It is not a two legged race as India suggests nor a three legged race as Pakistan suggests. It is a four legged race between India Pakistan separatists and terrorists. The Kashmir conflict is raked up by Pakistan in international forum incessantly with India proscribing any third party involvement. There have been three full scale wars and many more border skirmishes between the two countries. The result portrayed by the two do not coagulate and are simply not reliable. Internationally, Kashmir has been at the centre of talks in many bilateral and multilateral meets but none of them have ended conclusively.
Primarily due to the Hindu Muslim friction, the Kashmir issue was first realized prior to the independence when princely state of Kashmir did not accede to either of the newly found countries. Raja Hari Singh decide to rule Kashmir as an independent state. During the time of partition, separatists from Pakistan started infiltrating the princely state and Raja Hari Singh turned towards Nehru for help. Only problem, Nehru wanted him to accede to India before the troops were sent in. Devoid of options, Hari Singh obliged.
Fair and square?
Not even close. Now India had annexed the princely state of Junagadh on the pretext that it is a Hindu majority state with a Muslim rule and that it does not share a land border with Pakistan(Earl Mountbatten famously termed this situation as a "geographical compulsion"). A similar argument was put forth by the Pakistan government for Kashmir. It went haywire when India approached U.N. to intervene but later backed off saying Kashmir issue will be settled internally. India later agreed to involve Pakistan in decision making but the two countries have so many issue that have to be settled before India agreed to even talk about Kashmir. Talks have been cancelled twice in the past year. Pakistan believes that people of Kashmir should also be involved. A group of separatists locally known as Hurriyat want to be a part of the dialogue and they have Pakistan’s backing. India on the other hand believes that no separatists will be involved in the talks as they are not democratically elected and their intentions are against the sovereignty of India. Considering the fact that Hurriyat leaders are random guys from north Kashmir who have never been unanimously elected or nominated to be Kashmir's interlocutor, India’s stand is acceptable. Moreover, in the recently concluded Ufa summit, the two countries agreed to talk about terrorism and only terrorism in the NSA level talks. Whispers will tell you that the Pakistan’s army was not very happy with the talk anyways. This is like deja vo since exactly a year ago, talks were called off for the same reason. Back then Basit, Pakistan’s high commissioner to India met Hurriyat leaders before the Secretary levels talk literally forcing India to call off the talks. Pakistan believes that they have always consulted Hurriyat leaders in the past and it should not be reason to call off the talks now.
The first(and the most important) of the many issues still unsettled is cross border terrorism. India believes that a dialogue cannot be conducted if border infiltration continue. Pakistan has been denying any involvement in cross border skirmishes and believes it is being carried on by separatists and terrorists from. Regardless of what Pakistan says, there is hardly any doubt about their involvement.
This logjam can only be bypassed if India and Pakistan are able to come up with a conducive environment and allow some respite to the other country by backing off a little bit. The iron stand taken by either is just not acceptable specially from India, a country touted to be a world leader in the coming decades. This kind of juvenile behavior will lead us no where and the people Kashmir will suffer perpetually.
*the title has been taken from INDIA AFTER GANDHI- R Guha.
