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"Agra Summit - Inconclusive and not a Failure" - Part 3
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Shared Sovereignty to realize unrealized aspirations of Diverse People in Jammu & Kashmir
India should not shy away from the reality that Kashmir is the major thorn in the relations between India and Pakistan. All talks about "National Sovereignty" and all claims that 'Kashmir is an Integral Part of India" are indispensable to run domestic politics. However, we need to be bit realistic if we desire to leave a peaceful sub-continent to our posterity. We need to be brave and face the reality to arrive at a solution. The conventional jingoism and tuff stance would not lead us anywhere. This does not mean that we give up Kashmir. The suggestion here is to be open in listing all possibilities to arrive at a solution. We can deliberate on all of them before we put forward the same for the other party.
This author also believes that there can be no lasting peace unless both the countries change their mindset. They need to grow up in their approaches to solve the long-standing problems. There is an imaginative solution put forward by too ambitious idealists that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should merge or operate through a conglomerated body as these were basically parts of a single country during the colonial days. But if this is dismissed as too naïve, let us think at a bit pragmatic level. As Ayesha Jalal courageously and constructively suggested, both India and Pakistan should stop "subscribing in paranoid fashion to rigid and monolithic notions of territorial sovereignty", both the countries should "take a page out of South Asia's pre-colonial history of loosely layered and shared sovereignties and creatively work out political accommodations that can help fulfil the many unrealised aspirations of their diverse peoples". This author complete agrees to her opinion that "boundaries, however imaginatively drawn through partitions and fiercely protected by armed might, cannot teach people how to accommodate, far less trust and respect, each other". Let us not be any more jingoistic and dogmatic.
Opportune Time
An interesting development that needs a closer attention is that Musharraf termed the Kashmir issue as "Only Bilateral" and he mentioned in the Press Conference in Pakistan 0n 20th July 2001 that there is no need for a third party mediation at this stage. This is a major shift from Pakistan's consistent efforts in the yesteryears to internationalize the Kashmir issue when India was resisting that attempt by calling it as a "bilateral issue". The reader may recall that till recently Pakistan raised this issue in the United Nations to get the support of the World countries. The change in stance is also due to Pakistan's dwindling economy and also due tot he fact that it could not succeed in its attempt to involve or get the support of US in Kashmir issue. Also, from Lahore Summit (1999) onwards, Pakistan stared considering "Kashmir" as an "issue" rather than a "dispute" between the two countries. Even in the draft declaration which came close to signing in Agra refers to Kashmir as an "issue" and not as a "dispute". Although this is a semantic victory for India, considering the fact that semantics alone dominated the entire summit and came in the way of Declaration, this can not be brushed aside.
As pointed out in the article appeared on 9 July, 2001, the new generation on both sides especially in Pakistan views the "partition" and India with less of a bias. The younger generation on both sides is open and more balanced. They are less inclined to stereotypical explanations and prejudices. Even in Kashmir, the younger generation wants to live in peace and their urge to settle scores is absent or less compared to the older generation. They are basically misguided to terrorist activities or do not find an alternate livelihood. It is important that India should provide them with opportunities to live in peace and with dignity. It is not sufficient to claim it "an integral part of India". From these angles, it can easily be said that it is the right time to have frequent dialogue with Pakistan.
The author requests the right thinking and concerned readers that they should not fall prey to the media judgement once again (as we did in expecting a solution after the Agra summit) and give up the hopes of further talks with Pakistan. As Ayesha Jalal rightly pointed out, if anything, the media should learn a lesson and not confuse the shadow for the substance of an understanding between the two countries.