A window of opportunity still exists in Kashmir

Kashmiris are the vicitims of political brinkmanship by both India and Pakistan, writes Tom Hussain

Kashmiri protesters throw stones after Indian paramilitary troops fired tear gas during clashes in Srinagar. Tauseef Mustafa / AFP

Ten years ago, Kashmiris were elated. After decades of warring over the territory, India and Pakistan had agreed in principle to dissipate tensions by allowing the free movement of people and goods across the line of control. The two countries were to withdraw one million soldiers from Kashmir and administer it jointly, with Kashmiris gaining ever more autonomy as progress was made towards a final resolution.

It was to have been the ultimate diplomatic win-win. The expectation at the time was that the leaders of India and Pakistan would have earned global plaudits for their statesmanship and vision in ending two centuries of Kashmiri disenfranchisement.

The historic event never happened, furious Kashmiris have reminded an indifferent world since July 8, when popular young rebel Burhan Wani was killed in a gunfight with Indian security forces. The scale of their collective anger has been staggering: some 3,500 people injured, hundreds blinded and at least 42 killed as the protesters have courted confrontation with their armed oppressors.

The immediate cause of the violence is the behaviour of the Indian authorities, in particular the security forces. There is hardly a human rights atrocity that has not been perpetrated against people that India asserts to be its citizens. They have been brutally denied a substantial voice in the decision-making process that binds them. And they are branded terrorist sympathisers for supporting separatist politicians.

Beyond that, however, the resentment has assumed desperate proportions because India and Pakistan lacked the moral courage to sign the agreements drafted during the 2004-2007 Composite Dialogue. The reason: geopolitical competition trumped concern for the well-being of the public in Kashmir, as well as in India and Pakistan.

The deals were ready for signatures in the summer of 2006, but ceremonies were delayed by the electoral cycle in India and regime change in Pakistan. The dust looked to have settled in the autumn of 2008, when Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari sought to reinvigorate the diplomatic process by offering a “no first nuclear strike” pact to India.

What followed was brinkmanship most foul. Pakistan-based militant Islamist groups forced to demobilise in 2003 by Gen Pervez Musharraf, to facilitate the diplomatic process, suddenly re-emerged to wage war on the people of Mumbai.

Shortly after, I travelled to areas of eastern Pakistan known to be recruitment centres for Lashkar-i-Taiba and its despicable ilk and found a training camp within the urban sprawl of Gujranwala, an industrial city with a large ethnic Kashmiri community. The scowling militants and their sympathisers I spoke to had a common message: we can do nothing without the permission of the state.

Since then, India has refused to talk to Pakistan about Kashmir unless the militant outfits are permanently decommissioned.

That stance has found considerable diplomatic support, particularly from the United States, with Pakistan’s quite pathetic response being that it does not want to crack down on pro-state jihadis because it would push them into the camp of insurgents gathered under the standard of the Pakistani Taliban.

There is factual merit to support that position: the insurgency movement was founded by disgruntled ranking members of the purportedly pro-state militant groups when the government shut them down. That is no excuse, however, for Pakistan’s track record of using Al Qaeda-associated proxies who justify their actions by grossly misrepresenting Islam and Muslims – the Kashmiris, in particular.

Pakistan’s failings have been seized upon by India as the justification to resume its regime of oppression in Kashmir. Cynically posing as the victim, it has branded the people there terrorist sympathisers to justify state violence that is wholly inconsistent with policing methods used against the frequently raucous protests that characterise Indian democracy.

No Indian government could survive if the security forces killed and maimed as many protesters in a democratically ruled part of India as they recently have in Kashmir. The constitutional order would throw its leaders out of office and into jail to face charges of murder.

Obviously, there is one set of rules for Indian citizens and another for people living under the harsh colonialist regime in Kashmir. This fact cannot be glossed over by the government’s belated attempts to engage separatists, which are motivated by embarrassment rather than any belated sense of realisation.

Much of what is to follow in Kashmir will be determined by the leaders of India and Pakistan.

If the will exists, there is still a narrow window of opportunity to direct popular sentiment into a constructive political process that would de-escalate the violence in Kashmir, as well as reducing tensions between India and Pakistan.

If not, as seems to be the case, a disastrous cycle of violence similar to that seen during the 1989-2002 uprising will follow. Hate-mongering nationalists on both sides will fuel the situation until it reaches a tipping point.

Then a clueless world will wonder why a Himalayan backwater is the cause of a nuclear standoff that threatens everybody.

Tom Hussain is a journalist and political analyst in Islamabad