Under an ominous nuclear overhang
India unilaterally called off parleys with Pakistan last year. According to Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, New Delhi closed the window for talks when Pakistan declared Burhan Wani a martyr of the independence movement. What Islamabad did was in line with its policy of lending political and moral support to the Kashmiris fight for self-determination. India’s harsh tactics that include large scale arrests and torture, imposition of curfew, frequent bans on social media and use of pellet guns to suppress a peaceful and totally indigenous movement have led people to take up arms. Riding a nationalist wave Prime Minister Modi and BJP hardliners think they can isolate Pakistan and insist on a dialogue on their terms only. What Modi government wants in particular is to force Islamabad to abandon its support for the Kashmiri’s struggle. This is simply not going to happen. Kashmir is a disputed territory and recognised as such by the international community. Even the Trump administration calls the occupied Valley “Indian administered Kashmir.”
Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers. They must not allow their disputes to spiral out of the manageable limits. A situation has to be avoided where a border incident leads to a surgical strike, the later to massive reprisals, with everything ending up in a war with unconventional weapons. Diplomacy and crisis management alone can stop this from happening.
There is still sufficient goodwill between the people of the two countries. On Independence Day, a group of singers from the two countries jointly sang the national anthems of Pakistan and India. A popular Pakistani cricketer wished India while advocating peace and mutual tolerance. A Pakistani patient suffering from a peculiar kind of cancer was admitted to an Indian hospital. The gestures need to be encouraged though they may take time to produce the desired effect. What is needed meanwhile is to keep the channels of talks open at all levels. Instead of putting up preconditions India needs to agree to initiate talks on all issues from Kashmir to terrorism.