India has had problems with Kashmir ever since 1947. The reasons are too well known to merit repetition. Successive governments in Delhi and Srinagar have wrestled with the problem. Kashmir has also figured prominently in at least four India-Pakistan conflicts, and the Kashmir issue has been a constant irritant in India-Pakistan relations. Anyone who deigns to read the debates in the United Nations on Kashmir during the 1950s and 1960s, and even subsequently, will understand the complexity of the Kashmir problem. Every government in Delhi has dealt with Kashmir during their tenure in office, and there has been no lack of trying on their part to solve the issue.
Many options on how to deal with the problem have been previously explored. In the past, the security problem had attracted the attention of renowned international experts, with experience in dealing with insurrections, sub-nation tensions, terrorism, and various other facets of organized and unorganized violence. During the final decades of the 20th Century, many saw a parallel between the situation in Kashmir and that prevailing in Northern Ireland. There was also a steady exchange of ideas and concepts with a view to finding a solution. A major difference between Northern Ireland and Kashmir, however, was that unlike in the case of the former, Kashmir had two hostile neighbors, one of whom was intent on instigating violence and providing a suitable ‘rear’ for terrorist elements. Current policymakers should not assume that it is a failure of imagination, or of policymaking, that prevented past leaders from understanding and finding a solution for the Kashmir problem. It would be wise for leaders in Delhi to be careful not to view immediate dividends as representing a new dawn, and should instead pause to try and ascertain what lies beyond the horizon. Restoring normalcy should be an urgent priority even if many of the senior political leaders in Kashmir belonging to the National Conference, the People’s Democratic Party, or PDP, the J&K Congress, and the J&K Peoples’ Conference appear highly critical of the Center’s policies. An intense debate must start as to where we go from here. Introspection after the initial one year has become essential. ‘Strong arm populism’ has its limits. A moment arises in the course of any struggle when it becomes necessary to undertake value-based judgements. In Kashmir, the moment is now. We cannot afford anymore‘evolutionary adaptations to an already dangerous social and complex environment’. It is a moot point whether a long-standing problem of this nature can be solved merely by rejecting notions of a ‘separate Kashmiri identity’, disowning all talk of Kashmiri and making Kashmiris pay for their past mistakes. An ingrained belief that the solution lay in squeezing Kashmir’s politics into the ‘straitjacket’ of national politics, shorn of all past beliefs and practices, could prove to be highly misplaced. It would amount to proposing a simplistic solution for a complex problem. The Kashmir problem cannot again be detached from the extant situation prevailing in parts of the world, where many existing systems are undergoing changes. This crucial aspect of current history cannot be voided
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