How both India and Pakistan should go about resolving the issue
The National Assembly and Senate have passed resolutions condemning human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir and called for the implementation of the United Nations resolutions to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. Nawaz Sharif has addressed a joint meeting of the Kashmir Council and the AJK Legislative Assembly in Muzaffarbad expressing his government’s resolve to continue to provide moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ right of self-determination.
Pakistan and India have fought costly wars over Kashmir without changing the status quo. The architect of the Kargil misadventure had to subsequently realise that the way to the resolution of Kashmir issue lies only through talks. A consensus was growing in Pakistan that without changing its principled position on Kashmir the country should put the dispute on the backburner for the time being while cultivating trade and economic ties with India to create an atmosphere of goodwill conducive for the resolution of outstanding issues, including Kashmir. The way PM Modi reacted to the Pakistani High Commissioner’s meeting with a Hurriyet leader administered a serious blow to attempts by Pakistan to revive the peace process.
Failing to win the elections in the Indian-held Kashmir, the BJP has undertaken an exercise in changing the demographic mix of Kashmir by settling non-Kashmiris in the occupied Valley. There are apprehensions that the Modi government might try to repeal Article 370 of the Constitution, depriving Kashmir of its special status. Attempts of the sort would strengthen extremist tendencies in Kashmir as well as among the Indian Muslims. What is more, Pakistan which is a party to the dispute would not accept this. While according full political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris right of self-determination, Pakistan has to avoid doing anything that can be construed as support to the acts of violence in Kashmir. While everyone in a democratic society is entitled to free speech, none should be allowed to use Pakistan’s soil to spread hatred or to incite people to violence against any country.
