In September this year, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to meet his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi. There is every likelihood that this meeting will take place unless, of course, political circumstances within Pakistan render
Mr Sharif’s visit to New York impossible. If the meeting does take place, the prospects of the renewal of the composite dialogue augur well. If the dialogue is indeed renewed it may well be worthwhile for India’s policymakers to address a fundamental problem that can derail efforts towards the normalisation of relations with Pakistan.
Bluntly stated, both the military-jihadi complex in Pakistan as well as intransigent members of Pakistan’s political class have been able to sow discord in Kashmir because of India’s own shortcomings. To that end it is critical that the Modi government seeks to put India’s own house in order. Specifically, this means that political quiescence in Kashmir remains intact. This, however, does not amount to the mere maintenance of public order. As events in the past several years have repeatedly demonstrated, the peace that exists in the Valley is quite fragile.
Any small untoward incident seems to spark much outrage amongst significant segments of the population and spills over into political violence. Curfews are then imposed, varying levels of force is used, large-scale arrests are made and then a modicum of order restored after some damage to both public and private property. These periodic outbursts of disenchantment and violence have virtually become endemic and the responses all too predictable.
They, in turn, provide fodder for those in Pakistan who wish to portray India as a callous state intent on denying the civil and political rights to its Kashmiri population. Worse still, it offers important opportunities for the Pakistani military-jihadi complex to meddle in the internal politics of the state and stoke the embers of existing grievances.
Sadly, the efforts of most regimes in New Delhi to address the alienation of important elements of the Kashmiri population, especially the youth, have been cosmetic. Few imaginative policies have been devised to deal with the frustrations and anger that continue to stalk the Valley long after the Indian military deftly ended a brutal and sanguinary insurgency.
In the process thereof, perforce, they have had to resort to some strong-arm tactics. Indian civil society and human rights organisations have long documented these abuses. The standard retort of all governments in New Delhi when confronted with these charges has been to either stonewall or dismiss them as mere aberrations from the norm.
Unfortunately, these tactics have been and remain counterproductive. To restore some degree of trust between elements of the aggrieved populace and the Indian state a more thoughtful stance has to be crafted. This will require the new government in New Delhi to move beyond the practices of doling out more funds to the state government, the maintenance of a substantial military presence within the Valley and occasional sops such as the creation of an expert group to examine extant grievances. Instead, to be seen as sincere, the government will need to undertake at least one or two politically unpalatable steps. The first, as many have argued, will involve the termination of the much-criticised Armed Forces Special Powers Act.
Its draconian provisions have granted members of the armed forces to act with virtual impunity. Not surprisingly, it remains a lightning rod for political and social activists in Kashmir and elsewhere. Its removal could well have a very salutary effect on those who have exploited human rights lapses on the part of the armed forces for their own parochial political ends.
Beyond this important gesture the government may also wish to create a fact-finding commission that deals forthrightly with the disappearance of a number of individuals during the dark years of the insurgency. The commission’s mandate could well be circumscribed taking into account the limits of political feasibility. However, even some anodyne effort that seeks to provide an accounting of the fate of a large number of individuals who may or may not have been active participants in the insurgency could contribute to assuaging the anger of many families in the Valley.
Pursuing these two policy options will, without any doubt, generate much internal opposition and debate. Those in the security and intelligence services will, almost for a certainty, trot out a set of predictable arguments about how these steps could actually undermine the stability and order that they have been able to maintain in Kashmir. However, it is also wholly apparent that current policies and strategies have produced a very frail peace subject to collapse at a moment’s notice. More to the point, every breakdown of order, let alone law, provides excellent venues for those across the border who refuse to contemplate a stable and durable peace with India. The pursuit of a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan necessitates, quite apart from moral or ethical considerations, that India not leave its home front vulnerable. Such domestic shortcomings constitute a virtual invitation to the prospect of Pakistani interference.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia
