A forsaken cause?

Kashmir, the land that both Pakistan
and India claim to be inseparable from their respective territories, has been conspicuously absent from the headlines after the informal meeting between the leaders of both countries in Ufa, Russia. After the scheduled talks that were going to take place between Pakistani and Indian diplomats were cancelled a year ago in August 2014, the issue has practically disappeared from the news waves. Sure, the occasional hawkish statement does make the rounds every now and then but it seems as if the press offices in the two countries are consciously avoiding any mention of the unresolved issue.
Just last week, the announcement of the resumption of Track-II talks between Pakistan and India did not make too big a fuss about Kashmir, and the press releases were carefully worded to lower expectations from informal diplomacy measures as well. Is this the indication of a trend that predicts the dithering of a forsaken cause? Is this the eventual realisation by the powerbrokers in Pakistan and India that Kashmir is an issue best left unresolved?
From the very beginning, Kashmiris have cried themselves hoarse over what they deem to be a hijacking of their cause for self-representation by their two powerful neighbours, namely Pakistan and India. Admittedly, the South Asian contenders, by taking over the issue, have done more harm than good. Whereas solving the crisis in Kashmir is made out to be the prime objective for every government in both countries, the lack of political will to actually do so becomes all the more evident as time passes by. In this regard, the fact that an army dictator was able to almost resolve the issue amicably — something that no politician could achieve — is particularly telling.
Kashmir has always been a very personality driven agenda item ever since August 1947 and the little progress or regression that has happened has been largely as a result of the personal antics by the leaders at the helm. It is because of this reason that General Musharraf was able to generate hitherto unseen consensus between the two parties, whereas his predecessors had been unable to do so. Unfortunately though, because of this very reason, both Prime Ministers Nawaz and Modi are unlikely to ever ease the tension as well. Narendra Modi was elected on the platform of right-wing fuelled nationalism that sees negotiations with Pakistan as weakness. From a realistic point of view, it also makes little sense for India to retreat back from its position of strength in the valley. On the other side, Nawaz Sharif is unable to make any progress because his options are limited, which brings us to another important aspect of the issue.
The lack of political will on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) is somewhat overshadowed by the spectre of military control on foreign policy in both countries. Foreign policy in South Asia has essentially been reduced to damage control measures in order to counter the overcharged rhetoric that comes from hawks and the like. Both the Indian and Pakistani armies dig into major portions of the respective national budgets, thereby cementing the central role of maintaining national security through conventional and unorthodox security apparatuses. Furthermore, the prominence enjoyed by the armed forces is predicated on the threat of imminent war, which acts as a raison d’etre of sorts for institutional upkeep. Without the possibility of a war breaking out at any moment, the justification for maintaining expensive war machines is lost, something that is an anathema to those in charge of national defence.
Besides these, there are some additional factors that have stopped much-needed reform from happening in Kashmir as well. One, the political leadership in Kashmir is woefully ill-trained when it comes to political struggles for freedom and, even among the more veteran leaders, the opinion on what exactly is the way out remains extremely divided. Additionally, there are practically no independent and reliable avenues for measuring public opinion in the Kashmir valley, which makes it all the more difficult for anyone to gauge what exactly the Kashmiris would want to gain from any and all negotiation processes. Lastly, the self-appointed arbitrators that have come to the fore — from Pakistan and India as well as Kashmir — are products of their respective systems and hence cannot ever seek to resolve an issue that requires innovative thinking from the get-go.
In this way, the relations between Pakistan and India have been fraught with mistrust and short-sightedness, which in turn has caused restlessness among the populace in both countries. But the way with which Kashmir has been side-lined in recent times begs the question: does anyone even want to resolve the issue anymore? The query seems counter-intuitive given the charged rhetoric — and four actual wars — that have come out of the issue, but it appears that both India and Pakistan would rather stay stuck in this quagmire than resolve it.
The world has seen similar conflicts being resolved in the past but the case for Kashmir, being unique, is made out in order to avoid doing something about the situation. If the respective governments in North and South Sudan can find a middle ground, if the politicians in Indonesia can learn to live with an independent East Timor and if the US and the Iranians can agree on a nuclear deal, then surely we can find a solution to Kashmir as well. Without an amicable solution to the question of Kashmir, which would realistically mean accepting the power asymmetry in South Asia, all other efforts are moot. We can have all the cultural exchanges, artistic collaborations and cricket friendlies we want between the two countries, but without a solution that is built on mutual trust, Kashmir will remain a point of contention that stops the two South Asian countries from embarking on the path of peaceful coexistence.

The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations