Daily Times

A huge majority of youth in Indian-held Kashmir wants entire Indian security forces to pull out of the occupied valley and that a referendum should be held immediately to decide the future status of the disputed region.

According to a survey recently published in The Washington Post, 91 percent of the respondents want a complete withdrawal of Indian forces from the region. The same percentage also backed the holding of a referendum to decide the future status of the Muslim-majority region.

The survey was conducted by researchers from Central University of Kashmir and New York’s Skidmore College between October and December 2019, while the valley was in lockdown mode in the wake of New Delhi’s decision to revoke the region’s special status last August. Around 600 college and university students were interviewed during the survey held in Srinagar.

Two-thirds of the respondents believed that peace negotiations between India and Pakistan can be effective. The number skyrocketed to 83 percent when the survey questioned participation of Kashmiri representatives in these negotiations. To a question about requesting help from Pakistan, 64 percent of the respondents considered the move ‘potentially effective’. At least 79 percent believed that the conflict can be resolved if Western countries consider the Kashmiri people as a legitimate party in the conflict, with a right to have a say in the outcome.

Among the survey respondents, the preferred route to resolving the Kashmir conflict was a plebiscite in which Kashmiri people vote to determine the future of their region. Fully 91 percent of the respondents were ‘highly optimistic’ about this option, with 81 percent deeming the approach ‘very effective’.

An overwhelming majority of 92 percent considered nonviolent methods to resist Indian occupation of the valley ‘effective’, while 64 percent considered the continuation of militancy and violence as ‘useful’ for bringing about long-lasting peace in the region. When asked about the way forward to resolve the issue, the majority of survey respondents favoured the four-point formula proposed by former President General (r) Pervez Musharraf.

The four-point formula advocates for greater regional autonomy, demilitarisation and free movement of people and goods across the Line of Control, and a joint India-Pakistan mechanism for governance. The survey results contradict the Hindu nationalist government’s claim that by revoking Article 370 – which granted limited autonomy to Kashmir – it would be able to bring the decades-long conflict to an end by fully integrating Kashmir into India. “Based on the responses [in the survey], I think it’s safe to assume that many among the Kashmiri youth would prefer at least some autonomy,” Yelena Biberman, an assistant professor of political science at Skidmore College and study co-author, told Al Jazeera. When asked about the representative nature of the survey, Biberman maintained that she found it characteristic of the opinion within the university and college students of Kashmir. The findings of the survey establish the facts that the young Kashmiris are open to a variety of approaches to resolving the conflict, from India-Pakistan bilateral negotiations to foreign diplomatic intervention. Another takeaway is that despite the crackdown and communications blockade by Indian extremist government in the occupied valley, Kashmir’s young people remain optimistic about the efficacy of the peaceful solutions.