Kashmir: Time to Cede to the Islamists?

Kashmir: Time to Cede to the Islamists?
Dr. Subodh Atal

The status of Jammu and Kashmir has been on a steady downhill ramp since the beginning of the first BJP-led government in 1998. Six years of zigzag polices of that government eventually led to lowering the threshold of dealing with a terrorist state, putting the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir on the negotiating table, India starting out with what should have been its final position as its starting negotiating step - the LOC, and the state now being ruled by a party whose links with terrorists are alive and deep.

The result now is that the Congress-led coalition is well on its way to negotiating part of the state to Pakistan. This will be one of the biggest victories for militant Islam since Bin Laden turned his attention away from the Soviets in the early 1990s. But there is nothing stopping the new coalition government. It has a strong Muslim vote bank to consider, and certainly the BJP, whose erratic policies started the downward spiral, can hardly oppose any "peace" step that the Manmohan Singh government takes.

There are few Indian leaders who are wedded to Indian integrity at all costs. Most of the current crop of leaders are regional figures, with local special interests at the top of their agenda. Most in the media are cheering on a lovefest with Pakistan even as that prime US ally in the war on terror keeps on sending new terrorists through chinks in the Kashmir fence or through other routes that avoid the Kashmir border altogether. Kashmiri Hindu leadership is fragmented and squabbling with each other; in any case it represents too small a votebank to make a difference at the national level even if it were united. Individual Kashmiri Hindus, once loud in their desire to recreate a homeland a la Israel, have succumbed to circumstances, settled in other parts of India or around the world. Some have even quietly returned to a cautious life in the valley. As long as they keep a low profile, they hope that they can yet reconnect with the part of the world they left behind. Not many can make it back of course - too large a number would only bring back the violent antagonism of their Kashmiri Muslim neighbors who want to ensure an unopposed path to the Shariat.

In essence, the inevitable is around the corner. India will likely agree to some form of "border adjustment" to make peace with the terrorist master Musharraf. The general and his coterie of Islamist ex-ISI chiefs have played their cards, including nukes, Shaheens, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Bin Laden and Zawahiri so well that theyperhaps can influence the result of the US presidential elections (timely capture of Bin Laden or Zawahiri?), and little fear of any government in India, whether led by the BJP or the Congress. There won't of course be a lovefest after the Kashmir deal is made, it will simply be the next forward step in the centuries long progress of militant Islam in the Indian subcontinent.

It is perhaps time to learn the lessons from the lost war of Kashmir and move on. There is much to be learnt from this case study of how a critical battle against fundamentalist Islam was lost. Such battles are being fought in other parts of India today, where mistakes that were made in the past half a century in Kashmir must not be repeated. Lessons from the failures in Kashmir are also applicable to the uneven "war on terror" launched by the Bush administration, which threatens to create far more terrorists around the globe than it neutralizes. The United States would do well to study the history of Jammu and Kashmir as it further develops its strategies to fight anti-western terrorism.