Last Rites in Kashmir or a New Journey?

#13 by Romair

You have raised a good issue and I have been studying that too. I got to go now and would take it up tomorrow.
Thanks.

Re: # 12

Nazar Hayat Khan: If Kashmiris of Muzzafargarh can travel to Srinagar and back without passports, why should Punjabis of East and West Punjab travel with passports? Why the immigrants in Punjab and Karachi from Gujrat, UP, Hyderabad, Delhi etc. travel with passports to India? And so the borders melt...

HP # 15

Have you noticed a strange Paradox in the present situation -

The Pakistani Government and the general Public are receiving Both the Indian Politicians and the Hurriyat members with same gusto and enthusiasm - SIMULTANEOUSLY. They do not seem to find any contradiction between the TWO.

This is an inexplicable display of maturity.

NHK

This article summarizes a whole bunch of things that happened recently. I am not sure which hat are you wearing – a history/political science professor, a reporter, an economist…?

In the short-term, CBMs are good things – at least people are not killing each other. (It also “feels good”.) I doubt that there is a genuine desire for peace behind the measures - perhaps a compulsion dictated by circumstances (at least on the Pakistani side).

In the long-term, I am convinced that true trust between the countries will not be in place until most can face the following two facts:

(1) the division of the subcontinent was a blunder (just look at everything else that followed - how BLIND one needs to be to not see the obvious)

(2) the political/religious leaders who pushed for it (no matter how well-esteemed by the masses (who were brought up on a daily aphrodisiac of the esteem medicine anyway)) SCREWED up and took whole populations along with them. (All the other problems followed.)

These mighty icons need to be pulled down from high pedestals (from where they continue to ruin our present day lives) and pushed down into the “dustbin of history”, where (in my humble opinion) they belong. I don’t see how the Kashmir problem can be “defanged” if religion is at the core of this problem and even the educated classes are too chicken to face up to (1) and (2) above. Any analysis which looks away from these very obvious facts is bound to remain weak.

I personally think it will be a LONG while before that happens! Long term peace between the two countries could remain elusive. (Things which are done under external compulsion do not have a long life.) I hope I am proved wrong!

Notes:

[The sudden urge of the army to resolve the Kashmir issue and the change of heart surely appears to have thrown lots of political observations and calculations off the charts.]
It is very difficult to convince me that the “change of heart” is genuine! Have the jihadis been put away? Has a single admission of past misadventures been made? Aren’t the same people still running the show? There may be some realization that the old tricks don’t work any more and there is a need to come up with a new set of tricks - that’s all!

[The Pak army, sensing the reluctance and skepticism on the Indian side, provided conclusive goodwill measures to affirm its seriousness and determination to take some risks in moving the dialog with India forward.]
Everything you cite (following that sentence) was just talk – what did the army DO? I would say precious little.

[The next step for India is to remove the pockets of militants that still operate in Kashmir as quickly as possible]
India has been at it (and will continue to work on it) for a while. What the Pak army can do (but seems to have little interest in doing) is to also repeat that feat on their side.

[There is really only one problem between India and Pakistan. Once that concern is laid to a rest, there really is nothing that can hold both countries back from making great strides in economic cooperation.]
I believe that’s wishful thinking. Kashmir is not that ONE problem – it’s the deep-rooted thinking which distinguishes between people based on religion!

[The US and China interests would begin to collide in the near future or right after the current terrorism and fundamentalism menace is done with. The world may see a revival of the cold war type confrontations and encirclements between the US and China.]
In my view, this hype is over-blown. In any case, it’s too far down the road.

#2 by tahmed32
Tahmed- what happened to your “accent”?

#3 by cayenne
Cayenne, when people say “Indian subcontinent” they mean India and many of its neighbors lumped together.

#8 by - - - ... - - -
Some of your words can be considered provocative, but at some point the Pakistani elite needs to address those issues. Unfortunately, we (people from that part of the world) are more adept at running away from issues than facing them.

#10 by HP
[I agree that you have asked an important question but what countries really do with themselves? Take a swimming lesson, Go bowling, or just horse around! ]
This is exactly the type of example of “running away”

#12 by nazarhayatkhan
[The Kashmir Border which was reduced to LOC will further get reduced to just a legal jurisdiction. Not any different than the Board we see while entering from Virginia to Tennnessee or from Punjab to Sind.]
Mr. Khan, are you predicting that in effect Indian and Pakistan will be ONE country (except perhaps on paper, which will take longer)?

#15 by HP
[Nazar Sahib, We are on the same page here.]
So you agree with the paragraph just above?

IMHO, I do not foresee any substantial breakthroughs in the Kashmir issue, not at least in the foreseeable future. A lot of hype has been built around the CBMs but the unpleasant fact is that none of the two countries have conceded or are willing to concede anything. India will never agree to concede territory, howsoever nominal, and Pakistan will never reconcile to the LoC as the border. Other marvelous ideas being floated such as making the borders irrelevant, soft border between the two Kashmirs, joint control or a condominium type of arrangement are simply impractical, at least in the subcontinent. If ever such a thing happens, both countries will waste no opportunity to further their agendas and soon it will be back to square or even worse.

The harsh reality is that Pakistan has pushed itself into the corner by claiming ownership of Kashmir. There is no real exit or easy face saver from this extreme position. No country, least of all India, where Kashmir evokes strong emotions, will ever give away land that it has successfully defended in wars. Since India doesn’t lay claim to Pakistani Kashmir, the easiest thing for Pakistan to do would be to accept the LoC as the border and be done with it. But since ordinary Pakis over the years have been made to believe that Kashmir would be theirs one day (Kashmir banega Pakistan), it is not going to be a cakewalk either. But the Paki establishment must pay for its follies. Expecting India to do it would be naïve.

HP #15

`` That is a good assumption but how true is it? If the Pak army was under pressure to deliver Osama, then why is he not delivered? I would seriously question any proposition that even remotely suggests that the Pak army can defy the US pressure because it cannot and will not. AQ Khan has been singing the right song from the day one. He was never outside of the Pak army and the US probably had already talked to AQ Khan. I agree with the second part that fighting or even maintaining strained relation with India is not a good idea. We need to move forward on better relations with India. I see that as a very important step in turning Pakistan around both economically, and politically.``

Making peace with India may be less painful than delivering Osama. Who knows what secrets Osama will reveal ? Osama might be worth more than a fight with India which one may or may not win.


“Pakistani military spending in the early 1980s was close to 40% of total budget. The current troubles in kashmir began in 1989.”

`` The Kashmir issue was very much there before 1989. In 1971, Pakistan and India fought a war. After 1974 nuke test by India, relations went sour and again in 1984 the Indian army was pretty much on the International borders. Don’t forget the Pak support to the Khalisa movement in Punjab. Basically Pakistan and India have been taking potshot at each other for sometime and that is enough for the Pak army to extract as much as it can from the budget. ``

India and Pakistan were at loggerheads over Operations Brasstracks in 1986. There was never the kind of vitriol we saw in recent years. The cricket matches continued uninterrupted.

`` Trust is a difficult sentiment in international diplomacy. The better word probably is confidence but I used trust deliberately as the Indian side felt betrayed after the Kargil skirmishes and lack of confidence/trust was pretty much evident every step of the way as long as BJP was in power in India. With Congress, feelings are different. The army may not completely trust congress but over the years it has worked more with congress than any other political party in India and familiarity helps in improving the relations. ``

The Congress has been in power all the time minus 1977-80 and 1996-2004.

BeeJay #20 You say you want to face the following ``facts``:

``(1) the division of the subcontinent was a blunder``

This is your view, not a fact. While I always hear this refrain from Indians, I have yet to meet a Pakistani who thinks it was a blunder or that the partition should be undone. Pakistan is here to stay. Get used to that idea.

``(2) the political/religious leaders who pushed for it (no matter how well-esteemed by the masses (who were brought up on a daily aphrodisiac of the esteem medicine anyway)) SCREWED up and took whole populations along with them. (All the other problems followed.)``

Dont blame the ``masses`` for what you think of as a ``blunder``. The masses were smarter than you, and supported Jinnah for good reasons.

Re: # 23
//....I have yet to meet a Pakistani who thinks it was a blunder or that the partition should be undone...//

Atleast one paki said so - Altaf Hussain. He seems to be a big guy in pakiland these days - being part of the gov`t and all.

Anyway - I agree with you [who`d have thunk?]. Partition was NOT a blunder - there are good reasons why it was done and it should stay that way. It should never be undone or even diluted.

That`s why I don`t like this no-passport travel bullsh!t started by pinheads sitting in delhi..... it`s going to backfire.......Even though it helps some kashmiris in the short run - it has opened up possibilities for greater chaos by jinnah`s children on the wrong side of the border.

Partition is cool .... Peace must come with Passports[and visa].

BeeJay

Expecting Pakistanis to accept that the creation of Pakistan was a `blunder` is probably not a good strategy.

I don`t know how it can be achieved, but focus needs to be removed from the issue of partition. We should not feel compelled to justify it or denounce it.

#13 by Romair

Your post has three parts and I will take the bait.

Let me answer the simple question first and I don’t why Indians are unable to address the question of Natural Gas usage that you have raised before. India’s power plants are mostly coal fired and in Pakistan, natural Gas fires them. This perhaps is the reason for lower per capita consumption of Natural Gas. So, the correct comparison would be energy usage numbers. I think some knowledgeable Indian would come forward to answer the question in details.

“I heard on the TV that the world does not have enough resources”
The TV part is bait. If I know you from you from your other posts over the last one year, I know that you have studied this issue and you would be ready to discuss it with lots of numbers:)
It does not appear likely that any country in the near or even in the next 2 to 3 decades would reach the US standards of living. In this area, I make a distinction between the US and other Western countries. As many Asian countries almost or are at European living standards.
I think the US uses almost 30% of world energy supply especially petroleum products and Natural Gas. (Numbers are an approximation. I will get the right numbers later.) China is becoming another big consumer. India is still far behind and would not be a competitor in the next 20-30 years. There is no doubt that the US would like to maintain a constant supply of Gas. There is plenty of Gas available around the world and the cheapest untapped area is currently Iraq. There are Gas reservoirs in Caspian, Central Asia also that are mostly untapped but the cost to bring them to market is prohibitive. If the Gas price at the pump is higher in the US, the oil from expensive fields can be extracted but higher Gas prices means lower standard of living in the US. To keep the prices down the US must have some control over the Gas fields at least in the ME, which is a big supplier for the US.
One way to contain China’s energy demands is to slow down it pace of development and distribute the current investments going to China to other countries and India is a good prospect for that. The other way to slow china down is to create a military threat and make China invest more on defense. Can India be pressed into this role, only time will tell!

#19 by nazarhayatkhan
Nazar Sahib,
I watched him on India TV when Advani announced his plans to visit Pakistan. One thing that came to mind was why he wants to be in Pakistan when Kashmiri leaders would be in there. It turned out he stole the thunder from the Kashmiri leaders at least in the Indian media. While most of the Pakistani media covered Kashmiri leaders, He turned the Indian politics upside down. Was it all planned? Quiet possibly!

#21 Harish,

Just one more doubting Thomas!
Most of the Indian erroneously believe that Pakistan claims ownership of Kashmir. Pakistan asks for referendum in Kashmir and that is the long-standing Pakistan position. If India had invested in Kashmir, referendum could have gone either way. Rest of the stuff is just semantics. Countries fight over many things and make up too. So, it is not really a big deal if Pakistan and India have fought couple of wars.

Re: # 25 kaal
//...but focus needs to be removed from the issue of partition....//

you can`t. Partition is going to be in focus - that`s the nature of the problem we have. You can`t sweep it under the rug, so to speak.

what you can do is -understand and accept it. Actually majority of indians do understand and accept partition whole-heartedly. People like BJ are exceptions and they are detrimental in this situation[though their intentions may be good].

Re: # 5
re: arjun_m:

///What does this mean really? That the LoC will be like a border but Kashmiris won`t need a visa to cross?///

Possibly. Hazarding a completely hypothetical scenario, suppose, for example, that on paper any citizen of India or Pakistan could cross the LOC, given the approval of the Governments of India and Pakistan. The Pakistani Government would deny permission to anyone who cannot prove birth / equivalent resident status in Indian held Kashmir. This is the situation as it stands with the Muzaffarabad - Srinagar bus. Given the abysmal treatment that the two countries mete out to applicants for visas, India might well ( again, remember, this is a hypothesis ) restrict access to Indian Kashmir to Kashmirs in retaliation.

///How can the state government listen to both countries without undermining anyone’s sovereignty?///

A fair query.

It can, if the paradigm is moved beyond a zero-sum game scenario. For example, say, a uniform strategy for Primary Health Care implemented in both Indian and Pakistani Kashmir could, conceivably, be done with both sides agreeing. I agree that non-acrimonious, robust cooperation would be a minefield in areas such as Education, Internal Security ... but given the piecemeal, ``festina lente`` mood of the times, I don`t think that cooperation in areas that the two countries do not have any existing differences would be unreasonable.

///case in point...The (Indian) J&K clearly wants work on the Baglihar hydro-electric power project to continue but Pakistan is clearly against it....///

According to Annexure D of the Indus Waters Treaty titled ``Generation of Hydro-Electric Power by India on the western rivers``, [1] India is permitted construction of ``run-of-the-river`` hydroelectric power projects. It claims that the Baglihar Project is one. The dispute has arisen (if I recall clearly) over whether the size of the cachement area is greater than ``the sufficient magnitude to meet fluctuations in the discharge of the
turbines arising from variations in the daily and the weekly loads of the plant``.

The point being that if a State Government of Kashmir were to come up with a proposal that did not violate the IWT, then they could implement it.

I agree that there are millions of metaphorical miles to go before we sleep and the nitty gritties will take up a huge amount of effort, goodwill and time to be resolved, but I think that policy formation by Kashmir State in consultation with or jointly along with India and Pakistan is not out-and-out an impossibility.

Cheers,

A_S

[1] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSOUTHASIA/Resources/223497-1105737253588/AnnexureD.pdf

Re: # 15 HP

``as the Indian side felt betrayed after the Kargil skirmishes and lack of confidence/trust was pretty much evident every step of the way as long as BJP was in power in India``

So with Congress in power, Indians have forgotten Kargil and Mushy`s deeds? So how can you say talks with Congress government will be with trust when congress was at the helm of affairs during 47, 65, 71 (and 84 flashpoint) wars.

``The army may not completely trust congress but over the years it has worked more with congress than any other political party in India and familiarity helps in improving the relations. ``

Its a very absurd statement. It was NDA gov. which started the peace process. Sometimes you need new thoughts and ideas. I guess you missed this report.

---

We were upset when Vajpayee lost: Kasuri

LAHORE: Describing former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a ``courageous man,`` Pakistan said it was ``upset`` when his Government fell last year.

``I am today frankly admitting for the first time that we were upset when the Government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a courageous man, fell,`` Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri told a visiting Indian delegation here on Thursday night. He said during the NDA regime Islamabad had built a rapport with Ministers like Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha as well as National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra.

``We were not quite sure how the next government would be,`` Mr. Kasuri said. ``But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President [Pervez] Musharraf struck an instant chemistry in New York.`` Noting that a ``sea change`` had taken place in Indo-Pakistan relations, the Minister said the coming visit to Pakistan by Hurriyat Conference leaders was a ``big achievement`` and the Kashmir issue could be resolved peacefully if there was flexibility on the part of governments of both countries. — PTI

---

I hope next time you won`t go ga-ga over Sonia and Congress.

Re: # 16
re: arjun_m:

///His point is that Pakistan is India`s only hope for meeting it`s energy needs and that India has no option but to come crawling to Pakistan with Kashmir on a platter(at which point Pakistan will graciously accept Kashmir in return for natural gas)....remember..it`s Captain Clueless we`re talking about here....///

Wow :) That would surely be a superhuman feat of self-delusion. With investments in energy sources to the tune of billions of dollars, in places such as Sudan and Iraq (these are the ones that come to mind readily), India`s really not pinning it`s energy hopes on the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. And if we were ever desperate for Iranian gas, we could always revive the undersea pipleline plan that was under active consideration when relations between India and Pakistan were warmer.

But, arjun_m, can you please point out where HP made such a colossal blunder of self-delusion ? Where he said that India has no choice but to go to Pakistan for energy ? Or that India would give away fabled Kashmir in return for some gas? Or were you speaking metaphorically?

cheers,
A_S

Re: # 21
re : harish_hyd:

///Since India doesn’t lay claim to Pakistani Kashmir, ///

Whoops.

Parliament (under Congress` Narasimha Rao, I might point out) adopted a resolution [1] in 1994 which unanimously resolved that ``Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression``

Does that alter your stated position?

cheers,
A_S

[1] http://www.cifjkindia.org/legal_docs/legal_docs_006.shtml

Re # 31

OK. So lets call it Quid Pro Quo (or something like that).

India stops claiming POK and Pakistan stops lusting after J&K of India.
Will that work?