The House of Commons debate on Kashmir and the resulting motion in which Indian excesses on the Line of Control were noted, dialogue between the Pakistan and India for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute was encouraged and the Kashmiri right to self determination according to the United States Security Council resolution was reiterated is indeed a diplomatic victory for Pakistan. This message coming from the United Kingdom’s parliament is a significant rebuke for India, which has felt that it can continue to deny the Kashmiri people their basic rights with impunity. Indeed, as the violence following the killing of BurhanWani showed India, even if governmental apathy to Indian actions continues to exist in the international stage, its actions would not go unnoticed in the foreign media. And it was precisely this fear that drove India to engage in bellicosity in Pakistan, as it shifted focus away from Kashmir through its war mongering rhetoric. Now that those tensions, precipitated by the Uri attack, have simmered down, the signal by the UK House of Commons has come at an opportune moment. Perhaps, this would put the necessary international pressure on India to consider the possibility of dialogue with Pakistan, which it has rejected repeatedly despite Pakistan’s insistence on numerous occasions.
However, the signal from the UK House of Commons must not be taken as something that it is not. It is a diplomatic victory for putting outside pressure on India to bring it to the negotiating table, but it is nowhere near sufficient to guarantee that India budges from its present position on the dispute, let alone compel India for talks. In any case, it must not be forgotten that no foreign power can solve the Kashmir dispute for India and Pakistan. At most, it can act as a mediator. And at the moment no one seems willing to embroil themselves in a dispute that has very slim chances of getting resolved. Hence, the initiative needs to come from the two countries in which intransigent positions would have to give way to willingness to compromise. Perhaps, a starting point could be talks on the five point Musharraf-Singh formula since that has been the closest that the two countries have come to solving the Kashmir dispute.
Continuing the status quo in Kashmir would only add to the problems of Pakistanis, Indians, and Kashmiris. The reason why Pakistan and India have been unable to become amicable and cooperative neighbours is the irredentism of Kashmir, while Kashmiris have been stuck in between the cross fire of these two countries. Where transnational terrorist networks actively work to jeopardise any attempts for peace between the two countries, one would expect the Indian state to not fall in their trap. But unfortunately, the Uri episode showed that India is more inclined towards pandering to its domestic right wing constituency than look for a meaningful framework through which both countries can address such terrorist incidences. And holding talks on the Kashmir dispute hostage unless Pakistan and India talk about cross border terrorism, a proposition that is packaged in a way to incriminate Pakistan, is not a way through which matters will move forward. Perhaps, it should be India that should act like the big power, which it claims to be, and move away from its untenable position of not talking to Pakistan about Kashmir. *