What India could do

Pakistan's minimalist attitude towards the Indian offer of cooperation in providing relief to the people of Jammu and Kashmir is not surpris...

Pakistan8217;s minimalist attitude towards the Indian offer of cooperation in providing relief to the people of Jammu and Kashmir is not surprising. While accepting the delivery of some relief material, Islamabad is not ready to risk the presence of Indian troops or other organisations in Pakistan controlled Kashmir. Fully aware of Islamabad8217;s political sensitivities on accepting joint relief operations, India does not want to embarrass Pakistan by publicly persisting with the proposals on substantive assistance. Sceptics would argue that India8217;s own reaction would not have been very different if the brunt of the earthquake was borne by the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan had offered joint relief operations.

That the security mindset in Islamabad has prevailed over the imperatives of bolder approaches to cooperation in Kashmir at this tragic moment is no excuse for New Delhi to think small. Given the magnitude of the tragedy and India8217;s own territorial claims over the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which has been flattened by the temblor in the Hindu Kush mountains, India needs to explore unilateral approaches in responding to the worst natural disaster in J038;K in more than a century. If New Delhi looks beyond the immediate issues of relief and rehabilitation on both sides of J038;K, it could come up with imaginative steps that could ameliorate the larger human condition in the entire state. If the seismic faultlines underlying Kashmir region produced the devastating quake, Delhi must now respond with a sincere effort to overcome the political faultlines within J038;K.

One such step would be an immediate decision by the government to suspend all anti-terror operations of the Indian security forces in J038;K. Whether the reports on terrorist training camps in PoK being destroyed by the Saturday quake are true or not, and whether the decision by the PoK-based United Jihadi Council to temporarily end its operations in Kashmir are credible or not, an Indian decision to cease fire in J038;K would send a powerful signal. Traditionalists in the national security establishment would surely demur. They would point to continuing terrorist violence in Kashmir. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 8212; who has sought to recast the national debate on Kashmir over the last year and a half 8212; would be remiss not to seize the moment.