It is still premature to talk about a peace process in Kashmir, especially one along the lines of the troubled peace process in Northern Ireland or the collapsed peace process in the Middle East. There is, as yet, no semblance of a peace process in Kashmir involving India, Pakistan and the various factions within Jammu and Kashmir, but there are a few glimmers of hope on the horizon, which could provide grounds for a cautious optimism. This has all happened in the last year. In July 2000 the largest guerrilla force fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, the Hizb'ul -Muja hideen (HM), suddenly declared a unilateral cease-fire against the Indian forces. This was obviously a major development, but it was not as sudden as it seemed because the groundwork for this had been done by Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies as well as Hizb'ul Muja hideen representatives prior to the declaration of cease-fire. After declaring the cease-fire the Hizb'ul Muja hideen insisted that the Indian government must explicitly state within a two week time frame that, a) Kashmir is a disputed territory, and b) that tripartite discussions including Pakistan in addition to India and Kashmir representatives begin immediately in order to address this problem. The Indian government and leadership obviously could not be seen to give in to the demands of a militant group within a unilateral two-week deadline, so the cease-fire collapsed and the parties went back to war. Since then the Indian forces and the Hizb'ul Muja hideen as well the other more radically Islamist guerrilla factions have reverted to taking a heavy toll of each other's soldiers. That was a peace initiative that did not get very far but it did lay the basis for some progress in the future. There was a July/August cease-fire, which the Hizb'ul Muja hideen declared first and to which the Indian government reciprocated within days. It collapsed within two weeks but the most significant thing about that episode was not that it did not last, but that it happened at all.
Another glimmer of hope came from a unilateral Indian cease-fire in Jammu and Kashmir on 19 November 2000, declared personally by the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, thus lending the weight of the office of the Indian Prime Minister to the latest peace move. Vajpayee said that Indian forces would observe restraint in their counter-insurgency operations and cease operations of an offensive nature for the duration of the month of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which began in late November and was completed in late December. Pakistan, for its part, announced that its forces would observe maximum restraint on the Line of Control (LOC). It needs to be remembered that LOC is probably the most volatile and violence-prone de facto border in the world at the present time. It has been the scene of daily shelling, mortar firing, artillery shelling, machine gun exchanges and so on between Indian and Pakistani troops, leading to military casualties on both sides as well as to a lot of civilian casualties in villages abutting the LOC. What Pakistan has not yet publicly committed itself to is stopping or at least not encouraging the infiltration of guerrilla fighters from its side of the LOC to fight on the Indian side, which is India's foremost concern and demand. Obviously the Pakistani government cannot commit itself to doing that because it has always denied that it is involved at an official level in sponsoring these guerrilla groups who infiltrate across the LOC to fight the Indians. This would at least discourage these groups from their activities and make it more difficult for them to use Pakistani soil as a launching pad for operations on the Indian side of the LOC.
The bottom line however is that the positions of India and Pakistan and of the various factions within Jammu and Kashmir remain completely divergent and very sharply polarised, so any mutually agreed political solution or final settlement is a long shot at best. It is going to take years of step-by-step normalisation and then, if it ever does get to that level, years of difficult bargaining and negotiations to really deliver something resembling a solution to this very complicated problem. But what is most important at this stage is that the primary parties to the conflict, the governments of India and Pakistan, and important armed groups like the Hizb'ul Muja hideen, commit themselves to a cessation of armed hostilities and to a process of dialogue in principle. Once that commitment has been made it becomes easier to move forward.
Considering alternatives: a military solution
There is no military solution to this conflict. Over the past 11 years, India has waged an enormous and very costly, in financial and human terms, counter-insurgency campaign in Jammu and Kashmir in an effort to pacify the territory. The insurgent movement has had its ups and downs, but by-and-large it has become clear after all these years that India cannot win this conflict militarily despite its overwhelming superiority in man and fire power. Very determined guerrillas with cross-border support can always keep the conflict alive at a military level. So there are limits to even the most innovative Indian counter-insurgency strategies. It is worth pointing out that during the course of waging this counter-insurgency campaign India has lost whatever small credibility it may have retained with the Kashmiris even in 1990, because of the brutalities committed. These are an intrinsic and unavoidable part of any counter-insurgency campaign.
Pakistan waged two wars with the primary intent of taking over Jammu and Kashmir: the first in 1947/8, at the time of decolonisation; the second in 1965 when the Pakistanis devised a very elaborate plan called "Operation Gibraltar" to take over Kashmir in co-ordination with an indigenous uprising against Indian rule, which failed to happen. Over the last 11 years Pakistan has lent various forms of support and despite its protestations to the contrary, the Pakistani state has been deeply complicit in providing weapons, training facilities, finances, in addition to moral, political and diplomatic support to the various groups of insurgents fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sumantra Bose | An Indian army motorised patrol on the Line of Control in the Poonch district. The armoured vehicle in the front has been mine-proofed. "On either side there is no military solution to this conflict. India cannot pacify the population through purely military means, despite its overwhelming strength in police and military resources. Pakistan and its surrogate groups cannot really hope to undermine Indian morale, even if they keep up the insurgency for several more years." |
However, just as India cannot win the war militarily, the guerrilla resistance sponsored and supported by Pakistan has also not been able to gain the upper hand over the Indian forces. The more intelligent elements in Pakistan and among guerrilla groups such as JKLF or Hizb'ul Muja hideen have realised over the years that India is very determined to make a stand with regard to Jammu and Kashmir. However painful or costly it is for India to keep up this enormous apparatus of security and counter-insurgency, it is willing to pay the price.
On either side there is no military solution to this conflict. India cannot pacify the population through purely military means, despite its overwhelming strength in police and military resources. Pakistan and its surrogate groups cannot really hope to undermine Indian morale, even if they keep up the insurgency for several more years. Fundamentally, this is because India sees Jammu and Kashmir as very critical to its own sense of self as a state and is determined to make a stand however high the price.
Considering alternatives: referendum
Could a referendum solve the conflict? Although the referendum demand is historically legitimate, it has become totally obsolete. India will never allow any such exercise to be held, and Pakistan is only interested in using the unfulfilled referendum promise as a stick to beat India with. Pakistan has always insisted at the official level that any plebiscite that is held should have only two choices: India or Pakistan. This means that a referendum loses meaning for the large pro-independence segment of the population in Jammu and Kashmir because their choice is not even accommodated on the ballot.
Apart from being unfeasible, the referendum idea is not an appropriate solution to settling very complex and sensitive issues of so-called national self-determination. This is especially true in societies that are internally divided, like Bosnia, where a referendum on independence, which was massively boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs who made up about 35 percent of the population in 1992, made civil war inevitable.
One must pose the wider question: what is a referendum actually about? A referendum is a zero sum game. It is a situation where the winner takes all and the loser is left with absolutely nothing. In the case of the Bosnian Serbs, they were left with absolutely nothing and they had no incentive to continue being conciliatory but had every incentive to go to war to carve out their own Serb "statelet" in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is precisely what they did, as they were on the losing side of the referendum because a temporary and tenuous alliance of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats had outnumbered them.
Something similar could well happen in Kashmir, which is already a very divided and polarised society. The local fabric of coexistence, however strained, is still there in many places but could break completely if a referendum is contemplated, a referendum in which some people get everything they want while others find that their worst fears have come true. What is needed in Jammu and Kashmir is a step-by-step approach to normalisation and confidence building between the various parties, leading eventually to a solution where no one side gets everything they want, but no one side is left completely high and dry either. Some kind of intermediate solution, which can reconcile the competing maximalist claims of the different parties, should remain the ultimate goal. Holding a referendum would violate the basic logic of such a process and could only have inflammatory consequences.
Considering alternatives: independence for Kashmir
Unfortunately, independence is not a very feasible option. I think neither India nor Pakistan has any intention of giving up control of their respective parts of Jammu and Kashmir. That is probably an insurmountable hurdle to the realisation of this independence, which has great romantic appeal among a large section of the population in Jammu and Kashmir.
But more importantly, the advocates of the independence formula as a solution want an independent state within the original borders of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed in 1947, including what has been since that time, the Indian-controlled part of Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistan-controlled part of Jammu and Kashmir, and one part which has actually been under Chinese rule for the last 40 years or so. India and Pakistan would have to be persuaded to give up territorial control. States with a strong sense of national interest and national identity are typically not the most willing parties to giving up territory that they control and which they see as indispensable to their existence as states for both ideological and strategic reasons. Furthermore, China would have to be persuaded to give up its chunk of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. So you can imagine how difficult it would be to persuade two and possibly three states to give up territory under their control.
Moreover, the population of Jammu and Kashmir itself is deeply divided. Although there are a lot of people who prefer independence as a first option, there is also a great number whose allegiance is to India. This number comprises not just Hindus and Sikhs but also some Muslims, including some even in the Kashmir valley, which is the focus of the Azadi or Freedom movement. There is, of course, a third group whose loyalty and identification is with Pakistan. So what realistic chances are there that these pro-India and pro-Pakistan groups among the citizenry of Jammu and Kashmir would happily agree to being taken out of their respective countries? How realistic is it that they would agree to live as citizens of an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir? I do not think an independent Jammu and Kashmir would stand a chance of survival in these circumstances because the pro-India and pro-Pakistan segments of the population would work very hard from the outset to undermine this independent state, either from within or from exile. We would have a Bosnia-like situation in an independent Jammu and Kashmir.
Considering alternatives: employing a mediator
There have been suggestions that Nelson Mandela be called upon to mediate in this conflict. I am not sure that Nelson Mandela is ready, willing and able to take on such an onerous burden at this stage of his life. More seriously, India is in particular very opposed to third party mediaton. There are a number of reasons for the Indian stand but it has its origins in the colonial experience and the feeling that powerful western countries come and start throwing their weight about, advising people how to behave, how to conduct internal affairs and how to resolve conflicts. That sets off a visceral reaction among many Indians. Indeed, for most of the cold war, India was more aligned with the former Soviet bloc than with the US bloc. Pakistan, on the other hand, was more the US ally in the south Asian region. So there is a strong residual suspicion of US motives in particular that is very widespread in Indian élite thinking. For these reasons, India is opposed to any third-party mediation, especially by a powerful western country, which could well have its own interests and its own agenda in the conflict.
That said, the US is still the only country in the world that has the clout and the leverage necessary to make some sort of positive difference. What I have suggested, among other things, is something that is not styled as mediation, because this sets off a visceral and negative reaction in that part of the world, especially but not only among Indians, but a more discreet, low-key facilitation which could be much more effective potentially than self-styled, self-conscious direct intervention or mediation. I think the US has been trying to play such a facilitating role in a low-key, discreet fashion. That does seem to be the way to go. It is an approach that could yield some dividends.
In addition to that, if a world-renowned statesman like Nelson Mandela would lend his name, stature and moral authority to some peace process once it gets off the ground, then that can only help. So low-key, discreet facilitation rather than direct mediation could be more effective in narrowing the differences between India and Pakistan and the various factions in Jammu and Kashmir.
Can Kashmir learn from Northern Ireland?
Northern Ireland and Jammu and Kashmir are both severely divided societies with different groups of citizens holding radically different self-conceptions of national identity and political allegiance. In both these regions, conflicts are defined by an intersection of mutually reinforcing domestic and international factors. So there is in fact a certain broad similarity in the configuration of the two conflicts.
I think there are two lessons that can be profitably drawn from the Northern Ireland peace building experience for any as yet hypothetical Jammu and Kashmir peace process. The first is that any process of dialogue must be as inclusive and as broadly based as possible. That is, anyone who is willing to participate, regardless of their political orientation, should be invited to the discussion table, to participate. It is better that they shout at each other than fight each other with guns. This principle avoids a situation whereby any group that is left out of the peace-making process and so has no stake in it, continues or perhaps even intensifies violence.
One of the reasons for the vulnerability of the Northern Ireland peace process, but also the reason for its relative success, is that the dialogue was as inclusive and broadly based as possible. People were not left out of the peace process simply because they were supposedly the political representatives of terrorists, radicals or militants. Everyone was invited to participate and make a contribution. That is a very useful lesson. If some groups choose not to participate, then that is their problem and their choice.
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| Thinking Point | |
| What are the various options and possibilities for peace in Kashmir? How credible are each of these alternatives? | |
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The second lesson or principle to be gleaned from the Northern Ireland model of building peace is how difficult these processes inherently are and how many setbacks, ambushes and pitfalls there are along the way. Northern Ireland, of course, has been in a much more favourable situation compared to Jammu and Kashmir for a settlement to be reached and sustained, but the lesson is that any peace process is necessarily a very gradual incremental step-by-step process. It is extremely unrealistic and can be very dangerous to expect results overnight, very soon, or even within a few years. A violent, protracted conflict has to be first de-escalated and some conditions of normalcy have to be reestablished from the ground and in the relationship of the different parties, and only then can we contemplate a substantive political process that addresses the basic causes of the conflict: the root factors if you will. So it will take years, at best. That is an optimistic projection, for any tangible concrete results to show up but, as Northern Ireland tells us, that is the intrinsic character of peace processes.
