The current undeclared war in Kashmir points its finger once more to the unavoidable need of a consensus among all parties concerned on the steps to be taken towards the solution of this unfinished agenda of the partition of India in 1947. That the problem has continued to sour relations between India and Pakistan, caused the biggest drain on the economies of both, put a major hurdle in the way of efforts to improve the standard of living of a billion people of the subcontinent, and led even to two full-scale wars, underlines the fact that time --over half a century now--has failed to heal this wound. Nor, does it admit of acquiescence into the status quo by the people of the territory by dint of physical domination or hair-splitting casuistry. The days of ‘might is right’ are over particularly as both parties to the dispute have now nuclear teeth.

Their nuclear capabilities have imparted a new dimension to this dispute. Saner counsels will have to supercede emotional outbursts and issues of face. Matter of fact, the apprehensions in the United States and in several other world powers over the nuclear tests were behind the efforts to bring the two new nuclear club members to the conference table, bus diplomacy, parliamentarians’ conference, exchanges of sports teams etc. The Lahore Declaration of February 21, 1999 was the highlight of these moves. That was a cause for celebration, as it held many a ray of hope for the people of the subcontinent who owed over $100 billion in foreign debt and one third of whom lived beneath the poverty line. In the spirit of the Declaration, it was hoped, that cooperation would replace confrontation and the two governments would take measures to reduce defense and other expenditures and focus energies on solving problems of population, poverty, disease, illiteracy, caste, gender disparities, unemployment, ethnic intolerance, crime and other social evils.

The euphoric period of such expectations did not last for more than a couple of months. Why are they back to square one?

India has accused Pakistan of having sent infiltrators, Afghan and other Islamic militants as well as Pakistani soldiers, across the Line of Control in Kargil area. Pakistan maintains that they are indigenous Kashmiri Mujahideen (freedom fighters). In support of this contention, Pakistan mentions the fact that India had not allowed the UN representative, Gen. Bali, to visit Kargil to find out who the fighters were. India, it is argued, has not done that for fear that the falsity of its argument would be exposed.

Pakistan and India have been, off and on, trading artillery fires along the fragile cease-fire line. What is new this time is the use of fighter aircraft and the size of the Indian military -30 thousand in the Kargil sector to deal with some 600 ‘Islamic militants’. India maintains over 600,000 troops in the entire Kashmir territory to quell the continuing insurgency since 1988. This number exceeds the total strength of Pakistan’s armed forces. Incidentally, India has seven times the population of Pakistan, four times its territory, four times its economy, three times its air force, and twice its army and navy.

Pakistan PM’s personal requests to his Indian counterpart to de-escalate the fight lest a bush fire turn into a conflagration, have gone unreciprocated. Nawaz Sharif’s initiative to send Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz to Delhi to commence talks with his counterpart, Jaswant Singh, on June 7 was rejected on the ground that the timing was inconvenient and there appeared little point in the visit at this juncture.

India views the proposed visit as calculated to shift the focus from the ground reality in Kargil. A write-up in daily Hindu, Madras, of June 7 remarked: “ The peace initiative was intended to be used to freeze the present situation in the Kargil sector where the Line of Control has been changed to India’s disadvantage.

Sartaj Aziz has countered that the LoC is not clearly demarcated in the area.

Indian leadership has been palpably negative to overtures for a reduction of tension in the spirit of the Lahore Declaration. So much so that the Indian ambassador in Islamabad refused to visit the Foreign Office and receive, in the presence of the media, the Indian pilot in Pakistan custody.

The success of the freedom-fighters in capturing a vast tract in the Kargil sector and occupying the commanding heights of the hills overlooking half way on the main Indian supply route ( Srinagar-Lea road) to the scene of continuing conflict on Siachen glacier, have caused a loss of face for the Indian political and military leadership. To overcome the embarrassment, if not humiliation, they have resorted to aerial bombardment. That is an ominous development as it is for the first time that India has introduced its air force in border conflicts. But, it has proved highly expensive; two MIGs (some reports say four) and a few helicopter gun-ships have already been shot down. Aerial strikes are not much effective either, because of the unsuitability of the hilly terrain. Only the helicopters have been somewhat successful but they are easy targets for the freedom fighters.

The situation is further complicated by the current political milieu of India. Atal Behari Vajpayee heads now a caretaker government until the elections in September-October. The opposition has accused his government of napping while the freedom-fighters were advancing in Kargil. Then he can hardly take any substantive decision in the larger interests of both countries being a caretaker PM, irrespective of his personal commitment to the Lahore Declaration. If only he could control hawks like Advani in his cabinet and in uniform and allow diplomacy to work towards cooling down of tension, he would have done a notable service to the people of the region and earned their gratitude.

As for the military situation and objectives, the Indian armed forces can recapture the ridges under the control of the freedom fighters but that can be done at a tremendous cost to men and material. It would be much wiser to let the man in striped trousers take over as quickly as possible from the man in uniform. India would be well advised to grab Pakistan’s offer and secure maximum short and long term advantage from it.

President Clinton, in his letters to the PMs of both India and Pakistan, has also underlined the urgent need for restraint to ensure that the fighting does not spread. He has urged both to enter into a dialogue for the resolution of the problem in the spirit of the Lahore Declaration.

From all indications, the international community too has emphasized the need for an Indo-Pakistan diplomatic engagement to defuse the current crisis. But, evidently Indian leadership wants to dislodge the freedom fighters from the high-altitude ridges on the hills in Kargil before agreeing to any talks. As usual it wants to negotiate from a position of physical, though not necessarily moral, strength. It has once again manifested its negative approach, its unresponsiveness, to a peace initiative.

A state of insurgency has existed in Jammu and Kashmir for a decade now. India has concentrated some 600,000 troops to quell it. Over 50,000 Kashmiri freedom-fighters have lost their lives. But, the struggle continues unabated.

As long as the Kashmir issue festers, and India remains obdurately intransigent in accepting that it lies at the heart of its troubled relationship with Pakistan, there can be no enduring peace in South Asia. India has not succeeded in suppressing, over the past ten long years, the struggle of the Kashimiris for their right to self-determination. It will have to seek a political solution by granting the Kashmiris their legitimate right. The territory will otherwise remain a cauldron of seething unrest.

The immediate task before the two neighbors is to defuse the situation and sit down at the negotiating table to seek a short as well as long term solution to the South-Asian tinderbox.

Even the Soviet Union, a super power, could not contain by force similar problems of its captive minorities. It broke up into 17 independent states led respectively by each of its disaffected minorities. The Soviets killed, to give just one example, no less than 30,000 Chechniyans but had to withdraw in humiliation from the Republic of Chechniya. This ought to give a lesson or two to the intransigent Indian policy makers.

The Indian military operation might be able to dislodge the freedom fighters from the Kargil ridges though at an enormous cost, but that is unlikely to put an end to the problem. Indian might has been unable to stamp out the freedom struggle in the past ten years despite employing over half a million troops. The struggle for freedom is unlikely to die down till a solution acceptable to the Kashmiris is arrived at. The indomitable guerrilla resistance in Afghanistan forced a nuclear power to bow out.

At the time of writing (June 7) the military situation was worsening fast, while progress on the diplomatic front was agonizingly slow. The Indian PM has refused to accept a UN envoy to broker peace. The Iranian offer of mediation too has met the same fate. Unless the process is reversed, unless belligerency makes room for a negotiated rapprochement, the conflict would continue adding further to the bitterness of the cup of the people of the region. There would be no winner, only losers.