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Delving for Solutions to the Kashmir Dispute

In a 2013 book, the late Stephen Cohen outlined the concessions required of Pakistan and India to resolve the longstanding issue

by Khaled Ahmed

File photo of Indian troops in India-held Kashmir. Tauseef Mustafa—AFP

In Shooting for a Century: Finding Answers to the India-Pakistan Conundrum (Harper/Collins 2013) the late Stephen P. Cohen produced a remarkable survey of the “Kashmir problem” in South Asia. Those who oversaw the distribution of territories at Partition failed to plan for the integration of Kashmir into the new two-state order, leaving both India and Pakistan with the impression that an injustice had been committed. Kashmir then came to play a role in the domestic politics of both states.

For Pakistani leaders, both civilian and military, Kashmir was a helpful diversion from the daunting task of nation-building. Also significantly, powerful Kashmiri-dominated constituencies have a voice in major Pakistani cities. Even abroad, there have been strong Kashmir lobbies in some European states, especially in a few British cities with large numbers of Kashmiri or Mirpuri migrants.

Many voices, many solutions

Because Pakistan’s citizenship laws permit voting in two countries, many British and American Pakistanis try to play a political role in Pakistan. By contrast, Indian law prohibits dual citizenship. However, India has had a small but influential Kashmiri Hindu community, which early on was overrepresented in the higher reaches of the Indian government, not least in the presence of the Nehru family, a Kashmiri pandit clan that had migrated to Uttar Pradesh from the valley.

Over the years many solutions have been proposed for the Kashmir problem. These have included partition along the Line of Control, “soft borders” between the two parts of Kashmir (pending a solution to the entire problem), a region-by-region plebiscite of Kashmiris, a referendum, U.N. trusteeship, the “Trieste” and “Andorra” models (whereby the same territory is shared by two states, or a nominally sovereign territory that in fact is controlled jointly by two states), revolutionary warfare, depopulation of Muslim Kashmiris and repopulation by Hindus from India, patience, good government, a revival of “human values”—and doing nothing. None of the plans have panned out, with the dispute persisting because of at least three factors.

Cold War views

The first factor is that of the cold war, which led both the American and Soviet administrations to see this regional dispute not for what it was but as part of the systemic East-West struggle. India and Pakistan were proxies, or treaty allies, and there was no incentive to look for regional solutions to regional problems, with the exception of the now-disputed Indus Waters Treaty. These efforts all failed, including a Soviet attempt to normalize India-Pakistan relations in the mid-1960s.

Second, both states have been inflexible where Kashmir is concerned. India’s strategy has been to erode Kashmir’s special status under an article of the Constitution of India. Delhi also pretends that the problem was “solved” by the Simla Agreement, and that it lies entirely with Pakistan, especially the Pakistan Army. This dual strategy of no change within Kashmir or discussion of it with Pakistan failed to prepare New Delhi for the events of the late 1980s. India rejected the political option, it rejected a strategy of accommodating Kashmiri demands, it excluded Pakistan from its Kashmir policy, and it has stubbornly opposed outside efforts to mediate the dispute.

Vulnerable claimants

Yet New Delhi lacks the resources and a coherent strategy to deal unilaterally with the Kashmir problem. The tepid reaction of a major 2012 study on Kashmiri public opinion was an absence of useful ideas; it received no government attention and stirred up little debate. Pakistan, on the other hand, has often resorted to force in attempting to wrest Kashmir from India—in 1947-48 and 1965–further alienating the Kashmiris themselves and providing the Indian government with the perfect excuse to avoid negotiations. It runs Azad (free) Kashmir with an iron fist.

The third factor, lies with global reactions to Kashmiri actions. While patently victims, they have not been reluctant to exploit the situation. The so-called Kashmiri Action Committee lobbying on behalf of the Kashmir “cause” in United States—with links to several other countries—was shown to be largely paid for by Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, and its American director was convicted and sentenced to prison. Still, the committee pursues the goal of an independent Kashmir, oblivious to the wishes of most Kashmiris and certainly to the views of the Indian government. This remains a diaspora cause, and while the grievances in Kashmir are real, it forwards no realistic strategy for resolution. Its efforts in Europe are also reliably said to be funded by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. One credible international project to devise a normalization strategy for Kashmir—and therefore for India and Pakistan—the Kashmir Study Group, came up with many good ideas and important new ways of seeing the dispute, but its attempt at policy recommendations never caught hold in either India or Pakistan, let alone among Kashmiris

Divided Kashmiris

Opinions among Kashmiris are themselves varied, beginning with different understandings of India’s original agreement to hold a referendum and Pakistan’s insistence that a referendum be held. India has always held that the conditions for a referendum, including the withdrawal of Pakistani forces, were never met, and in any case that several elections in the parts of Kashmir that it controls are testimony to the Kashmiri desire to stay within the Indian Union. It has been difficult to prove conclusively what exactly the people of Kashmir, on both sides, wanted in the 1940s, or want now.

A significant number of Kashmiris have always sought independence from India and Pakistan. The two states disagree as to which should control Kashmir and the mechanism for determining Kashmiri sentiment. There is also a seemingly well-intentioned proposal that Kashmiris be “consulted” or have a voice in determining their own fate. This is threatening to both Islamabad and New Delhi. Like the Middle East peace process, Kashmir elicits degrees of contentiousness.

Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Hindus

While the Valley Muslims feel aggrieved that they are dominated by India, other Kashmiri groups, especially the Pandits and the largely Buddhist population of Ladakh, fear having the state dominated by Muslims. Thus a number of proposals have suggested separating the Valley from other areas (Azad Kashmir, Ladakh, Jammu) and allocating parts of Jammu and Kashmir to India and Pakistan, leaving to the end the intensely disputed Valley. After reviewing several important books on Kashmir, distinguished American journalist Steve Coll is of the opinion that a workable agreement must be favorable enough to Kashmiris for the Pakistan Army to save face, but not so favorable as to provoke an unmanageable backlash from Hindu activists in India.

Politically, “Kashmir” is not a homogeneous issue in India and Pakistan. During the height of the 1990 Kashmir crisis, it was clear that the further the distance from Delhi and Islamabad, the less the passion. In Chennai, Hyderabad (Deccan), and Mumbai, Kashmir was and is considered New Delhi’s obsession; in Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, and Hyderabad Sindh, it is a secondary issue. In these provinces, relations with Islamabad and the Punjab are more important than Kashmir. However, the enormous television coverage given to the Kargil episode in 1999 gave the Indian public a shared image of the Kashmir issue that was in direct contradiction to what the Pakistan government-controlled media presented to its public over many years. By creating a generation of incensed Indians, this coverage also made compromise on Kashmir less likely.

Impediments to solutions

The only comprehensive solution to the Kashmir problem would involve many concessions and changes in relations between India and Pakistan (and within each state). A recent Indian government-sponsored study of public opinion in Kashmir is the latest in a succession of government and private efforts to arrive at suggestions on how to approach the problem. Like all of its predecessors, it was quickly forgotten, and even some study contributors privately add that it was both premature and not comprehensive enough.

The interlocutors had carried out their work conscientiously. They interviewed thousands of Kashmiris all over the Indian-controlled parts of the state, held public round-table discussions, and met with civil and military leaders. Although they were handicapped by the refusal of prominent separatists to meet formally with them, they did manage some informal contact. They could not sound out opinion in Pakistan-held areas, which were off-limits to them. Nor did their mandate include any invitation to make recommendations on how to engage the Pakistan government in bringing about a Kashmir settlement.

India-Pakistan permanent warriors

The report was buried by the Indian Home Ministry, which waited several months before releasing it, with the result that it came out at just about the time a more important study—of India’s overall defense and security policy—was delivered to the prime minister. Those who were hopeful that relations with Pakistan and Kashmir might improve found little to be enthusiastic about just then, with a weak Indian government divided on Kashmir and struggling for its own survival.

Settlement of Kashmir would require a number of measures: a change in India’s federal system, changes in Kashmir’s constituent parts, re-examination of the military balance between India and Pakistan, and provisions that would prevent the two states from again turning to arms in Kashmir. Above all, it would require major concessions on the part of Pakistan—and India might have to accommodate some Pakistani concerns in Kashmir itself. There also would have to be incentives for Pakistan to cooperate in such ameliorative measures, since its basic strategy is to draw outsiders into the region and to pressure India. For its part, India would have to demonstrate to Pakistan that it would be willing to make significant concessions, and also pledge that if Pakistan ceased its support for Kashmiri separatists, Delhi would not change its mind once the situation in the Valley had become more normal.

Possible non-solutions

The Kashmir agreement must be 90 percent face-saving; it must find reasons for both sides to accommodate the intensely held fears and feelings of the other, as well as those of Kashmiris themselves. This would be difficult but not impossible. One strategy would be to develop common criteria for a settlement, rather than resorting to stale and unresolvable arguments based on mutually exclusive interpretations of history. As democracies, both India and Pakistan theoretically place high value on human rights, not just principles of national self-determination. The latter narrow vision would be destructive to Pakistan as well as India and would be an unacceptably dangerous basis for setting the future in a region where every state and province vulnerable to the argument of self-determination.

This means there must be concessions by Pakistan on one of the principles on which it was founded. But if these rights can be effectively protected in other ways, then Pakistani concerns can be met. India must then treat its own Kashmiri population as if it had the rights and freedoms of all Indians, not just as an exceptionally troublesome province. In turn, India needs assurances that a more “independent” or “autonomous” Kashmir would not fall under the sway of Islamic extremists or separatists. In their two-day 2001 Agra summit, the countries made considerable headway on the terms of a Kashmir agreement, but in these basic concerns—minority rights on the Pakistani side and the preservation of the basic political order on the Indian side are minimum conditions of an agreement—the two sides are still far apart.

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