SRINAGAR, 17 October 2005 — The mountains of Kashmir may have buckled, but India and Pakistan do not seem to have budged.
South Asia’s nuclear rivals had an opportunity to build bridges out of the ruins of this month’s devastating earthquake, and boost their sluggish peace process.
But analysts and many people on the Indian side of disputed Kashmir say it already looks like an opportunity missed.
“I wish the governments of India and Pakistan had treated this as the extraordinary humanitarian tragedy that it is and come together on its own merit,” said Sandeep Waslekar of the Bombay-based International Center for Peace Initiatives.
“Unfortunately, both sides have not been able to rise beyond politics,” he said. “This shows that there are serious problems in the policy apparatus of the two countries.”
India has sent aid and sympathy to the people of Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, and even proposed joint relief operations across the frontline — an offer Pakistan spurned.
But in Indian-controlled Kashmir those gestures have rung hollow, where relief has been slow to arrive and government officials conspicuous by their absence.
Both India and Pakistan have begun to talk about “soft borders” to ease the painful division of Kashmir, and usher in peace. Today, amid the suffering, the border remains as hard as ever, ordinary people unable to even telephone the other side to find out if relatives have lived or died. “If India would have allowed telephone links, people-to-people contacts, it would have given a boost to the peace process,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Kashmir’s main moderate separatist leader.
“If India and Pakistan would have coordinated efforts to provide relief and rehabilitation, it would have given a boost — but it hasn’t happened.”
Just three years ago Indian and Pakistan troops stood eyeball-to-eyeball across the mountains of Kashmir, and the world sweated about the possibility of a slide toward nuclear war.
Today the atmosphere has changed dramatically. The two sides agreed a cease-fire along the frontline in Kashmir in November 2003 and began peace talks the following year. Tourists have returned to the shores of Dal Lake and the mountains at Gulmarg in Indian Kashmir, and a limited bus service was even launched in April to link the capitals of the divided territory. But violence has continued to blight Kashmir — half a dozen people are killed every day, adding to the tens of thousands of deaths in 16-years of insurgency against Indian rule.
India says Pakistan is still supporting the militants and allowing them to cross the border. Pakistan says India is dragging its feet in the search for a solution to the dispute.
On those fronts, at least, signs were not good this week.
India says militants have been exploiting the chaos of the quake by trying to sneak across the frontline. Others already in Kashmir were blamed for killing 10 Hindu civilians a day after the earthquake and attacking a military camp on Saturday.
Nor was there much sign, as some had speculated, that the militancy might have suffered a body blow in the earthquake.
Just the opposite in fact, as bearded men carrying Kalashnikovs appeared in the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir to play a leading role in the relief effort.
Militants, observers said, were only likely to be winning more hearts and minds this week. On the other side of the frontline, India’s army also played a leading role in relief efforts. But this has been largely overshadowed by what is seen as the government’s failure to make its presence felt in remote mountain villages.
Many Muslim Kashmiris already feel alienated from the rest of India. That sense of alienation has only grown, along with a reinforced sense of Kashmiri identity.
“If the government does not help us, we are ready to take up arms,” said 22-year-old Imtiaz Ahmed Awan, sitting amid the ruins of the village in Dildar in northwest Kashmir.
“If they had acted fast there was a chance to win our hearts and minds, but they are losing that chance.”
Separatist leader Farooq last month resumed peace talks with New Delhi after more than a year’s gap, but says he is already coming under pressure from hard-liners because he has little to show for it.
India has turned down pleas to withdraw some of the estimated half a million troops it has stationed in Jammu and Kashmir, release political prisoners or repeal laws giving the security forces sweeping powers to shoot or imprison suspects. Its unwillingness to even open phone lines amid this week’s suffering does not bode well for the future, Farooq says. “They just have to push a button and the lines would open,” he said. “A government which promises so much ... is not ready to even assist in one small thing.”
