Respect the Kashmiri identity

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri has denied any formal proposals from the general to resolve the Kashmir dispute. But the proposals were also meant as a diplomatic offensive, they were equally addressed to an international audience. Musharraf sought to give the impression of keenness to repair bridges with India and to show how far he could move from his own country’s traditional positions. It had the desired effect. The US state department, the principal force behind Indo-Pak talks, hailed Musharraf’s proposals, urging ‘‘all interested parties to take a careful look at the ideas’’.

India’s enlightened interest demands that its Kashmir policy should be more concerned with its cherished values like secularism and pluralism than with mere territory as the PM emphasised as one of his conditions. While Pakistan’s ideological character has handicapped it in reconciling the diversities of the state, India’s failure is no less conspicuous, but it is more inexcusable. The crucial question is not whether the state becomes independent, or is under joint India-Pak control or under the UN mandate. But on what basis is the state to be divided into seven regions?

According to Musharraf, there are two regions in Pakistan’s part of the state and the rest of the five regions are on its Indian side. Three well-defined regions — Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh — on this side are well known. The other two can be formed only by dividing Jammu and Ladakh, more or less on religious lines.

Musharraf cannot be faulted for recognising religion as the basis for identifying the regions in the state. Ever since the dispute over Kashmir began, a plethora of formulae has been suggested by think tanks, South Asian experts and foreign departments of western countries, in particular America, to resolve the dispute. The essence of most of such formulae is based on religion as the basis of identity formation.

Historically, it has been the basis of identity-making in the west. The overwhelming majority of European nations belong to one Christian denomination or the other. Though India was divided on religious basis, influenced by British political thought, non-religious ethnic identities have survived.

That a Kashmiri identity has survived despite its alienation from India and religious propaganda by Pakistan seems to have been partially accepted by Musharraf when be recognised the Kashmir valley as a distinct region. But why did he propose the division of Jammu and Ladakh on a religious basis?

The bulk of the Hindus have already migrated from Kashmir. Those left behind would not feel safe in an enlarged Muslim region. The same would be true of Muslims in the remaining part of Jammu and possibly Ladakh. Whether it remains independent, or under joint India-Pak or UN control, is less important. It is the religious basis of this identity as also Hindu identity in the rest of Jammu and the Buddhist identity in the rest of Ladakh that would be a source of perpetual strife. Indeed, if Musharraf was more open-minded or if Indian experts on Kashmir had highlighted the fact, he would have realised that Jammu and the Pak-held part of the state form one ethnic, geographical and cultural entity. Likewise, Ladakh and Skardu have more in common than either has with the rest of the state. Secular and rational, and hence long-term and stable, regional identities can be conceived as the Kashmir Valley, Jammu-Muzaffarabad, Ladakh-Skardu and Gilgit. What should be the status of each can be debated within India and Pakistan as also between them and by America based think tanks.

If it involves a process of too much destabilisation of the status quo, let us revert to other options which promote secular, humanistic and democratic values.