Dear Sunil
8th January 2002
In seven years at university in the US, I met a great many Indians-and some I still count among my dearest friends. I have seen deep admiration and passionate love develop between Indians and Pakistanis. But what I have almost never seen is agreement on either Kashmir or partition.
So for me, a Pakistani, to try to convince you, an Indian, that my side is right would be futile. What I suggest instead is that both of us lay out our views on Kashmir and see whether there are ways in which we can reach an understanding-if not about the past, then about the future.
In 1947, at partition, the princely states in India were asked to choose between India and Pakistan. All but three made their decisions before partition came into effect. Of the three that remained unsure, two-Hyderabad and Junagadh-had Muslim rulers and majority Hindu populations, and were not geographically contiguous with Pakistan. The third, Kashmir, had a majority Muslim population and a Hindu ruler and was contiguous with Pakistan. The Maharaja of Kashmir wanted to be part of neither Muslim Pakistan nor socialist India and hoped to make Kashmir independent.
While he dithered, there was an uprising among some of his Muslim subjects and Pakistani tribesmen from areas surrounding Kashmir made their way to within 30 miles of the capital Srinagar, to force Kashmir to join Pakistan. The Pakistani line on this is that the government was not involved in the invasion, but it is almost certain that there was some kind of support. The Maharaja panicked, called India to help him out, and signed an accession agreement in favour of India. (The then prime minister of Kashmir insists the instrument of accession was signed after Indian troops arrived in Kashmir, rather than before, as most Indian politicians of the time claimed.)
In 1948, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir-the UN was called in to mediate and a UN resolution was drawn up calling for a plebiscite, so that the Kashmiris could decide which country they wanted to join. The plebiscite was never held but the ceasefire line in the war became the "line of control" between the roughly one-third of Kashmir under Pakistani control and the two-thirds under Indian control.
India now says that the accession agreement proves that Kashmir is an integral part of India. Pakistan says that the UN resolution proves that the matter was never settled. Pakistan also adds that if the accession agreement was such a sacred document, then India had no justification for sending its troops into Junagadh in November 1947, some weeks after Junagadh acceded to Pakistan (an odd move given its geographical position-but for India to claim both Kashmir and Junagadh is still a bit cheeky).
Fifty-five years later the situation has changed in various ways. The biggest change is in Kashmir's attitude towards both Pakistan and India. A Kashmiri once said to me, "why should we want anything to do with either of you, we've been caught in the middle all these years." There was nothing I could say to that.
Yes, Pakistan has given more than just moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiri separatists-and yes, some of the separatists use terrorist tactics which detract from the struggle for self-determination. But let us not forget that between 30,000 and 70,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989 and the bloodiest hands belong to India's security forces.
The Kashmir issue is so wrapped up in national emotions that neither side can be seen to be giving in to the other. So let us both give in to the Kashmiris instead and talk about the right of a people to choose their own future. Eqbal Ahmed, the finest of Pakistan's thinkers and a man who could see beyond borders of all kinds, proposed a solution that recognised three parts of Kashmir: Pakistan-administered Kashmir (Muslim majority), which should remain under Pakistan's sovereignty; Jammu (Hindu majority) and Ladakh (mainly Buddhist and Shia Muslim), which should stay under Indian sovereignty; and the most populous central Valley (Muslim majority), which should become independent. He also said "unite the territories, keep the sovereignties divided... remove the lines of control... keep trade free... create, instead of a bone of contention, a bridge of peace." This is my basis for how to proceed. If we're going to find a way out of this dispute without destroying each other, it must be through such a glittering leap of imagination.
Yours
Kamila
Dear Kamila
9th January 2002
"A glittering leap of the imagination," is an attractive thought. But we need realism as well as imagination. And in order to advance we must look at the historical facts in a new light.
Let me begin with an apparently simple question: what is Kashmir, where does it lie? In one sense, it has become an ideological figment, a place transmuted into a symbol-one that holds a foundational position in each of the origin-stories of our two states. To India, Kashmir is the glinting emerald in its now tarnished secular, republican crown. To Pakistan, it has been a constant taunt since 1947 of the incomplete project of shepherding the diversities of sub-continental life into the pens of two distinct nations, identified by religion.
But Kashmir is also a real place, a land of spectacular beauty but of grim cruelty; a paradise littered with ruined lives. What has produced the battered reality of Kashmir is a brutal question that has overshadowed its history for 50 years: who owns Kashmir? The question has resisted any stable or settled answer. How should we think about this?
First, it's important for all involved in the dispute-Indians, Pakistanis, Kashmiris-to acknowledge that the nation states left by the British empire were not naturally-given territorial entities: they were fragile political projects. What can sustain these political projects is not heavy-breathing over maps and border checkposts: rather, it can only be the continuing ability of these states to persuade their members to believe in these projects and to want to remain part of them. Pakistan has already failed once in this regard-witness the secession of Bangladesh in 1971-as forceful a rebuttal of the "two-nation" theory as any one could imagine. Today, India stands perilously close to a parallel failure in Kashmir-a failure to make the Kashmiri people believe in the Indian idea. This requirement to sustain a political project through belief applies also, of course, to those who dream of a Kashmiri state-and there is no single vision among Kashmiris of what such a state might look like. (This explains why they have taken to inflicting violence on each other: witness the recent attack by fellow Kashmiris on Abdul Gani Lone, the Hurriyat conference leader.)
You raise the issue of the accession of Kashmir. Much is made of the choice of the Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh. But another important dimension tends to be forgotten: the role of Kashmir's most outstanding 20th century leader, Sheikh Mahomed Abdullah. For all his faults, the Sheikh was able to create and lead a popular, secular and left-wing movement (Kashmir is one of the few states in India which saw a degree of land reform). To him and his colleagues it was clear (though intermittently he appeared to waver) that the future of his people lay in a secular India, not a sectarian Pakistan. Sheikh Abdullah is the only leader who can claim to have emerged with some popular legitimacy in Kashmir-and it counts that he should have inclined towards membership in the Indian Union. Kashmir's presence within India has at least as much to do with the Sheikh's role (and the extent of popular support he enjoyed) as it has with the accidents of geography, or the caprice of the Maharaja.
It is important to remember that, as a part of the Indian Union, Indian Kashmir has always possessed a special constitutional status. Amongst other things, non-Kashmiri Indians are barred from buying property in Kashmir; as far as I understand, this is not the case for the portion of Kashmir which has come to be in Pakistan's hands. I believe that this special status will be the key to peace in Kashmir.
When Indians and Pakistanis start to debate Kashmir, talk swiftly turns to the UN resolutions of 1948 and 1949, which enjoined Pakistan to withdraw from occupied Kashmir and India to hold a plebiscite. But there is little to be gained by dwelling on these facts. The conditions for holding plebiscites of the sort specified in the UN resolutions simply do not exist any longer.
If recourse to legalist strictures cannot resolve the Kashmir dispute, nor-I know we can agree-can military might. Decisive and outright victory is not likely for any of the parties. Pakistan is not in a position to wrest the (mainly Muslim) Valley from India and armed Kashmiris cannot on their own defeat Indian power. India, for its part, has much practice in attritional policies that squeeze insurgencies dry (think of Assam and Punjab); it is trying to follow this same callous route in Kashmir. But Kashmir is quite different.
Between 1972-when the Simla Agreement was negotiated by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the aftermath of the Bangladesh war-and the late 1980s, Kashmir was fading as a live issue of contention between India and Pakistan. Both states seemed to be settling into an acceptance of the line of control as their de facto border. The most recent cycle of violence, from 1989-1990 onwards, is the product of two factors. The disregard and destruction of democracy by New Delhi in the region stacked up a tinderpile of resentment, ready to be sparked exactly when demobbed mercenaries from the war in Afghanistan were flooding into a crisis-ridden Pakistan, and also when the messages of radical Islam were radiating out from Tehran and elsewhere. This new cycle is thus much more intimately linked to international developments. It occurs in a changed Indian context as well, for the 1990s have seen the rise of a militant Hinduism, and a changing balance between the central state and the regions.
The real issue is that of how to ascertain what the Kashmiri people want. The machinations and manipulations of Indian governments have destroyed any legitimate representative political agencies that might today speak and act on behalf of all Kashmiris. This has gone so far that now it is difficult for the Indian government to know with whom it should negotiate. India's derelictions are all too real. On the other hand, it is a little hard for me accept that Pakistan's interest in Kashmir derives from its solicitude for the democratic wishes of the peoples of Kashmir. It sticks in the craw to hear the self-elected Chief Executive of Pakistan doling out instruction on the virtues of democracy and self-determination. Ask the Sindhis, the Baluchis, and the Pathans about their experience of the Pakistani state over the past 50 years. Could the Kashmiris hope for better?
The responsibility for the failure of representative politics in Kashmir is pretty widely distributed: New Delhi, Islamabad, and Kashmiri leaders themselves, all share the blame for undermining representative politics. Who today represents the Kashmiri people? I do not know what they really want and I suspect you do not either. I find myself instinctively suspicious of those who claim to know, or to speak on their behalf.
The only realistic future for Kashmir continues to lie within the Indian Union. It will never become a province of Pakistan-the only way Pakistan could hope to bring this about would be through military victory, a pretty unlikely scenario. Total independence for Kashmir is also a pipe-dream. Surrounded by India, Pakistan, China and Russia, an independent Kashmir would become a constant pawn in a new version of "the great game": it might be able to extract short-term advantages, but it could not survive as an independent actor in such a geopolitical context.
Kashmir's future lies within India. But the Indian state for its part will have not only to reiterate Kashmir's special constitutional status, it will have to deepen it. Greater autonomy will have to be passed to the regional government in Srinagar. This goes right against Hindu chauvinist views about Kashmir-views that today pervade the Indian government, which wants to "integrate" it and abolish its special status. Yet this is a period when the terms of Indian federalism are more generally being re-negotiated, with many powers being ceded by New Delhi to the regional state capitals of India. The case of Kashmir could thus at once become a beneficiary and a catalyst of what is an inevitable process.
There are of course many hindrances to this. On the Indian side, besides the strident new Hindutva chauvinism, the old nationalism also speaks in a wooden language when it comes to Kashmir. On the Pakistan side, there is a continuing refusal to accept the line of control as marking the legitimate end of Pakistan territory. Aside from extremist Islam in Pakistan and the national ideology, even General Musharraf himself is something of an obstacle. Musharraf comes from a generation that was traumatised by the defeat and break-up of Pakistan in 1971-this generation still dreams of a breakaway of Kashmir from India, as a recompense for the existence of Bangladesh.
How can one move towards a resolution? Three initial moves will be necessary. First, the cyclical violence will have to be stopped. This means an end to terrorism (yes: this is a difficult word but perhaps we can agree that it at least covers violence against civilians), and an end too to Pakistan's support for this across the border. Equally, it means a restraining of the Indian military's free hand in the state. Second, Pakistan and India will need to acknowledge that the line of control will henceforth function as the border between the countries. Third, the Indian government will have to put great effort into talks with the Kashmiri people and their leaders: this will mean helping to sustain representative organisations. The outcome of such talks cannot be known in advance-and it is here that India's leadership will have to show the greatest imagination and innovation. New Delhi and Indians outside Kashmir will have to begin by accepting the profound depth of Kashmiri mistrust and aversion to rule from Delhi. Only then can the long, slow project of building trust even begin.
Yours
Sunil
Dear Sunil
10th January 2002
Who owns Kashmir? The Kashmiris do. It's that simple. That the Kashmiris are not, as you say, a monolith with one set of beliefs is what makes it a complex issue. But India and Pakistan both persist in making a complex issue impossible.
I am willing to go along with you, for the sake of argument, in putting aside the matter of the UN plebiscite that never happened. And I am completely in agreement with your idea that nation states are kept viable by a principle of belief that holds together disparate peoples. But there must come a point when a government will allow that it has failed in its attempts to convince a certain group that they are part of that imagined nation.
I don't dispute that Nehru tried very hard to bring Kashmir into the fold of his imagined India with the special status he granted Kashmir (for the record, Kashmir on "this side" of the line of control does have an autonomous government which controls local affairs). But if years of special status during India's most secular government could not prevent the Kashmiri tinderpile from building into an inferno-in-waiting, then can you really say that tens of thousands of deaths later, and with Indian secularism giving way to Hindu chauvinism, India is only "perilously close" to a "failure to make the Kashmiri people believe in the Indian idea"? At what point would you concede that the time for that idea has passed? (A side note on fundamentalism in our two nations-on the rare occasions when Pakistanis are allowed to vote, they reject the religious parties. India, with all its years of democracy, has actually voted into power the hardline BJP. Clearly, Indian society is now quite different from the secular India of Nehru.)
When Pakistan's leaders talk about the sanctity of democracy in Kashmir I, too, am amazed that they can speak with a straight face. I agree that territorial and strategic interests are of far greater concern to the armed forces than is democracy. But there is indeed an analogy to be drawn here between Kashmir and Bangladesh. In 1971, East Pakistan chose to break away from West Pakistan, because the Bengalis there were being oppressed and their demand for independence was a legitimate one. Without India's assistance that independence might never have been won and certainly would not have been won so quickly. India talked about the democratic rights of the Bengalis, but it's clear that India was motivated by self-interest. The point is: India's motives in assisting the Bengalis did nothing to alter the legitimacy of the demand for Bangladesh. Similarly, let's put aside Pakistan's motives over Kashmir and just talk about Kashmir.
We both agree that the real issue is the will of the Kashmiri people, and finding a way to ascertain that. But in your view, that will of the people cannot include a demand for independence because that's not practical. I suggest we allow the UN and the various Kashmiri leaders the chance to be the central players (with India and Pakistan also in attendance) in a discussion that explores all the workable options for Kashmir's future-even if it means forming a new kind of state, with some role for the UN to prevent any "great game" being played out. If the Kashmiris want Kashmir to be part of India, then fine. And if they want to be part of Pakistan, fine also. But please, let's not shut off any options on the basis that we-rather than they-have decided it's not workable. And when the discussion is done, let's meet in Srinagar and raise a glass to peace.
Yours
Kamila
Dear Kamila
10th January 2002
Has the Indian idea failed Kashmir from the outset, as you imply, and should the India state now acknowledge this and cede any claims to it? I do not believe so. Over the past 50 years, the political form that has usually failed its members is that of the ethnically homogenous and "pure" nation state-the desire that wishes to make the state belong to a single, religion, culture or ethnos. On the other hand, the political form that over the same period has managed a somewhat better degree of success is that of the large republic, which can contain diverse and conflicting interests and identities. States of this kind, rather than singular and exclusive ones, have been a better haven for liberty. India, still, remains such a state. The BJP commands less than a quarter of the Indian vote-the vast majority do not support it. In fact, the last decade has seen the rise of regional political parties in national politics-they are the crucial actors in the current coalition national government. This is a positive augur from the point of view of bringing the interests of the Kashmiri people into the heart of the Indian state.
I fear you are rather over-optimistic about the UN-we have no precedent that suggests that it could fulfil in any sustained way the role that you would like it to play. The UN has at best been able to act as a restraint in certain situations. For it to be a positive actor, one which could enable the creation of a new kind of state and which could keep this viable, it would have to become something different to what it has so far proved itself to be. So, I'm afraid I would reiterate my three practical points: an end to terrorism and a greater political control of the Indian military; the acceptance by Pakistan and India of the line of control as a full border; and a vigorous effort by the Indian government to begin the process of talking with Kashmiri leaders. Let us, indeed, meet by Dal Lake and raise a glass, or a cup of kava, to peace.
Yours
Sunil
Dear Sunil
12th January 2002
Of course a republic which can contain diverse and conflicting interests and identities works better than a homogenous state. I assume you raise this in order to return the argument to India vs Pakistan and partition. I believe that Pakistan's creation had more to do with securing the political rights of a minority than it did with a narrowly imagined "two nation theory." But that is for another day.
Perhaps we're both optimists. I, in regard to the UN-and you in regard to India. Just as well: pessimists never dream new dreams. It seems to me that the UN is looking for a role that will help it define its function in the century ahead-I think it could find that role in Kashmir. I also think (now I'm repeating myself) that we need at least to allow a discussion of all options regarding Kashmir's future. By all means, discard those that don't work-but at least let the discussion take place without preconditions. After all the bloodshed, that's the very least India, Pakistan and the world owes Kashmir.
Yours
Kamila
Dear Kamila
13th January 2002
I am not trying to frame the argument around an India vs Pakistan thesis. My point is one about the conditions in which political liberty and social diversity have a better chance to flourish. The preconditions for this have less to do with the existence or otherwise of cultural or religious homogeneity than with the continuous presence of an effective and stable state-one that can operate in the face of the insistent military and economic pressures that confront modern states. It is hard for me to foresee how an independent Kashmir could be such a state.
Over the past few weeks, as the possibility of war between our countries has risen, I have felt very pessimistic. Yet today, as I read the words of General Musharraf-against tolerating terrorism in the name of religion-I see a reason to feel some optimism.
Let the violence stop. Let the voices of the Kashmiri people speak to and be heard by New Delhi, and let there be a wider and, yes, fully open discussion of the issues. My hope is that if better terms can be created for Kashmir within the Indian Union-terms that secure it more autonomy -then the argument that it makes sense for Kashmiris to see their future in India will win. That option can only be chosen if it expresses the conviction of the Kashmiri people: it cannot be enforced by military means. On that at least both Pakistan and India must agree.
Yours
Sunil
