India celebrated
its Independence Day on August 15 with profound reverence; obviously, even
after 65 years have passed, a sense of huge achievement still lingers.
It is wished that
India continues to make great strides in all spheres of life, enabling its
people to finally realise the dream of an equitable development that will
actually add to the real sense of achievement. And on August 14, Pakistan also
observed its day of independence. The entire Indian sub-continent, nearly
consisting of one fifth of the humanity, rejoicing is in itself a remarkable
feat. Yet there is a tiny black spot on the moon, as separatists have asked
people in the valley to mark August 15 as a black day.
For that matter,
Kashmir has been experiencing a complete shutdown on the Independence Day for
almost quarter of a century.
The Independence
Day is naturally a moment of great pride and gaiety. Alas, in Kashmir it’s
reminiscent of an intractable conflict. Notwithstanding the fact that both
India and Pakistan consider the conflict on Kashmir a territorial dispute,
people of Kashmir treat the problem as denial of their fundamental rights. The
differing understanding of the nature of this problem has added to the
complexities of this dispute. Does this problem entail a simple conflict on
Kashmir or is the Kashmir dispute merely a symptom of a much larger and a
deeper conflict? In case Kashmir is the only reason and cause of the conflict,
there is still some hope left. Despite its proven intractability for the last
65 years and having triggered two-and-a-half Indo-Pak wars, the problem may get
resolved eventually, irrespective of the question when. However, if Kashmir
turns out to be a symptom of a deeper malice, there is absolutely no hope of
any solution to be found howsoever strong the desire for peace might be. It’s a
simple analogy: A property dispute between two siblings, no matter how much
stubborn the respective claims could be, is probably resolvable with a proper
give and take. On the contrary, resolution of an ideological dispute even
between two brothers, unless one among them is completely overpowered, is
highly unlikely.
Kashmir hangs in a
perfect balance between hope and despair. Pakistan’s new envoy to India Salman
Bashir has claimed that the newfound bonhomie between the two countries has
never been like this.
Certainly, there is
a marked upswing in the relationship between the two ever-bickering neighbours;
several confidence-building measures have considerably improved the
atmospherics.Still India and Pakistan have miserably failed to reach an
agreement on even marginal issues like those of Sir Creek and Siachen. Kashmir
is quiet, yet the dispute remains unresolved. Pakistan is placed at a
precipice, still it has not given up the option of supporting militancy inside
Kashmir. The Indian Army is bracing for an eventuality of a Taliban influx in
Kashmir after the 2014 American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Will Pakistan
again push foreign militants inside Kashmir to take on the Indian army? What
does that mean? The disastrous consequences of such a reckless action may be
well known to both India and Pakistan. Low intensity war in the past has proved
to be more disastrous than all the Indo-Pak wars combined together. The lull in
violence has hardly proved an incentive for the two nations to resolve their
long pending disputes.Without the resolution of all big and small disputes,
there can’t be any peace is an elementary knowledge. Still India and Pakistan
have failed to solve even the smallest of the doable problem.Do India and
Pakistan lack a keen desire, moreover the vision, for peace?
Despite a feeble
desire, deep cynicism has come to engulf the entire subcontinent. A genuine
autonomy may eventually satisfy the Kashmiri political aspirations. However,
New Delhi considers conceding even limited political rights as an
acknowledgement of Kashmir’s separate political identity based upon the two
nation theory. Since forced assimilation will further alienate Kashmir, there
seems to be no solution in the offing. In 2012, transfer of population from one
country to another still continues, albeit at a very limited scale; Hindus
feeling insecure in Pakistan are migrating to India. And a section of estranged
population in Kashmir considers even a moth-eaten Pakistan as a saviour.
Partition of India
in 1947 was believed to be a solution to a problem that has utterly proved to
be a wrong prognosis. Since undoing the Partition will prove to be more disastrous,
there seems to be no way out. In the absence of peace, the only other option
left is destruction.
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