ISLAMABAD, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf dismissed India's Kashmir election plans as a farce on Wednesday, defending his own concept of democracy before polls at home and vowing to crush Islamic militancy.

In a speech to the nation to mark Pakistan's 55th anniversary of statehood and separation from India in 1947, Musharraf said elections in Indian-controlled Kashmir would deny the people of the disputed region any real choice.

Against a backdrop of military tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals, he said Pakistan could not be blamed for separatist violence that has racked India's part of the Himalayan region since an insurgency began more than 10 years ago.

At the same time, he vowed continued efforts to crush Islamic militancy at home and called on all sectors of society, particularly religious leaders, to join in the struggle against "cowardly" fanatics who killed women and children.

"I am confident that we will, Inshallah, break the back of all these criminals and organisations supporting them," he said after highlighting two attacks on Christian targets near Islamabad last week in which 11 people died.

"In the name of Islam, these misled criminals and their terrorist patrons and tutors even have the audacity to think their actions are the route to Jannat (heaven)," Musharraf added.

"Who is the loser? Nobody but Pakistan, your country, and the poor of Pakistan whose sustenance depends on jobs through investment which shies away."

"SACRED STRUGGLE"

In contrast, Musharraf called the battle being waged by separatist Islamic guerrillas in Indian-held Kashmir "a principled struggle".

"The struggle for self-determination of our Kashmiri brothers is a sacred trust with us, which can never be compromised," he said to applause from an audience of government and military leaders at the state convention centre in Islamabad.

"Pakistan cannot accept any responsibility for developments inside Indian-occupied Kashmir, nor can India try to shift the onus of the failure of elections to Pakistan," he said.

Musharraf urged India to respect their common border, where a million rival troops have been facing off since a December attack on India's parliament that India blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants.

Dialogue on resolving the Kashmir issue, which has taken the two countries to war twice since independence in 1947, is some way off.

"No one dare think of any adventurism across our borders," he said, adding that Pakistan's forces had the faith "not only to defend every inch of the motherland but to carry the fight across the border, Inshallah (God willing)."

He said India's announcement of elections for September and October was just another effort to give a mask of legitimacy to its "illegal occupation" of Jammu and Kashmir state, which comprises about 45 percent of the Himalayan region. Pakistan and China control the rest.

"RIGGED POLLS"

"The government of India has organised such farcical elections in the past," he said. "These so-called elections have invariably been rigged and have always been boycotted by the Kashmiri people."

Kashmir lies at the heart of tensions between India and Pakistan, which came to the brink of a fourth war in May after India blamed attacks on its soil on Pakistan-based militants.

Musharraf, making his address in English, stuck to his own plans for elections on October 10 in Pakistan, despite charges that he has manipulated them by excluding popular politicians from power, including two exiled former prime ministers.

He defended his record since his bloodless coup in October 1999 ousted the last democratically elected prime minister, saying the government had turned what was a debt-laden virtual pariah state into a country that was once again internationally respected and economically viable.

He said the elections would usher in a "new era of democracy".

"The public demands changes of faces in the future election in the hope that their new leaders will strive to develop the nation and improve the lot of the common man, instead of siphoning the country's wealth to distant lands to serve their personal interests," he said.

"Let me give the whole nation a personal guarantee," he added. "I will take all possible measures to ensure a free, fair and transparent election." Nampa-Reuters 0834 140802 WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 140838)