Seminar on: IMPLICATIONS OF THE 13TH SAARC SUMMIT

PROGRAM

ABSTRACT
PROSPECTS OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN KASHMIR
DR. SWARAN SINGH

Kashmir remains one of world’s most intractable and violent disputes today. To the least, this involves India and Pakistan as the main two protagonists, as also a whole mushroom of local groups as well as international forces and factors. As regards India and Pakistan, this dispute has been at the center of at least three of their four inter-State wars and theater of their continued low intensity conflict for last two decades which has witnessed unprecedented death and destruction as also related collateral damage disrupting the very social fabric and culture of this entire region.
To this has since been added the nuclear deterrent element labeling Kashmir with the epithet of ‘nuclear flashpoint’, which has pushed it further to the center stage of global strategic debates. That’s not all. The leverages of its traditional two protagonists, India and Pakistan, stand restrained, even undermined. The stage, as if, has been broadened to include global jihadi forces that have gradually sidelined local revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the only political pro-liberation conglomerate in Kashmir – the All Party Hurriyat (Liberation) Conference – has split into two and their splinters remains disunited and vulnerable to vested interests.
The recent years have, however, also witnessed several positive trends. To top it all, responding to a Pakistani proposal, India and Pakistan had agreed to a cease-fire along the internationals boundary, LoC, and the Siachen Glacier in Jammu and Kashmir with effect from 26 November 2003. Till the time of writing this paper, this remains the first ever-successful cease-fire between the two armies since the separatist moment erupted in late 1980s.
This has allowed India and Pakistan to set up several confidence building measures (CBMs) which include Srinagar-Muzaffarabad as also Poonch-Rawalkot Bus services across the Line of Control (LoC). Later, following the devastating earthquake of 8 October 2005, in which thousands of Kashmiris lost lives, Pakistan had opened five points in LoC so that relief workers could cross and ferry relief. More recently, Pakistan’s own experiences with militant outfits have also contributed to minimizing the India-Pakistan rhetoric and allowed space for new initiatives.

Starting from President Musharraf’s 12 January 2003 speech, this period has since resulted in a visible slide in annual statistics on incidents and total deaths from respectively 3,401 and 2,603 for 2003 to 1,065 and 733 for 2007. The atmospherics today seem most opportune to think out-of-the-box and initiate debates on more innovative methodologies. And, it is in this new context, that this paper tries to examine prospects of strengthening the conflict management strategy in Kashmir.

*Paper presented in an International Workshop on Conflict Management Mechanisms and the Challenge of Peace organized by the Program on Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Department of International Relations, University of Karachi in collaboration with the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Islamabad at the Arts Auditorium on November 26-27-2007

** Associate Professor, Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Mahrauli Road, New Delhi, India.