Religious hatred and greed for power combined with megalomania have made the political leaders of both India and Pakistan underrate the value of human lives. Lives are far more important than the outdated political principles, which spew around fundamentalism, fanaticism and hatred.
New Delhi blamed Islamabad-supported Kashmiri elements as the masterminds of an attack on the Indian Parliament last December. India protested by withdrawing its high commissioner from Pakistan.
Again, an Indian military barracks was attacked in Jammu, winter capital of the state of Jammu & Kashmir about two weeks ago. This time India did not stop at simply pointing an accusing finger at Pakistan for supporting Kashmiri separatist groups who, allegedly, carried out the operation. A million soldiers are standing ready at the borders to kill each other.
India also ordered the Pakistani high commissioner to leave India. The succession of events also coincided with assassination of a moderate leader of the separatist, Abdul Ghani Lone, in the Indian controlled Kashmir. The three wars fought between the two neighbors to end an issue thrust on them by the British colonialists have only resulted in increasing their losses of lives and money apart from slowing down the economic progress in both the countries.
India believes that it has the right to annex Kashmir without consulting anyone else and that such an act does not involve any violation of international regulations.
On the contrary, Pakistan believes that the Muslim-dominated Kashmir is an inseparable part of Pakistan as per the criteria on which the Indian subcontinent was partitioned. There is a third party in the issue. The Kashmiris themselves who demand that their land should be neither part of India, nor Pakistan but an independent state of their own.
Whatever may be the arguments of the disputing parties, the three wars in the past did not put the lid on the simmering issue.
The unrelenting stand adopted by the Indian authorities currently is frightening not only to the people of the region but also to densely populated neighboring countries as a war between two potential nuclear powers will cause the death and agony to millions of people.
There should be considerable restraint and sense of responsibility on the part of nuclear powers. Whatever may be the provocation they should exercise extreme caution in using them. Let us hope the United States would step up its efforts to stop the angry neighbors from jump into a hasty war, which would undoubtedly take out the sting from the American war waged in Afghanistan.
Whichever direction the belligerent posture taken by both the neighbors would take them, the Kashmir issue will remain unresolved. The nuclear menace will continue to loom over the people in the region so long as India refuses to enter a course of serious dialogue for a solution acceptable to all the parties. The cause for the current standoff is, apparently, not serious enough to hurtle them into another war. We believe that the Indian leadership is wiser than to stumbling in to the devouring flames of a massive war. Moreover, India has learned from the past experience that the war of this kind need not make one party a clear victor or the other a loser. The best course of action in these circumstances is to sit around a negotiating table without pre-conditions under the aegis of the United Nations, in order to find a final and just solution for the issue.
