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The massacre of innocents in Kashmir is evidence of several failures. At the obvious level, it seems as if the Indian state has failed to protect the life and limb of its citizens, thanks to the murderous proclivities of Pakistan-aided armed mercenaries. This is certainly true up to a point. But, look closely, and the real failure is our inability to understand why all this is happening. The current mayhem in Kashmir is directly related to Pakistan's realisation that it has failed on two fronts: one, it cannot win Kashmir through war or insurgency; and, two, it cannot survive without reference to an Indian enemy.
Seen in this light, Kashmir is only an excuse for Pakistan's ruling elite to escalate enmity with India. After Pokharan-II, Pakistan's rulers have been tomtomming Kashmir as a cause celebre--something over which they might wage nuclear war. The offical refrain, orchestrated for the benefit of ill-informed western peaceniks, is simple: solve the Kashmir problem, and India and Pakistan can become The massacre of innocents in Kashmir is evidence of several failures. At the obvious level, it seems as if the Indian state has failed to protect the life and limb of its citizens, thanks to the murderous proclivities of Pakistan-aided armed mercenaries. This is certainly true up to a point. But, look closely, and the real failure is our inability to understand why all this is happening. The current mayhem in Kashmir is directly related to Pakistan's realisation that it has failed on two fronts: one, it cannot win Kashmir through war or insurgency; and, two, it cannot survive without reference to an Indian enemy.
Seen in this light, Kashmir is only an excuse for Pakistan's ruling elite to escalate enmity with India. After Pokharan-II, Pakistan's rulers have been tomtomming Kashmir as a cause celebre--something over which they might wage nuclear war. The offical refrain, orchestrated for the benefit of ill-informed western peaceniks, is simple: solve the Kashmir problem, and India and Pakistan can becomebosom friends. But can they? A few years back, it was Punjab militants who were being financed by Pakistan. What did that have to do with Kashmir? The ISI had a hand in the Mumbai blasts in 1993 and there are enough indications that the Coimbatore blasts, too, were its handiwork. What did these acts of enmity have to do with Kashmir? The truth is that Pakistan, having been created in the name of Islam, has no reason to exist if Muslims anywhere in India find a way to co-exist with members of the majority community. Kashmiri Muslims have, in recent months, been thinking along those lines, and that's why a desperate Pakistan is trying to butcher Hindus in the state by resorting to ethnic cleansing of the most barbarous kind. It is hoping that the resultant Hindu backlash will revive the spirit of separatism in Kashmir. Moreover, the ruling elite in Pakistan (the feudal landowners, the generals) will lose its collective stranglehold on the levers of state power unless it can retain (Hindu) India as its permanentenemy. This means that nothing will be solved even if India were to take a more accommodating stand on Kashmir.
India's real failure is its inability to understand the true nature of Pakistan as a failed fundamentalist state. This is the message that India needs to convey effectively to the US and the west when they clamour for internationalising the Kashmir issue. The west has to be told--firmly and clearly--that the fight for Kashmir is a fight to retain the multi-ethnic, multi-religious character of the Indian state. It is not about oppressing a religious minority in Kashmir.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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