The back and forth between India and Pakistan that has been ongoing since Kashmir erupted in protest once again after Burhan Wani’s killing has led to another set of violations of the Line of Control. With both countries celebrating their Independence Days with traditional vitriol, it could be that some of the Indian troops stationed on the border in the Haveli district started to get a little over excited on Pakistan’s Independence Day as artillery shells made their way across the border for around six hours. Pakistani troops responded in kind. The trouble is that this over-excited state is one that is shared by Indian politicians. After Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India Abdul Basit repeated Pakistan’s well-known position on Kashmir’s right to self-determination, members of India’s ruling BJP began to demand that Basit be sent back to Pakistan for using his office to fuel terrorism in India. This, of course, is nothing but a way of getting rid of the real issue. Basit did not state anything Pakistan has never raised before. It is Pakistan’s well-considered position that the Kashmiri people have the right to determine their own future. Pakistan cannot be expected not to repeat its position in light of what are clear human rights violations by Indian troops inside Kashmir after the recent set of protests in the region.
The trouble is that both countries are in no mood for diplomacy at the time. The other country is available as a ready-made excuse in the face of both India and Pakistan’s failure to deal with serious issues within their own territories. What is more troubling is the possibility that the diplomatic war of words could translate into another extended period of firing across the LoC. The 2003 agreement to maintain ceasefire along the working border was almost put to shreds by months of cross-border fire between India and Pakistan last year when over 70 civilians from both sides lost their lives. The gunfire across the LoC serves no purpose: strategic or military. Neither of the two countries defends it as an instrument of policy. But somehow, the troops on the border cannot be told to stop using their ammunitions, as if the LoC were some kind of training range. We hope that the matter can be stemmed here, with both countries stopping unnecessarily provoking the other. Sartaj Aziz offered a way out by inviting India to open the lines of communication on Kashmir once again. It is unlikely that India will take this invitation up. Instead, it has insisted that the only thing it is willing to talk about is reclaiming the Pakistani-side of Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ever the hawk, went much further in his August 15 speech. In an extraordinary diatribe, he condemned Pakistan as a supporter of terrorism and said he had been thanked a lot by the people of Balochistan, Gilgit and what he referred to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. These thanks Modi has received are surely a figment of his imagination but reveal a lot about how he views Pakistan. It is not surprising Modi has turned his attention to Azad Kashmir as a way of deflecting attention away from his country’s brutal occupation of Kashmir. In the end, all this anger is merely posturing and cannot resolve Kashmir or any other issues between Pakistan and India. It is time for empty posturing and empty shelling to be rooted out of our regional politics.
