ISLAMABAD, June 10: There were more searching questions than answers, more concerns than confidence about the ongoing Pakistan-India dialogue process yielding positive results on the Kashmir dispute.
These questions and concerns were articulated on Friday by participants of a two-day conference on ‘The Kashmir Dispute in the context of Pakistan’, organised by the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.
The conference, that coincides with the landmark visit of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference leadership, has brought together eminent scholars and intellectuals from Pakistan, India and held Kashmir to discuss the longstanding Kashmir dispute.
There was consensus among the participants that Kashmiris were a principal party to the dispute and hence needed to be included in the dialogue process. “There was no quick fix solution and that for the time being triangular approach was the best to move towards a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute.”
The participants were sceptical of the peace process and raised questions whether the peace process was irreversible and if it would result in conflict resolution. Impact of new elements of Kashmir dispute on the increasingly complex resettlement question also figured in discussions. They also expressed reservations about the lack of progress on dispute resolution and continued human rights violations in the valley despite the ongoing peace process.
On the opening day insightful and thought-provoking presentations were made on three specific topics — ‘Historical perspective of the dispute’, ‘CBMs — means of conflict resolution or conflict management?’ and ‘The human rights issue in the Kashmir dispute’.
At the outset Dr Shireen Mazari, director-general of the ISSI stated that since so much had happened on the Pakistan- India track the objective of the conference was to look at where the two countries were heading towards on the Kashmir dispute.
Senator Mushahid Hussain, Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was the chief guest mentioned the historic visit of the APHC leadership to AJK and Pakistan last week to underline the opportunities in dispute resolution.
“This journey has propelled the Kashmiri leadership to the role of a pivotal player in the Pakistan-India relationship which is now a trilateral dialogue in which the Kashmiris have been engaged as a factor for the first time in the history of the 58 year long dispute,” maintained Senator Mushahid, who is also secretary-general of ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
“The ball is now in the Indian court since the triangle is complete, and all three parties — Pakistan, India and Kashmiris — are all ready and willing to negotiate”. he contended. However, he emphasised that the status quo on Kashmir was neither tenable not acceptable either to Pakistan or Kashmiri people.
He asserted that the single most important factor that had been a plus for peace, security and stability for South Asia has been the nuclearization of the region. He said war was no longer a viable option and the nuclear factor had provided national self-confidence to the state and people of Pakistan.
Senator Hussain stated that myths about the military and the religious parties in Pakistan being opposed to peace with India had been demolished. In this context he pointed out that it was President Gen Pervez Musharraf who had spearheaded the peace process and the Leader of the Opposition and MMA Secretary-General Maulana Fazlur Rehman had fully endorsed the dialogue process when he visited India in 2003.
Referring to the recent visit of Indian opposition leader L.K. Advani to Pakistan the senator said Pakistanis were very perplexed about the fact that Mr Advani praised the father of the nation (Quaid-i-Azam) and hell broke loose in India. “Not only the Hindu fundamentalist but also the secularists in the Congress ganged up against him,” he observed. Noting that like Pakistan India also needed to admit and reverse the wrongs of the past and move on. “A psychological hump in India still needs to be crossed. It is time for us to end this demonization of our leaders,” he said.
Senator Hussain underscored the need for opinion leaders and intellectuals to focus on facts and not to just echo the officially-certified truth.
Former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Inamul Haque gave an incisive and provocative historical perspective on the Kashmir dispute. He said the dispute had many dimensions of which the most important was the human rights aspect and the right of Kashmiri people to determine their future. Referring to the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir he said the UN did not talk of the third option (independence) because there were two parties to the dispute.
Challenging the legal validity of the instrument of accession signed by the Maharaja of Kashmir, Mr Haque pointed out that in the UN resolution there was no reference to the letter of accession. He also recounted Mr Nehru’s statement in the Indian Parliament in 1952 that Kashmir was not the property of Pakistan or India and as a great nation India would not go back on its commitment of holding a plebiscite in Kashmir.
He maintained that Maharaja of Kashmir who had no legal authority to sign the sale deed of Kashmir did so under coercion. It was also pointed out that the document of accession had not been seen by the UN, or any researchers or scholars in India and Pakistan.
Mr Haque knocked down one by one Indian claims regarding non- implementation of UN resolution by Pakistan, UN Kashmir resolution being irrelevant and Kashmir being a symbol of India’s secularism. Quoting a UN spokesman he said the UN resolutions are relevant until such time that they are implemented.
“If the core of Indian secularism rests on illegal occupation of territory then it must be a very rotten core,” Mr Haque said, recalling a statement he had made at the UNGA while exercising his right of reply to this claim made by a top Indian diplomat.
Prof Kamal Mitra Chenoy from Jawaharlal Nehru University shed light on the historical legacy of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. His view was that Kashmir had been held hostage to nationalisms and the core problem was the way Pakistan and India looked at each other.
He maintained Jammu and Kashmir dispute was largely a legacy of the clash between Indian and Pakistani nationalisms and therefore it was necessary to understand the critical aspects of the two contesting nationalisms.
“Only when this context is understood and its contradictions resolved wherever possible, will an enduring settlement of the problems between India and Pakistan be possible,” he argued while pointing to distortion of history at both ends.
A Kashmiri participant underscored that Kashmiri people believed that Kashmir was not a territorial, religious or ethnic issue but saw it as a human rights problem and their basic right to determine their future.
Dr Shireen Mazari while speaking on the role of CBMs in dispute resolution maintained that most of the CBMs between Pakistan and India had been targeted to civil society and aimed at conflict management rather than conflict resolution.
She pointed out that despite numerous CBMs between the two countries since 1949 there had been little movement on dispute resolution.
Dr Mazari warned that while the present peace process may be irreversible it could be stalled if there were no tangible progress towards resolution of the conflictual issues.
She saw the visit of Hurriyat leaders to AJK and Pakistan as the first CBM aimed at conflict resolution and said it had brought the Kashmiris, however indirectly, into the dialogue process on Kashmir.
Dr Mazari pointed out that while the APHC Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq had declared that the UN resolutions had failed and talked of exploring other options, he did not reject the principles embodied in these and had not made a shift from the principle of self-determination per se.
“On the contrary, Pakistan’s stance that Kashmir is the core issue between itself and India has been vindicated with the Indian government finally allowing the Hurriyat leadership to travel to AJK across the LoC,” Dr Mazari asserted.
Prof Gopalji Malaviya from University of Madras in his paper on Indo-Pak CBMs underlined the need for the media to play a positive role in promoting the peace process.
Mr Gautam Navlakha, editorial consultant of India’s Economic and Political Weekly spoke on human rights issue telling statistics and facts about the blatant violations of human rights in the valley.