Battered peace

The hope that the people of Indian-held Kashmir can be spared the atrocities they have suffered periodically over nearly 70 years, and which have come in with particular brutality over the past month, has been shattered by the official refusal from the Indian government to hold a dialogue with Pakistan on the issue. Pakistan had suggested talks between the two countries at the foreign secretary level to discuss actions by Indian forces in Kashmir which have so far resulted in the death of 80 persons and injuries to at least 7,000 others. There had been initial media reports that New Delhi could agree to talks which focused on terrorism from across the border, but with a sharp difference in the stance of the two countries on Kashmir obvious, the external affairs ministry in New Delhi has now officially turned down discussion. With this route closed, the problem of Kashmir will continue longer. The adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, briefed the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council on this in Islamabad last week, stating that the issue involved one of human rights violations on an enormous scale and that without talking about Kashmir chances of peace in the region faded further and further away. The Pakistan Foreign Office, which has not commented officially on the Indian refusal as yet, has been cited as conceding that Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts on Kashmir had not worked over the past many decades.

The question then to be asked is: what will work? Both countries for now remain locked in a bitter war of words. New Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi continue to talk about the ‘export’ of terrorism by Pakistan, in a clear reference to what they insist is intervention in Kashmir and also in Afghanistan from Islamabad. The international headlines about atrocities in Kashmir have not helped the Indian propaganda and there is a definite air of defensiveness about what is said and what is implied. Essentially, given the situation, the only way forward for the people of Kashmir is discussion in which they themselves are also involved. At the present moment, any such dialogue does not appear likely. There is now quite obviously an open reluctance on India’s part to opt for this course. And this can only mean that the violence and the terrible pictures of children whose faces have been pelted with lead bullets in Kashmir will continue to come in as the world watches, apparently unwilling or unable to act in a matter that has stood before it for something now approaching a century.