For the last six decades, India and Pakistan have been talking but only for the sake of talking. Even that is now doubtful, as India has marked its policy on engagement with Pakistan with a bold asterisk mark that says ‘conditions apply’. For example, the foreign secretaries’ level talks, scheduled for January 15, have been indefinitely postponed. These are now linked to the progress of investigation of the Pathankot incident. So, what does the future hold for talks, and will there be any meaningful outcomes if they resume?
India believes that the UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir are no longer relevant so why talk? India also holds the view that the Simla Agreement strictly binds the two countries to bilateralism. Pakistan propounds UN mediation and cites the very first clause of the Simla Agreement, which states: “The principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations shall govern the relations between the two countries.” It also believes that the 20 resolutions about Kashmir, passed by the UN between 1948 and 1971, are binding and need to be implemented.
In the past, India has supported building economic relations, people-to-people contact and other confidence building measures (CBMs). The two sides agreed on the formation of a joint working group in June 1997, in Islamabad, for a composite dialogue on all outstanding issues. These included Kashmir, conventional and nuclear CBMs, water distribution and boundary issues like fencing the border and Line of Control (LOC) demarcation and trade. However, this effort lost its importance after India decided in 2010 to ditch all dialogue, until Pakistan created the conditions for resumption. Since then, both sides have communicated more on the CBMs and acted less on them. There has been zero progress on any core issue. As a consequence, the subcontinent remains a major flashpoint with nuclear overhang. In the last decade or so, while Pakistan has demonstrated flexibility on its stance, India has defended its position and no progress has been made through bilateral negotiations.
It was indeed luck that prevented a war between India and Pakistan after the events of the attacks on Indian parliament in December 2001 and the Mumbai hotel bombings in November 2008. Only intense pressure from the US, UK and others brought India and Pakistan back from the brink on both these ominous occasions. The fundamental and root causes behind the above-mentioned attacks, the past three wars, the Kargil conflict and the Pathankot incident are disregarded. Instead, India seems to be treating only the symptoms of the malaise, often blaming Pakistan for such attacks and refusing to carry out its own security audits.
Most Kashmiris believe that any calls for conversion of the LOC in Kashmir to a softer border or the grant of greater autonomy and self-governance within Indian-held Kashmir falls much short of their expectations of an impartial plebiscite. Actions of the many proscribed lashkars (militias) and harkats are a direct result of their frustration, caused by denial of their right of self-determination. Due to Indian reprisals, the Kashmir dispute has claimed, according to the main Kashmiri political movement, the APHC, more than 95,000 lives. Furthermore, over 100,000 Kashmiris are under arrest or are missing. The Kashmir Valley is probably the most militarised zone in the world, where there is one armed Indian soldier for every 20 civilians. In the presence of such massive deployment, the conduct or outcome of any internal elections is obviously meaningless. Today, Kashmir is rightly considered the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world yet enough efforts have not been made to resolve this issue. While there appears to be a relatively stable environment in the subcontinent presently, according to some western accounts, between 1983 and 2008 alone as many as seven Kashmir related crises between the two countries were witnessed. Escalation was prevented only through intense foreign pressures on both countries.
Regretfully, the big powers decline to act as a mediator between the two countries unless their interests are involved. Pakistan has always welcomed third party intercession but India has rejected such efforts and myopically considers them as interference. But the pattern of the past efforts on the matter suggests that the only way to resolve India-Pakistan disputes is through facilitation, followed by mediation and finally arbitration by the UN, supported by the regional and world powers, as they are currently doing in the case of Afghanistan. For the future of the billions of its own people, India must respect and show readiness to implement the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir and/or agree to some other form of international intervention. If needed, the International Court of Justice, which is the judicial organ of the UN, could also provide a fresh interpretation of UNSC resolutions on Kashmir. Without external backing, the next round of the so-called comprehensive dialogue, whenever it happens, may be talks around the subject. I am a witness to such a futile exercises on two occasions soon after the Kargil episode. On both these occasions, in the year 2004 in Delhi and then in Islamabad in 2005, we talked for days but agreed only to disagree. If inaction or apathy on the part of the international community persists, peace and reconciliation in Asia will remain a pipe dream, in which case the onus of any future catastrophe in the subcontinent will lie equally on the UN and all permanent members of the Security Council.
The author is a former president of the National Defence University and can be reached at [email protected]