As predicted, the peace process in South Asia has been snagged by several persistent factors. First, there is India’s rigidity on the status quo in Kashmir. Pakistan has tried every trick in the book to shake or bend it and failed. Second, Pakistan’s irredentist claim on Indian-held territory lingers. But no modern sovereign nation-state has voluntarily relinquished territory through dialogue alone, however unjustly held the territory in question. Third, there are several contending Kashmiri groups vying for influence and power, including within the pro-Pakistan Hurriyet Conference, who violently disagree on the current reality and future status of Kashmir. Fourth, the international community and the current world climate militate against provocative or precipitate action by the two nuclear-armed states just as much as they do against the exploitation of militant Islam by Pakistan to achieve nationalist state ends. That means jihad can no longer be seriously used as a weapon of coercion in the discourse on Kashmir. Fifth, Pakistan stands to gain more from any “peace dividend” than India. The respite from long-term warring would dilute Pakistan’s obsession with “national security” and create the political space to develop stable, democratic and civilian institutions. Equally, the economic resources resultant from an end to the arms race could be productively employed in development and poverty alleviation.
So if all this is clear, what’s the way ahead? Let’s get concrete. Let’s follow General Pervez Musharraf’s recommended approach to solving Kashmir and see where it takes us.
A UN-conducted plebiscite is unacceptable to India. We should forget about it. A status quo vis-à-vis Kashmir is unacceptable to Pakistan. They should forget about it. They don’t want any further international partitions on religious grounds. All right. We can talk about regional and contiguous areas along ethnic lines within Kashmir. We don’t want them to take away “our” Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas. That should be fine with them as long as we say we won’t take away “their” J&K. Neither wants an independent Kashmir because we would “lose” Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas and they would “lose” J&K. Here’s one way out of the dilemma.
How about Pakistan redrawing some boundaries and changing the status quo within Pakistan in relation to Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas, and India redrawing some boundaries and changing the status quo within India in relation to J&K? How about Pakistan annexing the re-demarcated Northern Areas, and India annexing the re-demarcated Jammu and Ladakh regions, as separate provinces and states within their respective federations, leaving the status of a re-demarcated Azad Kashmir within Pakistan and a re-demarcated Kashmir region which includes the Valley but is not limited to it within India to be determined jointly and in association with the Kashmiris of these two areas? How about this “two-in-one Kashmir” region with soft internal borders whose Pakistan and Indian parts are separately administered by Pakistan and India respectively on the basis of separately signed deals with the two countries on the degree of autonomy to be leveraged for each part until 2050, with the option of continuing with the arrangement, or becoming one independent entity, or joining either India or Pakistan, by 3/4th vote in 2050? War in the first fifty years since independnce hasnt delivered a solution. Maybe peace in the next fifty can deliver one. This would be a “win” situation for the Kashmiris and a “no-loss” situation for both India and Pakistan that reflects modern ground realities rather than the unfinished business of partititon. If all protagonists could move towards this end and arrive there by 2010, the resolution of the other vexing issues between them could be less roublesome and more immediate.
The peace dialogue appears to be getting bogged down because both sides are spinning different interpretations on the “composite” theme. Pakistan wants “progress on Kashmir” before it will open up the track on trade and transit routes. India wants to go slow on Kashmir and push trade and transit instead. Pakistan wants the gas pipeline project to stand alone but India is linking it to the MFN trade status. Pakistan is threatening multilateral intervention on the water disputes because India is balking on bilateral solutions. Both are going ahead with the arms race. Gen Musharraf is visibly irritated and Dr Manmohan Singh is obviously frustrated. This is ominous.
India and the international community must understand that the “CBM-first” process in S Asia cannot yield the conditions in which all lesser issues can be discussed and resolved now while Kashmir is taken up later. There are two main reasons for this. First, India is rightly perceived as a potential, if not actual, regional hegemon. Second, India has helped dismember Pakistan. These conditions of acute distrust and hostility were not present when the “CBM approach to conflict resolution” was successfully applied in Europe in the 1970s. Equally, Pakistan must realise that the “Kashmir-first” approach is going nowhere. Therefore both sides should (1) de-link issues from one another and (2) move simultaneously on all of them (3) without the expectation that resolution is likely to be simultaneous on all of them. If the “win-no loss” approach advocated above on Kashmir is undertaken, it would be possible for both sides to have their cake and eat it too.