Will Kashmir issue ever be resolved?

H. A. Usmani

The Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India which were the successor states of the British India stand today as the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals. The history of their rivalry is as old as their creation, which began with both the nascent states fighting a full-scale war over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, whose ruler Maharaja Hari Singh, apparently fearing the insecurity of his state’s Hindu and Sikh minorities in case of accession to Pakistan, signed the instrument of accession to India on 26 October 1947, contrary to the aspiration of the Muslim majority. Pakistani response to Hari Singh’s decision was military in nature which came in the form of Pashtun tribesmen’s onslaught onto Kashmir. Realizing the vulnerability of his troops, Hari Singh approached Delhi for a direct military intervention. The Indian military advancement into Kashmir began on 27 October 1947. This was the beginning of the first India-Pakistan war which came to an end at the end of 1948 through a UN-brokered ceasefire.

India and Pakistan came to the war theater again in 1965. This 17-day war ended with a ceasefire under the Tashkent Agreement. Indian military intervention in support of Mukti Bahini in the erstwhile East Pakistan in 1971 led to dismemberment of the Pakistani state and creation of Bangladesh. Kashmir dispute once again brought India and Pakistan to the war theater in Kargil in 1999.

In addition to wars, India and Pakistan have militarily faced off at several occasions, prominent of which are the standoffs of 2001-2002, 2008 and 2016.

Border skirmishes and ceasefire violations along the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region – is order of the day. India and Pakistan are also participants of the conventional and nuclear arms race in the South Asian region.

Pakistan alleges India of having stoked and patronized the insurgency in its tribal region, Balochistan and Karachi, while India alleges Pakistan of backing the militants involved in guerilla attacks on Indian troops in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Both sides exchange allegations of cross-border terrorism as well. Pakistan has also expressed concerns over growing Indian intervention in Afghanistan and Iran and maintains that India is using the soil of these two countries to launch terrorists into Pakistan.

Recent weeks have seen escalation in tensions between the nuclear-armed adversaries with both sides claiming casualties resulting from cross-border firing and shelling along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary. It may not be an exaggeration to claim that clouds of a gory war are hovering over the South Asian region today, a horrific aspect of which is Pakistan’s low nuclear threshold due to its conventional imbalance with India and the amplified lethality of weapons.

A review of the history and a glance at the prevailing regional situation compels one to think if Kashmir dispute will ever be resolved amid ever growing hostilities between India and Pakistan.

Confirmed and unconfirmed reports on backdoor diplomacy between Islamabad and New Delhi keep on taking rounds, a manifestation of which has come in the form of a secret meeting between the national security advisors of the two countries at a neutral place in Thailand last year but just like the diplomatic engagements and confidence building measures of the past, this, too, like other such developments, brought no change to the strained bilateral ties.

The Lahore Summit in 1999 and the Agra Summit in 2001 remained inconclusive at least to the extent of resolution of outstanding issues, the most important of which is Kashmir.

The misfortune of nearly two billion people living in India and Pakistan is compounded by the fact that efforts and resolve for normalization of ties are weakening with every passing day. India is radicalizing. Narendra Modi became the premier of India while Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Both are ideological affiliates of the hardline Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and advocates of Hindutva.

Modi’s ‘Shining India’ developed the Cold Start doctrine to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear capability, lobbied to deteriorate the US-Pakistan relations, dislodged Pakistan’s efforts for restoration of peace in Afghanistan, sponsored anti-Pakistan campaigns in Europe and the United States, engaged in economic ventures such as the Chabahar port to fail or at least damage Pakistan’s key interests linked with CPEC, resorted to propaganda at international forums such as the UN, BRICS and Financial Action Task Force in a bid to get Pakistan declared a terror state involved in financing and sheltering of terrorists, and pinned the blame of self-orchestrated terror attacks, including the Mumbai, Pathankot and Uri incidents on Pakistan.

The fact that Pakistan’s desire for peaceful coexistence is diluted by India’s war hysteria merits attention. Compelled by the circumstances, Pakistan, too, gives India’s aggressive moves a tit-for-tat response. For example, Pakistan was compelled to develop tactical nuclear weapons to counter Indian’s Cold Start doctrine. Similarly, Dr. Maliha Lodhi, Pakistan’s permanent envoy to the UN, responded to Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s allegations of terrorism on Pakistan by exposing India’s real face at the UN General Assembly session, telling the world that India is the ‘mother of terrorism’ in South Asia. Pakistan is taking measures at the political, diplomatic and military fronts necessary to counter India’s aggressive designs and guard against the looming ‘existential threat’.

This entire scenario is dreadful. India is simply not willing to give up its hegemonic designs, making it impossible for Pakistan to step back either.

While Pakistan is faced with terrorism, unrest and insurgencies in addition to a number of socio-economic problems, including poverty, inflation, unemployment and a poor state of healthcare, education and sanitation, the situation in Modi’s Shining India is not much different. Indian claims of being the world’s largest secular, democratic and free society are destroyed by growing incidents of religious minorities’ victimization and human rights violations across the lengths and breadths of India. Not to mention other cities, even the capital of India suffers from a rape and sanitation crisis.

However, instead of focusing on redressal of public issues, the political and military elite of India is bent on misleading the people into the illusion that Pakistan is a terrorist state, Kashmir is an integral part of India and Indian commandoes have carried out a surgical strike, targeting terror launch pads in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

I wish I see the day when Kashmir issue is resolved and an era of peace and prosperity, regional connectivity and economic development has ushered in South Asia but I cannot stop myself into believing that by hoping so I am living in a fool’s paradise because the ongoing geo-political developments in the region harbinger an all out war rather than peace dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Wonder if I will ever see the day when Kashmir issue is resolved and an era of peace and prosperity, regional connectivity and economic development has ushered in South Asia.