Apparent restoration of normalcy in the Valley should not make us complacent. This may be no more than a sign of fatigue. After all, for nearly 10 years the people of the Valley have been living in a state of terror, not knowing when and from whose hands violence may strike them and shatter their lives. So this may turn out to be a false dawn, a lull before the storm. We must make a move before the storm breaks again.
Recent massacres in various parts of the Jammu region and relative lull in the Valley indicate a change in the tactical line of the militants by creating a sense of terror in the districts of Rajouri, Punch, Udhampur and Doda. By forcing the Hindu inhabitants to leave their homes and seek refugee in the Hindu majority areas of the region as well as by consolidating their hold on the Muslim inhabitants through violence and appeal to religious sentiments they are trying to enlarge the areas that may join Pakistan in the eventuality of an internationally supervised division that they hope for, with or without plebiscite. The daily dose of violence which has numbed our senses and blunted our moral sensibilities should not make us lose sight of this strategic objective of the militants.
The trans-border terrorism which has indeed assumed the form of a low intensity proxy war by Pakistan is likely to smoulder with the infiltration of non-Kashmiri and non-Pakistani foreign elements who have been trained in Afghanistan. Pakistan's success in Afghanistan has bouyed up the foreign militants who are not all mercenaries in the strict sense of the word.
Kashmiri militants are being to a great extent replaced by Pakistanis and Afghans-trained, armed and financed by the ISI. The Taliban regime having extended its sway to the western and northern borders of Afghanistan and anxious to win international recognition and occupy the Afghan seat in the UN, equally anxious to earn revenues from the oil and gas pipelines from Central Asian Republic of Turkemanistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, may not like to be a sitting duck for the next rain of American missiles. So short of handing over Osama ben Laden to the US, it may like him and his cohorts to keep a low profile or call it a day and move elsewhere. Having participated in the liberation of Bosnia, Chechenya and Afghanistan, the Valley may lure him as his next stop, the next field of action. But it is doubtful whether Pakistan would take the risk of escalation and precipitate a full-scale conflagration. Yet the foreign mercenaries may again hot up the Valley. And not only that but vitiate the social environment all over the country. Already the Indian press is seeing a 'red' under every bed, an ISI planted arms cache in every Masjid and a training camp in every Madarsa and an 'Islamic' fundamentalists in every Muslim home!
One thing is possible, Pakistan itself may face a Kashmiri soil. The Pakistani establishment and the Pakistani elite, barring the fringe orthodoxy are already feeling mortally threatened. On top of the ethnic clashes, the sectarian violence, the Mohajir alienation, which they are unable to control, Afghan intervention, with or without welcome carpets rolled out by the orthodox elements, will plunge Pakistan into a civil war.
Incidentally, it is a matter of deep regret that, one of the top leaders of the Hurriyat Ghulam Nabi Lone has invited the Taliban to march into the state. However, the Taliban cannot fly in; it has to pass through Pakistan territory. Will Pakistan let them transit? One does not see the possibility. Such moves only discredit the movement whose ostensible objective is self-determination, translated as independence. Moreover, Kashmir nurse a historic antipathy against the Afghans which sets a limit to cooperation and support the Afghans may receive from the Kashmiris. One hopes that Lone's is a lone voice and the Hurriyat leadership does not support him.
So, on balance it is doubtful that Pakistan desires to raise the level of insurgency to include tanks and aircrafts, because India might well retaliate by striking at Pakistan in reprisal, at any point of its choice or at least engage in hot pursuit. On balance it appears doubtful that the two countries which have in the past avoided all-out wars and have refrained from bombing civilian targets in 1965 and 1971 will permit, notwithstanding the occasional shelling across the border, the escalation of the present conflict into a regular war.
Furthermore the possession of nuclear weapons by both sides may also dampen the ardour of the hawks, on both sides. Pakistan also realises that the Kashmiris, as stated above, have no love lost for the Afghans and that foreign militants are not always welcome and their presence is sometimes resented by the Kashmiri militants At the political level also Pakistan has given no public support to the demand of independence for the State and, against the wishes of the so-called Azad Kashmir Government, it has already integrated the Northern Areas into its national territory. Pakistan is, therefore, quite clear about its objectives which are no more and no less than the integration of the Muslim majority areas of the State particularly the Valley. This policy of territorial aggrandizement flies in the face of those Kashmiri militants which are committed to independence. But a section of them have not concealed their acceptance of eventual integration of "independent Kashmir" into Pakistan. There is, however, a clear contradiction between Pakistan and a section of the Kashmiri militants who interpret self-determination as independence, apart from to contradiction between section of the militants and their foreign comrades who are for un-Islamic Revolution a la Afghanistan.
Now that the northern and western parts of the Jammu region have been affected by the insurgency, time is running out for India to come to a settlement with Pakistan. In order to force India into negotiations on Kashmir, Pakistan is generating pressure through internationalisation. India has a stake in the political stability and the economic viability of Pakistan India also cannot afford a civil war in Pakistan, if democratically elected government fails to deliver the goods and collapses.
The question, therefore, before the decision-makers in India is whether entering into bilateral negotiations on Kashmir without any co-lateral conditions with defeat Pakistan's tactics of internationalisation. The emergence of the two countries as nuclear weapon States, whether we like it or nor, has brought the question of Kashmir into sharp focus as is evident from the Resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council and the appointment of a Representative by the UN Secretary General to visit the Sub-continent. Even those states which support and endorse the idea of settlement of the Kashmir question through bilateral negotiations are not prepared to leave it to the negotiators but would like its progress to be monitored internationally. Thus pressure is building up for an early settlement.
The Government of India has failed in what should have been its priority to win the heart and mind of the Kashmiris. The holding of State and Parliamentary elections and the installations of a democratically elected government has done little to assuage to bruised psyche of the Kashmiri people.
One more aspect needs to be considered. The deliberate use of former militants who have surrendered in counter-insurgency operations in support of security forces must cease. The real task of our security forces is to stop infiltration and to chase out or liquidate those who have already infiltrated and not to punish our own people for their alleged cooperation or hospitality. The state should not wage a proxy war against the people.
The Kashmiris are beginning to question why the Central Government has not yet formulated the package of autonomy; why the Committee appointed by the Farooq Abdullah Government has not yet submitted its report, and why not one step forward has been taken, since the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao spoke of "maximum autonomy with sky as its limit", towards achieving the goal. The coming to the power of the BJP-led Government in Delhi, with its longstanding demand to the deletion of Article 370 from the Constitution, even though it does not form part of the national agenda of governance at present has added to the doubts and suspicion in the Kashmiri mind. Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah's friendly gestures to the BJP-led Government and the support extended by the National Conference to the Central Government in the Parliament have revived the feeling that the State Government shall continue to be no more than a pliable instrument in the hands of the Central Government.
Even if the Kashmir problem is not accepted as the core of the Indo-Pakistan relations, the state of the mind of the Kashmiri people is the core of the Kashmir problem. We can ignore it at our peril. On one hand India has to agree to substantive negotiations with Pakistan on the question of Kashmir and on the other, it has to re-engage itself in the battle for the heart and mind of the Kashmiri people. We do not have unlimited time at our disposal. Already much time has been lost in prevarications over the autonomy question.
Theoretically, if we can win over the Kashmiri people Islamabad presents no real threat to the status quo. But even if we force Pakistan into accepting our terms, because of our superiority in diplomatic leverage and fire power, the fires will continue to smoulder in the Valley.
Now that the Prime Ministers have given the green signal for resumption of bilateral talks, one hopes that the talks would go beyond the form to the substance. It is time that we worked on a blue-print for an eventual solution of the Kashmir problem. We have first to reduce its dimension of the problem. We should begin by integrating Ladakh and Jammu as Pakistan has integrated the Northern Areas. We should, at the same time, present a package of full autonomy to the Valley, within the framework of national sovereignty, and challenge Pakistan and the Kashmiri leadership for a matching disposition for the so-called Azad Kashmir. We should offer demilitarization and disengagement on both sides of line of control and its conversion into a soft international border so that the Kashmiris in the Valley and the people of Jammu can have free access to the Kashmiri migrants in Pakistan and vice-versa. If situation improves, in stages, a new structure can be devised for the Valley which would give the people the essence of freedom, short of independence and balance its relation with India and Pakistan.
We cannot escape the responsibility for sincere efforts, on the premise of permanent and perennial hostility of Pakistan towards India. The younger generation in Pakistan and a growing section of intelligentsia, are beginning to see the future of Pakistan in friendly and good neighbourly relations within India and as part of a Sub-continent free of religious and ethnic fratricide. Their aspirations should not be thwarted.
To put it in a nutshell, Pakistan knows that they cannot snatch the rest of the State from us by force, we know that we cannot retake the Pok and the NA and the people of the Valley know that they cannot be independent against the joint will of India and Pakistan. Yet, to avoid disaster, India and Pakistan can accommodate each other to secure the security, dignity and progress of the Valley.
History has once again brought India and Pakistan to a point when they face common threats.
Wisdom and statesmanship demand that India and Pakistan form a team to defend the Sub-continent. Team- work demands reconciliation and understanding: For the security and progress of the Sub-continent, the Kashmir question must be resolved.
1st October, 1998
New Delhi,
