The drumbeats of war between India and Pakistan are not as loud as they were following the terrorists attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi a few weeks ago. India has been ratcheting up the pressure on Pakistan to arrest those behind the terrorist attack. An intense diplomatic activity by the US and Great Britain has helped avoid yet another war, perhaps a nuclear one this time, between the two neighbors.
Pakistan has banned five Kashmiri separatist groups that have been using Pakistani soil to mount attacks against the Indian forces in Kashmir. Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in a policy speech to his nation vowed to put an end to all terrorist activities on Pakistani soil and to curb the rising tide of religious fundamentalism in his country.
Ever since he dismissed the thoroughly corrupt and democratic-in-name-only government of Nawaz Sharif three years ago, Pervez Musharraf has been at odds with the fundamentalists in Pakistan. His early efforts to clip their wings by nationalizing religious schools or madrassas and to disarm the populace were foiled by massive street demonstrations.
Now he has crossed the Rubicon by giving an unqualified support to the US in its war against terrorism by providing logistic support, army bases and sharing sensitive data about the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Pakistan’s support was a key factor in winning the war in Afghanistan. While a majority of Pakistanis support President Musharraf in these efforts, they do not want him to abandon the cause of Kashmir to appease India and the US.
Why are India and Pakistan willing to go to war over Kashmir? The complicated issue can best be summarized as an unresolved problem from the partition of British India into a Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India. Pakistan’s claim is based on the fact that Kashmir is a Muslim majority area and at the time of independence should have become part of Pakistan. Instead, the Hindu ruler of the state opted to join India.
After a short war in 1948 the UN brokered a cease-fire which left 2/3 of the state with India and the remaining with Pakistan. Both countries agreed to an internationally supervised plebiscite that would allow the Kashmiris to decide their future. India has reneged on the promise.
Since the eighties an indigenous insurgency against the Indian rule has turned the tranquil and peaceful region into an armed camp where militant Kashmiris, with ample help from Pakistan, have engaged half a million Indian troops into a no win stalemate. In the past few years the separatists have started targeting civilian installations and the attack on Indian parliament was the last straw.
While Pakistan has the weight of history, UN resolutions and the recommendations of two UN special commissions in its favor, India has the ground realities on its side. Because of their inflexible position, bilateral talks between the two countries have always ended in a deadlock. Hence the need for a new paradigm to break the impasse. The only two viable choices are to let each party keep the part they already control or allow Kashmiris, as was done in East Timor, autonomy under the UN protection. It can only happen with American mediation but India refuses that.
For over 50 years leaders in India and Pakistan have put aside their common bonds of history, culture and language and have allowed Kashmir to define their relations. In a thought provoking joint article in Washington Post on December 31, 2001, Akbar Ahmed, a Pakistani scholar and Amit Pandya, a retired State and Defense Department official, wrote about their shared heritage and stressed the need to move on beyond Kashmir.
The leaders in India and Pakistan are incapable of doing that. The influential Indians and Pakistanis in this country should join hands and persuade American lawmakers to help solve this festering wound. They owe it to their people back home.
(Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is an op-ed page columnist for the daily Toledo Blade and the author of ‘The Taliban and Beyond-A Close Look at the Afghan Nightmare.’ Available through <bwdpublishing.com> or <amazon.com>)