Joined by an idea

PM’s J&K proposal, so different from Pakistani ideas of pooling sovereignties, deserves support...

Paradigm shifts in diplomacy occur when statesmen successfully reframe a complex issue. The boldness of Manmohan Singh’s speech at the University of Jammu on Sunday lay in leveraging a simple word, ‘joint’. In suggesting the joint development of the land and water resources of J&K for the benefit of all people living across the dividing line, the PM has expanded on the methodology for a pragmatic settlement of the bitter dispute with Pakistan. Any mention of the word ‘joint’ in relation to J&K is bound to raise the hackles of certain varieties of nationalists and large sections of the conservative security establishment. After all, the term ‘joint management’ has been a taboo in our national discourse on Kashmir for so long.

It has been associated with the unacceptable notion of ‘shared sovereignty’ over Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan.

For the very reason that various leaders of Pakistan, including Pervez Musharraf, have often proposed ‘joint management’, the Indian side would reflexively reject it. Both its context and content, however, make the PM’s proposal on ‘joint development’ across the Line of Control in J&K very different from the notion of ‘joint management’. The idea of a condominium — a form of shared jurisdiction over a piece of territory by two or more sovereign states — is a well-established principle of the Westphalian system of international relations and at the source of many Pakistani proposals for the ‘joint management’ of Kashmir. In the PM’s idea of settling the J&K dispute, there is neither an exchange of territories nor a pooling of sovereignties. It does call for substantial political autonomy for both parts of J&K within the ambit of Indian and Pakistani statehood and converting the contested LoC into an open, peaceful and cooperative frontier.

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The most innovative of PM’s proposals has been the one for ‘cooperative, consultative mechanisms’ between the divided parts of Kashmir. Manmohan Singh’s latest suggestion on the joint exploitation of J&K’s resources begins to define the kind of missions that these consultative mechanisms might undertake. Cooperative institutions across the dividing line in J&K do not

violate the sovereignty of either India or Pakistan. They merely facilitate in J&K a long overdue cross-frontier cooperation that is so common in today’s world. The PM’s people-oriented approach to settle the J&K dispute deserves strong support.