other hand, Shabana Mahmood, a Labour MP of Pakistani origin,  insisted that the British parliament should be discussing the issue. “The explanation given by other honourable Members was that we have a duty to stand up for the rights of our constituents," she said. "I hope that, in conjunction with it being our duty to stand up for the views, hopes and dreams of our constituents, it is also because we have a tradition of speaking about matters of concern in other countries. That is the whole point, as I understand it, of having a foreign policy.”

The debate was eventually concluded by the Conservative MP who is under-secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs, Tobias Ellwood.

“The long-standing position of the UK is that it is for India and Pakistan to find a lasting resolution to the situation in Kashmir, one which takes into account, as the shadow Minister said, the wishes of the Kashmiri people," he said. "It is not for the UK to prescribe a solution or to mediate in finding one.”