It’s time to be realistic about Kashmir

One reason why all attempts at making peace between India and Pakistan fail is that there is a basic

disconnect between our approaches. Indian peaceniks believe that Indians and Pakistanis are the same people separated only because of the actions of first, colonial

rulers and now, unscrupulous politicians. Get past the politics, they say, and the people of the two countries can live like brothers.

 

   The Pakistanis have a different perspective. Pakistani peaceniks buy the line that we are the same people (not surprising because peaceniks on both sides of the border tend to be Punjabis) but argue that there is a substantive issue that divides us and that it must be settled before any lasting peace is ensured.

 

   That issue is Kashmir.

 

   Every India-Pakistan dialogue flounders ultimately on the subject of Kashmir. The Pakistani position is that Muslim-majority Kashmir is occupied illegally by India which runs puppet governments in the state and uses the army to keep the unhappy populace in line. The Indian position is that the people of Kashmir have just as much democracy as the people of, say, Bihar, which is more than can be said for the people of Pakistan whose experience with democracy has been intermittent over the last 60 years. We believe that Kashmir is an integral part of India and that its status is not negotiable.

 

   Given these two differing perspectives, it is hard to see how any peaceful understanding is possible. All we can hope for are periods of civility before the Kashmir issue flares up again. When Manmohan Singh became Prime Minister he believed that he had a formula that would satisfy both sides. India would keep Kashmir but it would de-militarize the region and open the border so that Pakistanis could come and go at will. As the Prime Minister said, political borders were irrelevant in the 21st century.

 

   I applauded Manmohan Singh’s initiative but wondered if he could sell the formulation to either side. The government says I was wrong. It claims that during UPA I, India came to an understanding with Pakistan along the lines that Manmohan Singh had envisaged. Sadly, just as this peace deal was about to be announced, General Musharraf was toppled and the new government repudiated the negotiations.

 

   I have no idea whether this is true but I do know that every time you mention this deal to Pakistanis they laugh very loudly and deny that they had ever agreed to it. Even if Musharraf had been persuaded (by Washington, for instance) to accept these terms, they say, the people of Pakistan would never have bought it.

 

   I have doubts also about whether the people of India would have accepted this settlement.  Within weeks of the deal being implemented, Pakistanis would have flooded into Kashmir, would have been welcomed as heroes by at least some of the people, would have put up Pakistani flags and India would have been abused at every street corner. Pro-Pakistan elements would have been backed by the might of the militants and without Indian forces to counter them, would have had free run of the valley. There would have been so much anger in India that the Manmohan Singh government would have fallen.

 

   I admire Manmohan Singh greatly and I understand why he believes that the Kashmir issue should be resolved. But frankly, I don’t think a resolution is possible. Both sides are too set in their views to ever meet each other half-way.

 

"I think we owe it to ourselves as a nation built on liberal democratic principles to guarantee as much democracy and freedom as possible to the people of Kashmir."

   In 1972, Indira Gandhi believed that she had settled Kashmir once and for all when Z.A. Bhutto agreed to accept the Line of Control as the international border. Bhutto asked for this understanding not to be included in the Shimla Agreement, maintaining that public opinion in Pakistan would be against the settlement. Nevertheless, he asked for time to be able to persuade the people of Pakistan to accept this reality.

 

   Bhutto went back on that undertaking and Pakistan has more or less repudiated the Shimla Agreement. Pakistanis deny that Bhutto had ever agreed to accept the Line of Control as the border and argue that even if he did and even if this had been recorded in writing, this had no validity. After all, the Shimla Agreement was unfair, because it was forced on a defeated Pakistan by a victorious India, which blackmailed Bhutto by refusing to free thousands of prisoners of war unless he signed on the dotted line.

 

   Both aborted arrangements – with Bhutto and Musharraf – serve to re-emphasise that no settlement over Kashmir is possible unless the two nations agree to solve the issue of sovereignty. Either Pakistan agrees that Kashmir is a part of India or India concedes that Kashmir is a disputed territory which Pakistan has a legitimate claim to. Given that neither side will go that far, I think we can forget about peace in the foreseeable future.

 

   So, what do we do? I think we owe it to ourselves as a nation built on liberal democratic principles to guarantee as much democracy and freedom as possible to the people of Kashmir. We must move to prevent human rights abuses and must spend money on the development of the state.

 

   But we must do all this without hoping for any kind of reward. All too often, we say things like, “The Kashmiris now have a stable government of their own choosing and development is back on track so peace will return to the state.”

 

   In fact, peace will never return to Kashmir, not as long as Pakistan wants to claim the state. In the old days, the Pakistanis believed in military adventures. Now that Pakistan has become the epicentre of global terrorism, military adventures seem pointless. Far better to send terrorists into the Valley. In the old days, Pakistan used a political approach. Now, in this jehadi era, it uses an Islamist approach. The people of Kashmir are told that the battle is not just about freedom, it is an Islamic crusade against the Hindu infidel.

 

   Pakistan’s own experience shows us that democracy is no counter to jehad. Even though Pakistan is now going through one of its rare democratic phases, jehadi violence is actually on the rise. Islamic nutcases are no respecters of democratic rights.

 

   It’s time to be realistic about Kashmir. There will be periods of peaceful development. But as long as Pakistan exists – and perhaps long after it has broken up – there will never be any lasting peace in Kashmir. And so, there will never be peace between India and Pakistan.