Kashmir: Time for a Radical Approach?

In India-Pakistan relations Kashmir is the ambiguous enigma. ‘Kashmir is the key, let us discuss it first,’ says one side. ‘Let us discuss all bilateral issues,’ says the other. After three wars, countless lesser flares-up, official, unofficial, direct and indirect negotiations the Kashmir conundrum remains unresolved.

Statements are issued for local and international consumption without abandon. The Kashmiris themselves rightly feel they are not even a footnote in all this.

Behind all the self serving posturing, a viable solution seldom gets discussed. Water continues flowing down Indus and Ganges. The ever increasing reaches of the missiles and rockets and the influence of the rich and influential continue to cast an unsettling shadow over the aspirations of the unwashed. Foreign conglomerates, desi* bureaucrats, politicians and business magnates win. Ram Babu and Allah Rakha lose perennially.

Contrary to popular reporting lives are not lost in Kashmir or Kashmir related terrorist acts elsewhere in India and Pakistan only. The janata-awaam lose out in their respective countries as well when limited resources are diverted from beneficial and quality-of-life enhancing activities (relating to Health, Education, Social Welfare, Law and Order to name a few) to Defense.

In the meantime foreigners are selling us big ticket armaments, our defense honchos are becoming fat and business leaders fatter. And the janata-awaam is getting leaner and suicidal. In the absence of reason, common sense and valid national interests, a new cancerous cell is now gnawing its way into our body politic.

Both nations have clouded the ideals of Gandhi and Jinnah. Aside from their portrait hung in all government offices their only practical legacy is etched on the 500 rupees note to facilitate corruption.

In Pakistan this cancer has passed the stage of non-malignancy and has now become malignant. Prognosis calls for drastic measures. If not checked at this late stage it might consume the entire body.

In India this cancer is still in the benign phase. But for how long?

The need of the moment, the crisis in Pakistan and India’s post independence history is to find an acceptable cure. A cure that is more important and urgent for Pakistan and only slightly less so for India.

Politics is the art of impossible: of consensus making: of carving solutions from thin air.

The cry of the moment is for a face saving solution on Kashmir. I use ‘face-saving’ advisedly. Too much blood and emotion has been invested by both sides. Seemingly intractable lines and scars are drawn --- on the map, on the body, on the soul.

The most obvious one would be to bring in a bilateral or multilateral commission that would recommend turning what is de-facto into de-jure border. There could be other creative and face saving solutions. The need is to find and agree on one. And then selling it to their constituents. And to the Kashmiri civilians.

In India, with its polyglot democracy, the politicians would have a hard time selling it to their people. But not as hard as in Pakistan where the politicians face a double whammy. They have to sell it not only to the public but also to the other entrenched monster: the Army infamous for subjugating its own civilians.

Time for posturing, delaying and passing the buck is fast diminishing. Time for drastic prioritizing is on the horizon. If inevitable and painful surgical procedures are not considered immediately, it may prove fatal for Pakistan. And the consequences of that will cast ominous shadows for a long time on the region.