11/1/2002
The Conflict in Kashmir

Ever since the partition of the sub-continent more than 50 years ago as Britain relinquished its Indian empire, India and Pakistan have been arch rivals. Their animosity with its roots in religion and history, has recently escalated into a dangerous arms race and there is increasing international concern that the continuing hostility could spark a major conflagration in the region. Apart from the threat it poses to security, many analysts believe that the enduring stand-off between the two nuclear-capable powers is preventing the region from realising its full economic potential. Trade between the two countries, for example, is minimal.

But this animosity might have evaporated were it not for the problem of Kashmir. The Pakistanis argue that the mountainous state of Kashmir should have become part of Pakistan in 1947. The majority of its population were, after all, Muslims. In fact Kashmir became part of the Indian Union because the ruling Maharaja was a Hindu and signed an Instrument of Accession handing over to Delhi powers of defence, communication and foreign affairs. The original treaty made provision for a plebiscite, to confirm or alter Kashmir's status, but this was never held, despite United Nations Resolutions to this effect.

India has resisted these demands, not because it is undemocratic - it is, after all, the largest democracy in the world - but because it says that local election results demonstrate that people living there want to remain part of the Indian union. There may be something in this. But there is no doubt that the real reason is that India fears a Balkanisation of her states and provinces. Allow a plebiscite in one state and all over India you will trigger a rash of demands for referendums which may prove at best divisive and which could possibly do the country serious damage. In any case, argues the government in New Delhi, the UN do not have a locus in this dispute as India and Pakistan agreed between them as long ago as 1950 to resolve the Kashmir dispute through bilateral negotiations.

But there has been no resolution, of course, and the two countries have twice gone to war over the territory, in 1947-8 and in 1965. In 1971, India and Pakistan fought a third time, this time over Bangladeshi independence, and during war there was also some further conflict between the two sides in Kashmir. These wars have left Kashmir divided along a so-called Line of Control which leaves Pakistan in occupation of the western part of Kashmir, with about a third of the territory. As there has never been a peace treaty there is occasional fighting between the two armies on each side of the Line, which from time to time develops into something serious. Such was the case in the summer of 1999, when Pakistani-backed forces infiltrated Indian-controlled Kashmir causing a bitter two-month conflict along the Line of Control. The action nearly tipped the two countries into another war.

The conflict is fuelled by irregular forces - India calls them terrorists, Pakistan calls them freedom fighters - who have carried out widespread bombings and shootings in Indian-controlled Kashmir and elsewhere in India. The suicide attack on the Indian Parliament at the end of last year was a particularly vicious example of this campaign. India has constantly maintained that Pakistan is training and supplying weapons to these militant separatists. Pakistan insists it only offers them moral support and that it condemns terrorism.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. The Pakistani government knows that there are many groups in Pakistan who provide an infrastructure which supports the militants. Some parts of the army are also thought to be broadly supportive and the great wave of religious fundamentalism that envelops much of Pakistan's youth is ready to turn the Kashmiri struggle into a Jihad.

General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, wants to have better relations with India and an honourable end to the Kashmir conflict. He is however under great pressure to reign in the militants, not just from India but from the United States and Europe on whom his impoverished country depends financially. He has begun to take action. Whether this will lead to a decline in the bombings and shootings in Indian administered Kashmir is anybody's guess. Meanwhile the General faces even more destabilising wrath from Pakistan's religious groups.

Both countries have transferred their troops to the frontier in a gesture of sabre-rattling. Both know the costs of war and both know that they can only lose from open warfare. Both governments and their militants need to back down, to swallow their pride. Whether their people will let them is the question.