PARTITION - additional recordings I Andrew Whitehead I _______________________________ / CD-10 Sardar Abdul Qayum Khan - transcript Former President and Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, leader of Muslim Conference, and fighter in 1947, interviewed at the local legislators' hostel in Muzaffarbad on 6th April 2001, mainly about current militancy in Kashmir - on MD labelled 'Islamabad 2' [also interviewed in 1997 in Islamabad for Partition series] [re new generation of militants] 'In 47 and 48, in jihad, we had people from all over Pakistan, but they did not take up an independent stance of their own, or an independent operational order. But they remained in cooperation and collaboration, therefore the question of locals and non-locals, indigenous and outsiders,did not really arise at that time. And then it was more of a disciplined movement, because of the topography, because of the people, retired soldiers in abundance from the Second World War. That is not the case on that side - the militants in Kashmir have taken their cue from the Afghan war. Afghanis have their own typical way of fighting. They're not like the army men, the soldiers. So Kashmiris draw their inspiration mainly from there and have been in training in many Afghani camps ... That way, the operational mechanism they have evolved does not really accept a lot of control. ... There is no central controlling force at all. Q: You are yourself a Kashmiri. Very much a Kashmiri. Q: When did you last go to Srinagar? I was here on this side and moving about the whole of India for my education, in the meantime we came into this 47 uprising and since then from this side nobody could ever go to Srinagar. I'm not allowed even to go to Delhi, you see, not to speak of Srinagar. Q: From where we're standing - Srinagar is on the same river as M'bad, just along the Jhelum river, it's on the same road - It's a few hours from here, not more than 100 milies I think. Q: How do you feel about not being able to go to the Kashmiri capital?