SRINAGAR, 27 November 2004 — The latest proposals put forth by Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf about the resolution of the Kashmir dispute have stirred up interesting debates in both political and public circles here.

Even as some have termed these proposals as “a stand-down on the stated Pakistan position on Kashmir,” others have expressed satisfaction over the fact that the ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan is at least moving ahead.

Musharraf has made the Indian position unenviable. New Delhi had traditionally been blaming Pakistan for being rigid on Kashmir. With his latest proposals the Pakistan president has moved forward from the traditional stand of his country, which was nothing short of a complete merger of Kashmir with Pakistan. Musharraf’s stand will have to be analyzed against the backdrop of the historical position of his country. “The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, called Kashmir the jugular vein, and no ruler ever since has had the courage to call Kashmir anything less. Now that Musharraf is frank and open to debate about the possibilities of new and informed solutions on Kashmir, it will be very difficult for India to stick to her stated position of Kashmir being an integral part of India.”

These words of a Kashmir watcher may very well indicate the course diplomacy will follow in the days to come. But, there is no denying the fact that given the changed geopolitical realities in the region, both India and Pakistan shall have to give up their stubbornness on Kashmir. “The solution could be anything, but there is no doubt about the fact that both the parties would have to take the people of Kashmir into confidence. After all, it is the destiny of the local people that is at stake,” says Zahir-ud-Din associate editor of the prominent local English daily, Greater Kashmir. So far as the pro-India and the separatist political groups are concerned, both have divergent views on the possible solutions to the imbroglio, but there appears to be an interesting closing of ranks between the two with regard to the perception that Kashmir is still an unfinished task.

It was this broader consensus of minds that brought the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, to power in the assembly elections of 2002. Although the number of participants in those elections always will be debated, there is no doubt about the verdict. Kashmiris ruled out the historical well-entrenched regional National Conference because for almost all Kashmiris, the National Conference has been reduced over the years from the champion of the pro-Kashmiri cause to a mere watchdog of Indian interest in Kashmir.

“I have always said that the solution to the problem still needs to be found,” said Chief Minister Sayeed at the end of his two years in power. “I have been pleading for an end to violence so that the festering wounds of the local people are addressed. “I want to wipe tears from the eyes of the people through a better deal in development, education and governance. Developments of past few months have vindicated the stand of my government on the resolution of issues through dialogue and discourse. There has been movement forward on Kashmir.”

There had been a marginal reduction in separatist violence during the two years Sayeed has been in power, but after the declaration of the bilateral cease-fire by the Indian and Pakistani forces on the Line of Control (LOC), the lives of the thousands of locals living close to the borders has undergone a sea-change for the better. “It is almost after a decade that we have been able to reap the crops that we had sown in the spring. For most of the years in the past, our crops and houses would be destroyed by trans-border shelling. The shell holes left behind have been filled, and crops are growing at these places,” said Ramzan Chechi, 52, a resident of the Uri border village in the valley.

The winds of friendship wafting India and Pakistan are definitely touching the lives of the Kashmiri people. “Although ground situation has not improved dramatically, there is a general feeling of ease in the hearts and minds of the local people. They somehow feel a final peace could be round the corner,” said a minister in Sayeed’s Cabinet. “Talks of a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, the easing up of travel restrictions between the Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of Kashmir, the visit of journalists and pilgrims from Pakistan to the Valley are all indications that the more than 50 years of frozen snow in the relations of the two neighbors are melting. Kashmir is the crucible where all the sincerity and the genuineness of the relations between the two South Asian players must be weighed and judged,” says one analyst.

“It is most heartening that Kashmiris believe for the first time that the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service is finally a reality. I have been pleading that this bus be started immediately. It has a great psychological impact. When walls are falling everywhere why should there be restrictions on travel between the two parts of Kashmir,” said Mehbooba Mufti, the chief minister’s daughter and one of the strongest advocates of free travel between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. Ever since the accession of the state with India in 1947 the separatist politics in Kashmir have been divided between two slogans: One for complete independence for both the Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of the state and the other for the merger of the state with Pakistan. The pro-Independence movement is led by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) whose founder, Maqbool Bhat, was hanged in the Tihar Jail after a murder trial under Indian law.

Presently, the chairman of the JKLF, Yasin Malik, is carrying forward the agenda of total independence for Kashmir. Malik has been advocating complete freedom for parts of Kashmir and as such has often had to face stiff resistance from those separatists who want Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan. Although all the separatist politicians formed a united political conglomerate called the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) in 1993 to provide a political platform for the armed struggle against India, the APHC has been mired by internal bickering and fighting for supremacy within the group. It was because of the ego clashes between the Hurriyat leaders that the conglomerate formally split into two groups in 2003, immediately after some of its leaders under the chairmanship of the senior Shia leader Moulvi Abbas Ansari decided to hold parleys with the Indian leadership. The hard-line constituents of the Hurriyat rallied behind the senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and formed their own APHC group which is now known as the breakaway All Parties Hurriyat conference with Geelani as its chairman.

Earlier this year, Geelani also announced his own political party, named the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Jammu and Kashmir. He, however, maintained that the formation of a new political group did not in any manner indicate he was breaking allegiance to his parent organization the Jamaat-e-Islami. Although he is estranged from some of the other senior leaders of the Jamaat, Geelani still remains the most powerful leader with the Jamaat.

The contours and complexion of the armed struggle have also undergone a sea-change since the first separatist gunshots were heard in downtown Srinagar in July 1989. It was predominantly under the control of the local armed youth when it started here in 1989. All the armed separatist groups were comprised of local boys, and the leadership within those groups was in the hands of the local youth. Over a period of time, the Pan-Islamist groups started being lured toward the armed struggle in Kashmir, whose religious contours could no longer be wished away, as the entire region was in a political flux because of the developments in Afghanistan and Iran. Even now, the separatist armed groups are made up of both the local youth and Pan-Islamists. “One big difference between when it started and now is that the armed struggle in Kashmir is no longer cosmetic. It is really underground and lethal at present,” said a senior police officer here. “As more and more committed local and foreign youth joined the armed movement, it is a one-way road for those involved in the fight against the Indian security forces in the state. It is probably because of this commitment and hardening of attitudes that we have very few surrenders now. Those fighting against the security forces keep on fighting even when the odds of survival are actually zero.”

To create a political space for itself between the two extremes of complete independence and merger with Pakistan, the regional National Conference played the card of internal autonomy by passing a resolution in the state assembly in 2000. But, ironically, even when the federal government in India always kept its doors of dialogue open with the separatist leaders, the autonomy resolution of the National Conference was summarily thrown into the dustbin by the central government immediately after it was forwarded to New Delhi for consideration by the then Chief Minister Dr. Farooq Abdullah. As autonomy found few takers both in Kashmir and outside, the only possible solution lay in India and Pakistan discussing the issue directly.

It was against this backdrop that the famous Agra Summit was held where the Indian and Pakistan leaders met to sort out the apparently intractable issue. The seriousness and the hard posturing between the diplomatic offices of the two countries resulted in an unenviable situation where even the two sides could not agree on the draft of a mutual declaration. Although both the sides were hard fixed in their stands, the fact that continued border skirmishes between the two had exploded into a major conflict in the Kargil region and that both the countries had acquired nuclear capabilities forced the world, which had shifted from its polar power equation to a unipolar all-American influence, to intervene at the diplomatic and the economic levels. This forced the two countries to re-evaluate their historic rhetoric on Kashmir.

Suddenly Kashmir became the major issue, but not the sole issue between the two countries. This eased tensions between the two nations to a large extent. A bilateral cease-fire that came into effect in 2003 is holding fine, and more and more think tanks and pressure groups have joined the fray trying to work out a framework for a lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute. As the guns fell silent on the borders, India started a multimillion dollar project to fence both the Line of Control and the international borders with Pakistan. As India said, this was “necessary to stop incursions of militants into Kashmir.” Pakistan has been maintaining, “This is not the solution, as India would have to address the political aspirations of the people who live in the Kashmir heartland and hinterland”. Although Pakistan raised objections to Indian fencing efforts, it has not intervened militarily to obstruct the fencing exercise, which is nearing completion, according to the Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who recently concluded his visit to Kashmir.

The ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan is progressing along the expected lines, or at least the two sides are saying so. But there is a simmering discontent within the local separatist camp over the final intentions with regard to such a peace process. Geelani has been warning Pakistan of any “backtracking on Kashmir” which he said would be fraught with “dangerous consequences.” But, Geelani’s detractors in the separatist camp, including Moulvi Omar Farooq, have welcomed the latest Pakistan initiative on Kashmir. This has had a twin effect. On the on hand the rift within the separatist political camp has widened, while on the other hand it has given some credibility to the possibility of a future solution that might negotiate the traditional stands of both India and Pakistan somewhere midway where the “national prestige and interests of both, the countries could be respected”.