A Different Story

The winds of change are slowly whispering their way across the South Asian sub-continent and are heralding unforeseen amendments to the existing political climate of South Asia. The South Asian politics underwent a drastic reality based transformation with the advent of Indian and Pakistani nuclear accreditations. For the first time since the partition of British India a collective realization has dawned on both Islamabad and New Delhi that their policy options of resolving their historic bêté noir of Kashmir are limited only to and within a mutually agreed upon diplomatic solution. Kashmir has emerged as a focal point of Indian and Pakistani disagreement, aspiring to a nuclear altercation, because there is a perceptible understanding in both the nations that Kashmir has assumed an intractable dimension in the Indian-Pakistani bi-lateral relations.

Given the historic pretensions of both the claimants to the territorial possession of Kashmir, the ironic fait accompli is that neither India or Pakistan can politically afford to gamble with Kashmir’s future, as determined within their own traditionally ordained political calculations, and lose, because in the process they would have invalidated their own diplomatic raison d’ états. In a political and a strategic sense, it will be the political rationales of New Delhi and Islamabad, which will prove to be a more formidable obstacle to the effective resolution of the Kashmiri dilemma than the periphery arguments, of cross border terrorism or holding plebiscites, which have been the hallmark of the present debate on Kashmir. The lack of an effective resolution to the Kashmiri problem does not reside in the absence of a political will, on the part of India and Pakistan to address this issue, but rather in their perceptional concerns of justifying a final solution of the Kashmiri issue to their respective domestic political constituencies.

The singularly paramount question, which India and Pakistan will have to answer, domestically, will be how to sanctify their penultimate decision on the issue of Kashmir and how to explain and legitimize a political environment, in India and Pakistan, which will not include Kashmir as a domestic political issue. It is at this stage that the Kashmiri question takes on parallel dichotomies, which have gradually erased the distinct delineations of the problem as defined within an internal and an external debate on the issue. This is an extremely important and influential caveat in the debate over Kashmir’s final settlement, because the external debate (India-Pakistan bi-lateral relations) is diametrically opposed to the internal debate (Kashmir as a domestic policy consideration). In simplified terms, there are two debates concurrently evolving on the topic of Kashmir in South Asia and they are in disagreement with each other on how to resolve the issue of Kashmir in the context of Pakistani-Indian politics.

On the external front, the Indian and Pakistani bi-lateral relationship has been more accommodating and more conducive towards endorsing a just solution to the Kashmiri problem. The Indian-Pakistani bi-lateral discourse has been marked, despite the occasional lapses of reason, by an acute sense of practicality and pragmatic certainty. This sense of realism, which has characterized the Pakistani and Indian approaches, has continually sought to arrive at an appreciative compromise over a politically feasible declaration ending the state of Indian and Pakistani animosities over the matter of Kashmir. The underlying reality, which was propelling this policy, was the implicit acknowledgement that the political division of Kashmir was a reality and could not be reversed and thus, should be accepted as a sine qua non of an Indian and a Pakistani peace agreement facilitating a normalization of bi-lateral relations between Islamabad and New Delhi. It is a historical fact, amply documented, that Indian and Pakistani bi-lateral agreements over Kashmir have traditionally inclined towards an effective resolution of the crisis and this process can be easily seen in the historic chronology of those agreements themselves and in their intentions.

The first emerging indications of this factual reality, that Kashmir was heading towards a formalized status quo ante, could be seen in the aftermath of September 1965 Indo-Pakistan War. Many knowledgeable Pakistani and Indian political observers saw the 1965 conflict as a stalemate. Though the reason for its inception was Kashmir, it had failed to significantly alter the reality of the Kashmiri status quo either in Islamabad or in New Delhi’s favor through any pre-determined applicable military force.

The recently released official Indian war history of the 1965 conflict proves the assertion that in the 1965 war India did not gain any military or political advantage over Pakistan, which could have been leveraged to elicit a favorable Indian disposition in regards to Kashmir. Similarly, for Pakistan the 1965 war was a case of failed opportunities. Pakistan’s intentions were to use armed force, via Operation Gibraltar, which sought to instigate a popular rebellion in Indian-held Kashmir, to seek a solution to the problem by ending it in Islamabad’s favor. The fact that Operation Gibraltar ended up provoking an Indian attack on Pakistan effectively mooted Pakistani attempts to tilt the balance of the Kashmiri status quo in its favor just as India’s failure to seek a military ascendancy that could have been translated into a political decision on Kashmir, against Pakistan, made sure that the status quo of Kashmir could remain unchanged.

In a painfully realistic sense, the Kashmiri question had assumed the personification of a status quo in the immediate aftermath of the first Indo-Pak War over Kashmir (1947-48). That war, which was fought to determine Kashmir’s political inclusion in either Pakistan or India, ended with a United Nations’ ceasefire and a promise to deliberate on the problem in hopes of resolving it amicably. The status quo that had resulted from that war, Kashmir being effectively divided into a Pakistani administrated zone of influence and an Indian administrated zone of influence, would remain in place till 1965 when the results of 1947-48 would be challenged. The failure of 1965 to alter the reality of 1947-48 would convince both the Indians and the Pakistani foreign policy establishments that Kashmir status quo, considered as an artificial creation of United Nations, had become a irredentist problem, which could not be solved without jeopardizing the status quo upon which hinged the peace of Indian and Pakistani political relations.

It is in this sense that the Tashkent Declaration ending the war in 1965 and later, appended through the Simla Agreement, ending the 1971 Indo-Pak war, needs to be viewed and understood as to why the Kashmiri problem has resisted all attempts to settle it peacefully. In diplomatic terms both the Tashkent and Simla agreements have the same intent and that is to accept the divided status quo of Kashmir. Tashkent ended the 1965 war fought with the express purpose to change the status quo and Simla was merely a formalization of that intent to accept the status quo, as it existed in 1971. Even though Simla was signed to end the 1971 war, its real intent was to arrive at an understanding over Kashmir and to prevent any future wars from erupting as a result of attempts at varying the agreed upon delimitations of the status quo. The Simla Agreement, more than any other India-Pakistan agreement, sanctified the division of Kashmir by turning the original United Nations’ ceasefire line into a line of control and thereby, effectively and politically divided Kashmir into two separate zones of control.

The implicit realization in turning the United Nations’ ceasefire line into an Indian and Pakistani administrated line of control was the growing awareness, in Islamabad and New Delhi, that the United Nations resolutions on Kashmir seeking a plebiscite were a moot point. Neither India nor Pakistan had any faith that the United Nations could resolve the issue given the political context of the issue as it was subordinated to the exigencies of the Cold War. Also, the Indian and Pakistani mutation of the United Nations’ ceasefire line into a Indo-Pak line of control was undertaken without the requisite approval of the United Nations’ security council, which had mandated the very ceasefire, in 1947-48, that had frozen the status quo of Kashmir as an Indian and a Pakistani zone of occupation. The fact that India and Pakistan agreed to accept the division of Kashmir by formalizing the United Nations’ sponsored status quo indicated, in a political sense, that they held no illusions of the situation reverting back to the pre 1947-48 situation or the present realities of Kashmiri status quo ante being radically altered in either nations’ favor.

An even more crucial determination in this matter, suggesting support for the Kashmiri problem being resolved on the basis of the status quo, was the United Nations’ tacit acceptance of the Indian and Pakistani agreement signed at Simla. The muted diplomatic response of the United Nations’ to the revocation of its mandate at Simla suggested that the United Nations’ was prepared to accept the political division of Kashmir as the final settlement of the problem. Consequently, the Kashmiri problem has already been resolved, in practical terms, on the basis of the existing status quo ante and this division of Kashmir has been accepted by the United Nations’, and in toto the international community, as the de jure settlement of the Kashmiri problem in Indo-Pak relations.

India and Pakistan having diplomatically agreed to the resolution of the Kashmiri problem on the basis of the existing status quo ante have only managed to reward themselves with a Herculean task, which neither seems capable of fulfilling. The impossible task, which India and Pakistan find themselves confronted with, is to politically convince their domestic political constituencies of the fait accompli, which their foreign policy has interjected into their respective domestic debates over Kashmir.

The Indian and Pakistani domestic debate over Kashmir hinges on each nation’s perceptions that Kashmir is an integral part of its national identity and that as a nation, it is incomplete until the Kashmiri question is finally decided in its favor. For this very raison d’ état, the nature of the Kashmiri debate in terms of domestic political considerations is inflexible, strident, and above all, irredentist in its articulations in both Indian and Pakistani domestic political discourse.

For Pakistan, its domestic Kashmiri debate is based on the political theme that Kashmir should be given the option of deciding whether it wants to join Pakistan or India, because Pakistani public opinion is quite confident that given the majority of the Muslims residing in Kashmir, they would opt to join Pakistan over India if a United Nations’ plebiscite were held on the issue. Hence, the Pakistani domestic vocalization that the Kashmiri issue be settled on the basis of a vote of self-determination under the auspices of the United Nations. On the other hand, the Indian domestic argument on Kashmir is that it is a part of the Indian political union, having agreed to seek inclusion into India after the partition and thus, the only adjustment of the Kashmiri status quo, which needs to be discussed is the Pakistani held portion of Kashmir and how to finalize its eventual incorporation into the Indian union. In a similar sense, the Indian domestic debate over Kashmir, like its Pakistani counter-parts, refuses to recognize the present political reality of Kashmir, which it considers as an artificial aberration awaiting a final solution.

Thus, there is a distinct difference of opinions on the Kashmiri problem within each country, because there exists a palpable conflict of interest in how each nation’s foreign policy is at odds with its domestic political perceptions over Kashmir. The reason why there are presently two different sets of policies evolving on Kashmir, within Pakistan and India, is simply because both the Indian and the Pakistani foreign policy establishments are wary of informing their respective domestic opinions as to what the actual reality of the Kashmiri situation is. This is, because given the context of the domestic Indian and Pakistani debates and how they have been structured, such a revelation, if exposed, will be considered nothing short of an act of betrayal in the domestic circles of Pakistan and India.

In other words, the Pakistani foreign policy apparatchiks cannot tell their domestic political opinion that there will be no United Nations’ plebiscite over Kashmir, because under the Simla Agreement Pakistan gave up the option of a third party mediation and agreed to settle the issue bi-laterally with India. They cannot admit the reality, to the domestic public opinion in Pakistan, that the Kashmiri problem has been settled as the formalization of status quo ante and that Pakistan has accepted the political division of Kashmir as the final settlement of the problem. They cannot openly admit that India will never agree to a vote on the issue of Kashmir and consequently, they cannot tell the Pakistani public that the inclusion of Kashmir, in its geographic entirety, in Pakistan is no longer a viable option.

In a similar sense, the Indian foreign policy pundits cannot admit to their domestic political constituency that when India and Pakistan signed the Simla Agreement, India by agreeing to the division of Kashmir, at the line of control, also gave up it rights to seek the return of the Pakistani administrated Kashmir into the Indian political union. They cannot admit that having accepted the Simla Agreement, India agreed, with Pakistan, not seek to change the status quo of the line of control. They cannot admit that India is politically unwilling to risk a vote on the issue of Kashmir, not because the Kashmiris will join Pakistan, but rather the Kashmiris might favor an independent state of their own outside of the Indian, as well as a Pakistani political, orbit.

The underlying reason for this political hesitancy, on the part of the Indian and Pakistan foreign policy concerns, to inform their respective public opinions about the reality of Kashmir is, because they do not trust their own domestic public opinions to understand the realpolitik nature of the resolution of the Kashmiri problem! Both the Indian and Pakistani foreign offices cannot justify the fact that they have continually deceived their domestic public opinions on Kashmir for politically expedient reasons. Also, by encouraging a false impression on Kashmir, that the issue is still be to be decided, the Indian and Pakistani acquiescent understanding on Kashmir, agreeing to its divided status quo ante as the final settlement, is difficult to rationalize, because they have presented their domestic public opinion, over Kashmir, with a fiat: Kashmir is settled and its settlement cannot be reversed to accommodate the domestic public opinion!

This South Asian political inability to trust the public opinion with the truth is endemic to both Indian and Pakistani political mandarins. The political policy elites, in both India and Pakistan, do not trust their domestic public opinions to furnish them the unvarnished truth and have endeavored, continually, to mislead them away from the political realities, which shape their daily existence by urging them to engage in a speculative moot debate, which has been already decided. This lack of faith to trust the public with the truth can be seen in the Pakistani government’s attempts to curtail the publication of Hamoodur Rehman Report or for that matter any report, because it feels more secure in propagating lies in the domestic political arenas than in answering hard political questions. Indian government did not tell its public about the true nature of the Indian military operations during the 1965 war with Pakistan, because it felt that the truth would have conflicted with the popular myth, which had put a romantic gloss over the Indian military’s battlefield achievements. It would be difficult to explain to the Indian public, the Indian political pundits’ reasoning was, that the government had deliberately encouraged the systemic distortion of the truth for nearly 35 years about 1965 war with Pakistan.

It is this selective parsing of the truth, which is a primary root cause of the conflicting asymmetries of reality and perceptions in South Asian politics. In both the countries, India and Pakistan, the Kashmiri policy is designed to appease the domestic political pressure groups by advocating a state of animosity to perpetually exist in Indo-Pakistan relations and it is this sense of nationalistic confrontation, which determines the parameters of the debate. In this sense, Kashmir is not a bi-lateral issue; it is a domestic issue. The Kashmiri problem’s final resolution does not reside in the purview of Pakistani and Indian diplomatic maneuverings, but it rests on the ability of India and Pakistan to facilitate and harmonize a domestic political consensus based on the notions of compromise, which could be mutually agreed to by the Kashmiri lobby in Indian and Pakistani politics. As long as this divide, between external foreign policy understandings and objectives and, to a greater extent, the political dynamics of the domestic debate, continues unabated, there can be no effective reconciliation of the divergent political intentions over this issue to coherently rationalize a viable agreement on the issue of Kashmir in Indo-Pak relations.

It is at this juncture, that the so called “track-two diplomacy”, or as it is better known by its American nom d’ plume, “back door channels”, takes on an added significance in terms of Indian and Pakistani attempts to crisis-manage the Kashmiri problem. The “track two diplomacy” has been quite successful in the past in diffusing tensions, over Kashmir, because it very effectively marginalizes the domestic opinion by concentrating exclusively on the diplomatic aspects of the crisis. In an oblique sense, the reason that back channel links have been quite successful in dealing with and limiting the scope of any nascent crisis is, because they seek to arrive at a diplomatic consensus to the problem and both the countries, Indians and Pakistanis, have tacitly realized that Kashmiri problem demands a diplomatic-political settlement that can be best accommodated if the influence of the domestic pressure groups is isolated and they are forced to react to diplomatic fait accomplish instead of issuing policy fiats on the issue of Kashmir.

It is the political power of the Kashmiri lobby, in both Pakistan and India, to set the tone and music of the Kashmiri debate, which is the biggest hurdle towards an effective settlement of the problem. Both the Indian and Pakistani Kashmiri groups view the “track two” diplomatic endeavors as being antithetical to their interests and since Kashmir is, generally speaking, the Achilles’ Heel of Indian and Pakistani governments, they do exert a considerable influence on the formulation of each nation’s Kashmiri policy. It is the ability of the Kashmiri lobby to define the debate on the problem of Kashmir and the inability of either Islamabad or New Delhi to moderate their inflexibility, which is the primary reason why the issue of Kashmir is assuming an intractable reality.

This ability of the pro-Kashmir groups, in both India and Pakistan, to monopolize the debate is slowly alienating the moderate mainstream elements in both countries, which seek a diplomatic resolution of the problem instead of a military solution. The prime impetus for engaging in back door diplomacy stems from the realization that Kashmir is the biggest obstacle in the improvement of Indo-Pakistan relations and that if the problem is allowed to fester anymore, its immediate manifestation would be a political crisis, which could prove to be quite untenable vis-à-vis each nation’s stated position on the issue. Given the fact that both India and Pakistan have nuclear capability and that there is a strong possibility of an accidental nuclear war over Kashmir, there is a growing consensus, in both Islamabad and New Delhi, that Kashmir needs to be settled politically and not militarily. The only problem to this rationalization is that it conflicts with the domestic policy perceptions of the pro-Kashmiri lobbies in both Pakistan and India and the governments, in India and Pakistan, are unwilling to risk alienating this domestic support, because they derive their legitimacy to rule from the political consent of the Kashmiri lobby and cannot exist without its political support.

The Indian and Pakistani governments are incapable of standing up to their domestic pressure groups, over the issue of Kashmir, because it would amount to a political suicide if they ever decide to confront their Kashmiri lobbies on this issue. The refusal of the policy makers in either Islamabad or New Delhi to boldly tackle their domestic Kashmir lobby is slowly forcing a new dynamics into the traditional parameters of the debate, which has a potential of undermining each nation’s raison d’ état over Kashmir. The polarization of the Kashmir debate into an extremist dialogue will, if allowed to proceed, ironically cause the dilution of the Indian and Pakistani pro-Kashmiri groups influence.

Both India and Pakistan are suffering, politically, due to their Kashmiri policies and there is a growing awareness in both nations that the problem has entered a realm of diminishing returns and needs to be resolved before it causes a domestic political implosion. The emerging reality, which would suggest that both India and Pakistan are headed for a domestic crisis over the issue can discerned from the fact that there is a growing sense of disenchantment in Pakistan and India over the manner in which the problem is being mishandled. It is in this sense that the pro-Kashmir lobbies, in each nation, will see a lessening of their influence if they do not amend their political rhetoric from an extremist position to one of moderation on Kashmir, because the domestic political exigencies of Indian and Pakistani politics are more inclined towards a compromise over the issue instead of confrontation.

Hence, the task before New Delhi and Islamabad is to not to accuse each other for breaking their diplomatic promises, but to restrict their domestic Kashmiri lobbies from derailing the prospects of peace in South Asia. As mentioned earlier, Kashmir is not a bi-lateral issue, but a domestic issue and the sooner this reality is conveyed to the Pakistani and Indian public, the better it will be for all concerned. The long-term solution to the Kashmiri problem does not lie in either India or Pakistan reaching a compromise over the issue, but in the ability of Indian or Pakistani government to reach an understanding with their domestic groups over the issue. The problem of Kashmir will be solved, if it is to be solved, when there is a domestic consensus in India and Pakistan over the issue, which mirror the diplomatic reality of Kashmir and does not seek to change the existing status quo for reasons of its own irredentist rhetoric.