Abstract
Each time Indian and Pakistani officials emerge from a round of talks, their stony expressions revealing nothing, one feels a sense of despair. Whether the talks are about a permanently snow-bound and inaccessible area like the Siachen glacier, where the two armies are in perpetual confrontation, or something as innocuous as sorting out minor irrigation problems involving shared water resources, one issue keeps coming up as the stumbling block–Kashmir.
Apartheid has ended in South Africa, the Middle East is tentatively edging towards peace, and there is a peace accord in place in Northern Ireland. But India and Pakistan cannot settle their disputes.
Why is Kashmir so important? Has it been projected as important only by politicians in both countries? Or does it matter to ordinary people in India and Pakistan? Do they really care whether it remains a part of India, whether it becomes independent, whether part of it opts to be with Pakistan, or whether the cease-fire line that divides Kashmir becomes the permanent and accepted border between India and Pakistan?
I would not volunteer an opinion on what Kashmir means to ordinary Pakistanis, but I can confidently say that to a large number of Indians, particularly those living in the distant south, Kashmir is about as exotic and as different as Switzerland. In the subtropical regions of the south, the snow-covered mountains of Kashmir seem very far away and not even remotely a part of their daily realities.
In popular imagery, too, Kashmir has always been thought of as exotic. Many of us grew up with images of Kashmir from the popular Hindi film, Kashmir ki Kali (Rosebud of Kashmir). It was a land of houseboats and beautiful women, of high mountains and thick pine-covered forests. For decades, Kashmir was the favorite location for romantic Hindi films.
In recent years, television has replaced the beauty of Kashmir with images of the terror and violence that are part of people's daily lives. There are also images of displacement, of the thousands of Hindu Kashmiris who have left the Muslimdominated Kashmir valley and now live in temporary camps in Jammu or in other parts of the country.
And a constant image is that of angry Kashmiri women demanding “Azadi”–freedom–and that the Indian army leave their land.
But calls for “Azadi” have also been heard in India's northeast, where ethnic tribal groups like the Nagas, who live adjacent to Burma, have never accepted being a part of India. They declared their own independence from the British a day before India did.
Then why is Kashmir an exception? Why is the case of the Nagas not as important? Obviously, because no country will speak for the Nagas. Kashmir, on the other hand, has become a political football for the leaders of India and Pakistan to kick around at will.
There was a slight glimmer of hope when Benazir Bhutto first came to power in Pakistan in 1988 at a time when Rajiv Gandhi was India's prime minister. There was hope that a generation not burdened by the legacy of hate left by the division of India into two countries would find a way out. They tried and they failed–precisely for the same reason that their predecessors had failed, and why those who have followed continue to fail.
India needs enlightened statesmanship of a kind not easily seen in countries where politicians only plan for the next elections. Most people genuinely interested in ending the tension between India and Pakistan, especially now that both nations have turned nuclear, suggest that Kashmir should be set aside and other differences settled first.
Sadly, all such attempts have broken down in the past because just as there is some progress, say on economic cooperation, politicians on one side or the other demand that the Kashmir question be settled first. Rather, the Pakistanis want the Kashmir question to be settled, while the Indians maintain that the future of Kashmir is not up for discussion and that the Pakistanis should stop meddling in India's internal affairs.
And so history, geography, and contemporary politics divide and distance two countries that ideally ought to be friends and work together. Meanwhile the Kashmir ki Kali is literally wilting.