The violence and tension have resumed in Indian-controlled Kashmir after a short interlude of hope that a negotiated outcome to the conflict there might be possible. Hizbul Mujahideen, one of the proPakistani guerrilla groups fighting against Indian rule of the territory, called a ceasefire on July 24th, to which the Indian government responded rapidly and positively. It was, unfortunately, a short-lived episode, collapsing last week when the group insisted on immediate tripartite talks involving the Pakistani government. But it has very usefully drawn international attention to a conflict in which 30,000 people have been killed in the last decade and which was defined recently in a US intelligence report as the most dangerous in the world, because of its potential to go nuclear should India and Pakistan go to war again.
That the offer to negotiate was taken up so promptly may have come as a surprise to the Hizbul Mujahideen organisation. It is very close to the Pakistani government and the initiative was probably taken on that government's behalf. The military regime in Islamabad came to power after Pakistan pulled back from a confrontation with India over Kashmir last year; since then it has come under heavy pressure from the United States to calm the dispute down, following the series of nuclear tests by the Pakistani and Indian authorities. Associating itself with a ceasefire was one way of responding positively to such pressure - it looks as if the guerrillas' demand for immediate tripartite talks involving the Pakistani government may have been a stratagem for breaking off an initiative that unexpectedly elicited such a positive Indian response. Whatever about the longer term, no Indian government could agree to such a condition so soon, given the deep sensitivity over Kashmir and its capacity to provoke inter-party tension in India itself. But given the dangers attending this conflict it is crucial to keep that longer term in mind continuously. At some stage the Indian and Pakistani governments will have to negotiate a settlement on Kashmir if the present unstable confrontation is to be avoided. The nuclear dimension adds a fearsome imperative to the search for a formula to so.
Rather than becoming resigned to a continuation of the status quo it is certainly worth exploring alternative means of approaching ways to resolve the conflict. A number of commentators have suggested that the Northern Ireland peace process offers some potential guidelines. If the Indian and Pakistani governments could respond to a ceasefire with a more inclusive basis for talks and the promise of a more effective, representative and less repressive government in the parts of Kashmir they control, leading to free and fair elections, a huge hurdle would have been overcome.
Such a process could talk place alongside international efforts to bring Pakistan and India to the negotiating table. A standing intergovernmental conference on Kashmir, together with new arrangements between the two governments and the respective authorities in the parts of Kashmir they control would introduce a new framework for negotiations. That would require the inclusion of those who support all the options canvassed - independence, union with India and with Pakistan. It would also require a new approach to human rights, policing and the release of prisoners. This may sound utopian in the light of the deep enmity and suspicion currently on show and reflected in independence day speeches this week by Indian and Pakistani leaders. But there are some grounds for hope following the ceasefire and the willingness of Indian leaders to respond to it.