Kashmir Affairs - Security & Conflict Analysis of Kashmir

Groping for Concrete Resolutions to the Conflict
Nyla A Khan
28 August 2008

Disenchanted by the intractable political positions taken by India and Pakistan vis-à-vis the former princely state of J & K, there are organizations, political leaders, insurrectionists, intellectuals, and social activists on both sides of the LOC that propagate consideration of various feasible and politically workable solutions for a resolution of the labyrinthine Kashmir issue in the context of multifarious political, social, religious, and ethnic groups.

A decentralized autonomy throughout the entire region might prove a feasible solution to the political upheaval in the state. But enabling a well-constructed autonomy proposal, observes ex-foreign secretary of India, Jagat S. Mehta, would require Pakistan to terminate its policy of infiltration. The political legitimacy of the state and its autonomous status would be established by the retention of Article 370 of the Indian constitution. The separate identities of Jammu and Ladakh would be accommodated in the aforementioned policy of decentralization and not through divisions along ethnoreligious lines. The LOC would be converted into the de facto international border, facilitating travel and economic exchanges while maintaining the political status quo of India and Pakistan. Free and fair elections in a democratic set-up would need to be held simultaneously in both Indian and Pakistani administered Jammu and Kashmir, after which the two elected governments would establish contact with each other in order to encourage economic and cultural exchanges between the two parts of the former princely state. Mehta’s proposal stipulates that a final resolution of the Kashmir issue would be shelved for an agreed period, during which Pakistan would refrain from demanding internationalization of the issue or insisting on holding a partial or state-wide plebiscite under UN auspices.

But once the LOC is converted into a de facto international border, the Kashmir issue will be hurriedly relegated to the catacombs of history. What substantive measures would sustained contact between the democratically elected governments of the two halves of the former princely state achieve? Is Mehta’s insistence on Pakistan’s renunciation of its demand for a plebiscite under UN auspices a surreptitious way of India ensconcing itself in a no future negotiations position? Does this proposal take the ethnic divisions in the former princely state into account?

Policy analyst and veteran journalist, B. G. Verghese, attempts to remedy the former proposal by advocating a solution that would allow for conversion of the LOC into a soft, demilitarized international border. Verghese alludes to the creation of an overarching, transnational administration that would facilitate periodic meetings on matters of common interest, like trade and tourism, economic exchange, environmental concerns, etc. The efficacy of an overarching transnational administration is not, however, developed by Verghese beyond its nascent appeal. The autonomy option is a lot more complex than it is made out to be by the plethora of tantalizing proposals laid out by the Indian intelligentsia. As opposed to various autonomy proposals, the notion of independence for either part or all of the former princely state is derided as impractical, economically destructive, and dangerous in terms of arousing the monstrous passion of communalism in the rest of the Indian subcontinent. Robert R. Wirsing sums up the repugnance of independence for part or all of J & K in both India and Pakistan: “Kashmiri self-determination, . . ., has never meant for Pakistanis that Kashmiris had a right to anymore than a bifold choice of destinies. The seeming unpopularity of the independence option among both Indians and Pakistanis leaves the Kashmiri Muslims as its only consistent advocate.”

The insurgency in Kashmir, India and Pakistan’s ideological differences, their political intransigence could result in the eruption of a future crisis. The atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust is exacerbated by the frightening attempts of Hindu fundamentalist groups to rewrite Indian history and the recasting of Pakistani history by Islamist organization, which are efforts to radically redefine Indian and Pakistani societies in the light of ritualistic Hinduism and Islam, respectively.

In the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination in December 2007, the politically chaotic climate of Pakistan, the belligerence of the military, and the tenacious control of fundamentalist forces basking in the glories of a misplaced religious fervor stoked by a besmirched leadership, can India and Pakistan produce visionary leaders capable of looking beyond the expediency of warfare, conventional or otherwise? Will the emerging leadership in Pakistan seek to douse the conflagration that threatens to annihilate the entire region by flippantly shelving the issue for future generations to resolve? Preparing to lead the new coalition government in Pakistan, co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party, Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, condemned the distrustful atmosphere created in the Indian subcontinent by the Kashmir imbroglio. While underwriting the importance of fostering amicable relations between India and Pakistan, Zardari said that the Kashmir conflict could be placed in a state of temporary suspension, for future generations to resolve.Will the besieged populace of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir remain beholden to a leadership that doles out valueless crumbs to laypeople while dividing the spoils amongst themselves?

International legal scholar Gidon Gottleib in his discussion of the changing world order underlines the need to deconstruct old notions of sovereignty and, instead, construct a transnational community which would endow stateless peoples with citizenship, territorial and security guarantees:

Nations and peoples that have no state of their own can be recognized as such and endowed with an international legal status. Those that are politically organized could be given the right to be a party to different types of treaties and to take part in the work of international organizations.

But the application of the approach outlined by Gottleib is unrealistic and rather utopian. This solution is predicated on the nullification of national identity, cultural integrity closely intertwined with attachment to territory, and is clearly politically vexed for the people of the former princely state, who would stop existing without a body politic built on national pride. A solution of the sort could lead to further balkanization in the South Asian region, depleting national resources.