So many futures for Kashmir

To make the proposals on the table work, the Centre must first construct good faith

General Musharraf’s latest proposals on Kashmir have raised two different kinds of concerns. The first is procedural. To simplify somewhat, there are three scenarios on the table. One, the status quo is maintained. Or there is what might be called status quo plus, with no formal or radical changes in current positions, but a series of small steps that might prevent the peace process from backsliding and over the long run build up confidence to contemplate more ambitious proposals. The third option is a radical departure from current positions, some out-of-the-box proposal. Given how deeply entrenched positions on all sides are, the line between the second and the third options may be a very thin one. But the difficulty is that that first scenario will be unacceptable to Pakistan. The interesting question is the degree to which there is any political room in India for even contemplating the third option. What could we possibly offer Pakistan or the interlocutors in Kashmir that is significant enough for them, but not considered an unpalatable concession on our part?

The BJP has half a point in reminding us that the prime minister will have to find some mechanism for ensuring that there is a public consensus on any measures being contemplated. The BJP, for its part, should understand that in any complex set of negotiations, great judgment has to be exercised about striking the right balance between candour and premature revelation. No government should be faulted for trying to bring peace. For, while these attempts may fail, not trying at all is sure to perpetuate the horrendous human costs this conflict has exacted. A mature politics requires us to be vigilant, but vigilance should not entail a reluctance to explore such possibilities as might exist. But equally, the government will have to find a mechanism of linking whatever is happening on the backchannel talks with public opinion formation.

The best mechanism would be to carry along the opposition in the negotiating process. But our leaders arguably now find it more difficult to reach out to their domestic opposition than they do to other heads of state; and our opposition is simply not able to resist the temptation to politicise momentous issues. The second concern is more substantial. What are we to make of the latest trial balloons? At one level, Musharraf’s proposals are self-serving. He is craftily showing the international community that he is willing to take the diplomatic initiative. He is reinstating Pakistan as a key interlocutor within Kashmir politics. His call for demilitarisation may have something to do with the need for more troops on its western frontier. But his motives alone are not sufficient to doom the proposals. If his political compulsions incline him to peace, it does not make the resulting peace any less meaningful. The difficulty is that the current proposals are unlikely to work without other background conditions being fulfilled.

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Contrary to the way they are framed, the proposals on joint supervision and self-governance entail a radical departure from India’s stated position. They entail a surrender of sovereignty over decision-making to an entity that will have Indian representation, but not be wholly Indian. Second, they achieve one thing, which India has always resisted: treating the Kashmir Valley as a separate enclave from the rest of J&K. Third, a principle of joint management is workable only if there is a baseline symmetry in the political systems of the two areas of Kashmir and possibly, northern areas as well.

But the blunt truth is this: how do you design a joint representative process when even baseline issues of citizenship, residency and property rights are not settled? Because of asymmetric federalism, India placed restrictions on property transactions and the granting of residency rights to non-Kashmiris inside Kashmir. Pakistan had no such restrictions, and actively encouraged the settlement of Pakistanis from the rest of the country. So the question of who the representatives of the two areas actually represent is quite complicated.

Fourth, there is an underlying tension. On the one hand, there is the imperative of legal and political autonomy. On the other, growth and prosperity require greater integration and interdependence. Kashmir can assert its autonomy and separateness in the regulation of property rights, and restrictions on residency. But might these not limit its economic possibilities?

And finally, it is only in the rarest of cases that leaders demanding autonomy or even independence are clear about their end objectives. In most cases autonomy remains a nebulous chimera. It is easy to demand but much harder to pin down, and there is little evidence yet that leaders inside Kashmir are clear about their end objective.

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The current proposals lack the necessary conditions that make such arrangements work: a complete commitment to stopping violence. This is an area where Pakistan is yet to be tested. Perhaps the joint anti-terror mechanism will really make this commitment effective. But given the Indian government’s own assessment of Pakistan, this is still a long way off. The second condition is a complete commitment to free movement of goods and people. There is something odd about thinking that countries that won’t even buy and sell freely to each other will be ready to pool sovereignty. The third condition is a basic consensus on human rights and citizenship requirements. These still remain very murky. The Ireland example is often cited as a precedent, but that settlement would have been inconceivable without the EU having harmonised so many rights.

Another sobering lesson from peace processes elsewhere is this: there is seldom a shortage of just and reasonable formulae that protect the people’s core interests. Formulae can sometimes have the effect of giving face-savers to all sides, so that they feel they can walk away with self-respect intact. To this extent they need to be explored. But the real issue may not be, which formula? It will be, who can be trusted? Formulae alone don’t generate trust; it is the presence of trust that allows workable formulae to be built. The government will have to peddle not only a formula, but faith itself.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi