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Monday, Dec 06, 2004

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Time to get serious on Kashmir

By Teresita C. Schaffer & Howard B. Schaffer

New Delhi and Islamabad need to agree on concrete steps that could change the situation on the ground in Kashmir.

SENIOR FIGURES in Islamabad, Delhi and Srinagar have recently made some unconventional statements on Kashmir. Despite major differences among them, a few bits of common ground are beginning to emerge. This invitation to look beyond established policies may herald the beginning of a long-overdue redefinition of the most emotional issue on the India-Pakistan agenda. To move things forward, the Governments involved should match their words with visible gestures that show they are serious.

Consider the following:

* On October 25, President Musharraf suggested "as food for thought" that Kashmir should be seen as seven regions, two of them now administered by Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas) and the other five by India. He suggested that they be demilitarised as a prelude to considering a change in their status. He mentioned such possibilities as U.N. administration, Indo-Pakistani condominium and independence, with the clear assumption that they need not all be handled the same way.

* On November 18, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was winding up his first visit to Kashmir and preparing to receive Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, a senior Indian official floated in the press a series of "principles" to guide settlement talks. These included the familiar caveats that India would not consider changes in the map or a realignment of regions on communal lines. However, it also included a clear statement that self-rule needed to be much expanded for Kashmiris on both sides, and that the goal should be a settlement with open borders and free interaction. The official said that restoration of most of the pre-1953 arrangement on autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir was not unthinkable. In other words, the Indian Government is prepared to take another look at the autonomy proposals put forward in 2000 by the elected State Government in Jammu and Kashmir and rejected without discussion by the previous Indian Government.

* While both statements were predictably controversial in India and Pakistan, personalities in Kashmir, from Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed to several senior figures in the Hurriyat Conference, reacted with hope and expressed an interest in hearing more.

The details of these proposals are very far apart, and many of them raise serious problems. But the important thing is that very senior people are encouraging the public to take a fresh look at how to resolve the Kashmir issue by thinking about ideas that are not part of their standard positions. Other unconventional ideas have also become part of the public debate, notably one developed by a group of retired Indian and Pakistani officials and published by the Kashmir Study Group (in which both the authors are members). This "Way Forward" proposes the creation in Kashmir of one or two demilitarised "sovereign entities without international personality," while the Line of Control remains in place as long as India and Pakistan wish it to.

Strengthening this call for new thinking on Kashmir is a series of concrete actions by India and Pakistan. In October, India allowed a group of Pakistani journalists to visit Jammu and Srinagar. In early November, India announced that it would withdraw an unspecified number of troops from Kashmir, and the first few hundred troops began leaving on November 17. Thinning out the Indian security presence has for years been at the top of the "wish list" of Kashmiris from the Indian side — and of Pakistan. While information on infiltration is hard to get and impossible to verify, it is hard to believe that any Indian troop withdrawal would have been announced, let alone initiated, if the Indian Government did not believe that infiltration was down. And both Governments have maintained the ceasefire across the Line of Control for a year now. Pakistan has done this despite India's continued work on a fence along the LoC.

Looking carefully at the most recent statements, one can identify a few bits of common ground.

* First, both Governments now acknowledge that Kashmir is a multi-religious and multi-ethnic place, and that the problem is primarily one of people.

* Secondly, there is a general recognition that Kashmiris are stakeholders in the dispute, and that stronger and more complete self-rule for them needs to be part of a settlement.

* Thirdly, Indians, Pakistanis, and Kashmiris all hope for a solution that leaves Kashmiris free to move back and forth. A senior Indian official was quoted as saying there should be the ambience of "a borderless world."

* Fourthly, while India and Pakistan are clearly still trying to achieve as much as possible of their original goals, they recognise that a settlement must be politically acceptable in both countries and to the Kashmiris.

We may now be seeing the first steps toward a new public discussion of how to define the arena within which a solution to Kashmir can be sought. The Indian and Pakistani officials and leaders who are scheduled to meet in the next few months have a unique opportunity to move forward in the long, complicated search for a settlement. First, they should try to expand the common ground that is starting to emerge, and work toward a rough agreement on the principles that could guide a settlement. The goal should be a solution that is peaceful, honourable, and practical for all the stakeholders.

But the real objective should be action, not just words. New Delhi and Islamabad need to agree on concrete steps that could change the situation on the ground in Kashmir and symbolise the willingness of the two Governments to overcome their differences.

The establishment of a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad is the most promising of these measures. This highly visible action would convey to Kashmiris and to people all over India and Pakistan that there is now hope for a new beginning.

(Teresita C. Schaffer is director of the South Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Howard B. Schaffer is director of studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University. Both are retired U.S. Ambassadors with long experience in South Asia.)

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