CAMBRIDGE, Mass., 23 October 2004 — The announcement of the third round of composite dialogue between Pakistan and India further strengthens the normalization process. Given the unpredictability of life generally and of politics specifically, it maybe be unwise to rule out a reversal of the normalization process, yet the odds are heavy against any reversal. As this bilateral dialogue moves along, its most attentive observers are the Kashmiris, the fundamentals of whose political future will be potentially affected by this process.
For long struggle and betrayals have been the hallmark of the collective Kashmiri existence. Since the end of the nineteenth century the broad contours of collective Kashmiri existence have been marked by struggle and betrayals. Under the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, the British colonial government sold the Muslim majority state of Jammu & Kashmir to Maharaja Gulab Singh for seventy-five lakh rupees. Kashmiris then resisted the Dogra atrocities through the early to mid-twentieth century. They were denied the right to determine their future after the British colonialists departed, they were stripped of their special status by the Indian state in the fifties, lived through bogus democracy in the eighties and were tormented by state terror since the early nineties. Kashmiris now find themselves victims of the military and ideological cross-fire between the occupation forces and a variety of armed guerrillas. They are disappointed by the often flawed strategy of their principal supporters, the Pakistanis.
The cumulative impact of all this is that the Kashmiris today find themselves caged in a paradoxical state. For example they view Pakistan with hope and disappointment, expectation and skepticism, passion and bitterness and anger and attachment.
With Pakistan the Kashmiris connect at various levels — both positive and negative. Early this year a Kashmiri visiting Pakistan responded to a question about what do the Kashmiris think of Pakistan with a little anecdote. He said when he asked his six Kashmiri friends what they would want from Pakistan the majority said, “Pakistan kee mitee lay kay aana.”(bring us the earth of Pakistan). Many present wanted to know from him why were the Kashmiris not angry with Pakistan for “messing up” their movement. In response he admonished them for their ignorance about the Kashmiri suffering at the hands of the Indian forces. It was difficult for anyone present to reject his views as coming from a “religious extremist.” He was an English-speaking professional Kashmiri.
However many months later in Washington at a meeting with some Kashmiris, now living either in the US or Pakistan, many complaints against Pakistan were being articulated. A relatively younger Kashmiri who had recently returned from a home visit to the Kashmir Valley vehemently complained about the “gun”.
“I want to tell you that people are fed up with the gun,” he angrily said. People want to live a normal life. He was really saying, “We blame Pakistan for the gun.” Others supported him. But simultaneously they painfully and angrily recalled how each one’s close family member had been killed by the Indian forces. They were worried about Pakistan negotiating for anything less than the plebiscite during the ongoing talks. But they also wanted “some settlement.”
Kashmiri complaints against Pakistan have always been there. In discussions with Kashmiri leaders from the Valley, whether it is Mir Waiz, Shabbir Shah or Yasin Malik, the complaint has always been of Pakistan’s lack of trust in Kashmiris, its support of the “wrong people”, its “unclear Kashmir” policy, its role in introducing “the intolerant religious” element into the Kashmir jihad.
After the Jan. 6 joint statement, the JKLF leader Yasin Malik was livid. In a telephone conversation Yasin said he was “not against the process but keeping the Kashmiris out of it can cause the psychological breakdown of the movement.” An agitated Malik asked how could “an ignorant Kashmiri align himself with the peace process.”
The Kashmiri concerns will multiply as the dialogue process goes further. Their frustration with the Pakistani state is understandable as is the inherent limitation of a state supporting a political movement outside its borders. With all its support, affiliation and involvement, the Pakistani state and the Kashmir movement must stand apart from each other.
If the Indian engagement with Pakistan on the Kashmir dispute is strategic and substantive and not merely tactical, then the Kashmiris must look inwards. They must come together to emerge as a unified political force identifying the broad contours of a settlement acceptable to them. If they remain in a flux they will not be able to influence their own political future. Merely blaming Pakistan for the internal dynamics of the APHC will not help the Kashmiris.
— Nasim Zehra is a fellow of the Harvard University Asia Center.
