Kashmir peace process — A view from the outside

But none of this necessarily means that thinking has changed enough to keep talks going once started, let alone to produce a settlement to a dispute that has brought about two wars and a 12-year insurgency involving some 35,000 deaths. Observers in India and Pakistan doubt that their governments have shed the inhibitions that have stymied any settlement for half a century. Amitabh Mattoo, a scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru Universityin Delhi, thinks that the most India can offer Kashmir is “full autonomy” within India; Pakistan, India hopes, will settle for the portion of Kashmir it already controls. But, says Mr Mahmud in Islamabad, Pakistan’s willingness to let the Hurriyat talk to India is “based on the assumption that Kashmiri leaders will not settle for autonomy.”

This clash over final results could matter soon, because it bears on how the talks will be structured. The longer India talks separately to Kashmiris and to Pakistanis, the better it odds of striking a deal with the former and presenting it as a fait accompli to the later. The sooner the two tracks are brought together, the bigger the say Pakistan will have in the final disposition of Kashmir.

Both sides have powerful reasons to hold fast to their traditional positions. India which has had to battle many other separatist movements, never stops worrying about its “territorial integrity” and about what would happen to its 130 m Muslims if the only Muslim-majority state were allowed to secede. Many in Vajpayee’s party regret that Kashmir has been given more autonomy than other states, since they fear this may represent a precedent.

For its part, Pakistan’s army owes its privileged position to strife with India. Even if General Musharraf is willing to give that up, he is vulnerable to charges of treachery by Islamic zealots, many of whom are armed and who have friends in the army. The leader of one prominent group recently called him a “security risk” to Pakistan.

The next few weeks may disclose whether inhibitions can be broken. Mansoor Ijaz, a New York-based financier who has helped facilitate the peace process, says that General Musharraf is “assembling a team of like-minded generals” who believed that the Kashmiri freedom movement has been hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists.

Excerpted from `The Economist’, January 6-12