Prospects Of Peace

Full text of the talk, Letter from India, broadcast on the BBC.

Let us begin with a tasty question. Can you consume a greasy, heavy,exclusively non-vegetarian meal at 5.22 pm? The very sight of spicy tandoori chicken,oily mutton biriyani, masala fish tikka, buttered naans,rounded off with over-sweet, sticky dishes of dessert, at what is regarded astea-time, makes me at least feel slightly sick. In the subcontinent, however, atthe fag end of the holy month of Ramadan, politicians throw extravagant partiescalled Iftaar to celebrate the official breaking of the daily fast. Thesun sets in Delhi, for instance, in the winter months between 5.20 and 5.35 andsometime in between the serious and copious feasting begins.

If you have been a journalist like me for over 25 years, you learn to avoidparties given by politicians. In India, where liquor usually flows like water,politicians’ parties are very, very dry because officially Indian politiciansdon’t drink. Of course, this is a total lie, but it is important to be seenadhering to the Gandhian tradition of simple living and high thinking. Actually,the conversation at these parties is small-minded, boring and incestuous.Professionally, they are a complete waste of time, and not even fun.

Iftaar parties have one added element: hypocrisy. Hindu politicians ofthe right-wing nationalist party, the BJP, whose politics has a pronouncedanti-Muslim edge, make sure they host Iftaar parties. One of them toldme: "I have to do this once a year even though I know Muslims I entertainstrongly oppose me and my party." So, why does he do it? "The media - I wantmy picture with one of these Muslim leaders to appear in the papers. I must beseen to be secular," he said. So, the ritual grinds on.

You might ask what Iftaar parties have to do with the subject of mytalk, which is the Kashmir dispute - the bitter 57-year-old divide between Indiaand Pakistan over the border state of Kashmir which has kept the worldbreathless? Well, it was at one of these Iftaar parties in Pakistan’scapital Islamabad four weeks ago that President Pervez Musharraf launched hislatest and most controversial peace offensive. A slightly surprised Delhi wasoffered a region-by-region peace plan which Islamabad claimed was both brave,imaginative and generous. It allegedly offered India and Pakistan an opportunityto break fresh ground and look afresh at the festering Kashmir dispute. ThePakistan President’s proposal sought to divide the state of Jammu and Kashmirinto seven regions on the basis of religion and ethnicity. There would be Hinduareas, Muslim areas and Buddhist areas. The status of each could be determinedindividually.

I was watching the President on TV in Delhi making his new proposal when Igot two excited calls from Pakistani friends. They pleaded with me not todismiss the proposals. "He is taking a big gamble domestically with this idea.Please help start a debate in India," one of them said.

Since Gen Mushrraf floated his trial balloon, there has indeed been muchdebate on the subject in India. Unfortunately, the idea has not been wellreceived. "Musharraf’s new floater leaks badly" read one newspaperheadline. "India not Mushy on Kashmir" said another. "Musharraf’sbrain-wave a non-starter," said The Times of India. All of which led anirritated Pakistan President to tell a team of Indian journalists in Islamabadtwo weeks ago that he was getting "bad vibes" from India on his brave newidea. If you want to be negative and get back to the past, he warned, I amready.

The past is somewhere no one in India or Pakistan wishes to return to. Theinternational community, especially, dreads the prospect of the two nuclearneighbours returning to the bad old days.You might remember that India andPakistan have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir, and in 1999 whenIndia and Pakistan were embroiled in a mini war, both countries had live nuclearweapons which hot-heads on each side threatened to use. The UN Secretary Generalhas described Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint, much to India’s discomfiture.Kofi Annan is not very popular in New Delhi.

The history of the Kashmir dispute, a legacy of the British raj, is long,tortuous and bloody. When the British left India in 1947, the status of thestate of Kashmir was undecided, the matter of ownership in fact was before theUnited Nations. Much water has flowed since then, and currently India controlstwo-thirds of the Kashmir valley while Pakistan holds one-third. Both countriespossess a well-defined international border but in Kashmir they have what iscalled the line of control, LoC, which is the unofficial border theinternational community recognises. And on the LoC India and Pakistan have tensof thousands of troops armed to the teeth, eye-ball to eye-ball, guarding aborder of nearly 750 kilometres.

The irony is that the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, which is at the heartof the dispute, is an incredibly pretty, serene and tranquil patch of realestate. Tourist brochures call it, "paradise on earth". The people areeasy-going, handsome, tolerant, humorous and practice a relaxed, non-radicalIslam. Kashmiri women are renowned for their beauty and move around freely withnone of the Taliban-type restrictions on them. That such a valley, which hasenormous tourism potential, should be the theatre of so much violence, strifeand suffering is a huge human and political tragedy.

At the core of the Kashmir dispute are two competing ideologies, two visions.India is a secular democracy which houses the world’s second largest Muslimpopulation and is therefore determined to avoid further partition on the basisof religion. Pakistan is an Islamic state which was founded on the belief thatMuslims in the subcontinent would never get a fair deal in a Hindu ruled India.Muslim majority, Kashmir, therefore, rightfully belonged to Pakistan.

India, in particular, is hyper-sensitive about any third party or thirdcountry meddling in the Kashmir dispute. It believes the problem is a strictlybilateral issue. British intervention, for historical reasons, is especiallyunwelcome. The Queen and her then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, got a taste ofthat sensitivity on her visit to India in October 1997, when Mr Cook made somepassing remarks about British colonial responsibility and offered himself andBritain as some kind of mediator in the dispute. That single remark ensured thatthe visit was a public relations disaster and the Queen and the Duke ofEdinburgh were given a very rough time by the media and the Indian governmentfor daring to suggest third-party involvement by Britain.

Just as the Queen left India, the Spice Girls, then at the height of theirpopularity, arrived in Delhi, and were scheduled to meet the press. A franticand worried British High Commission official telephoned me to ask what advice heshould give to the Spice Girls in their interaction with the media: "Let themsay anything, but please don’t let them talk about third-party mediation," Iadvised. I am happy to report that the Spice Girls had a successful andtrouble-free tour of India.

The news is not all grim. For the past 18 months India and Pakistan have beenlocked in a sustained, multi-layered dialogue. The Indian prime minister,Manmohan Singh, who was born in Pakistan and went to school there, had aproductive and pleasant meeting with President Musharraf in New York recently. The two countries have in fact agreed on a dialogue on all outstanding issuesincluding Kashmir.These days film stars, singers, theatre groups, peaceactivists, lawyers, parliamentarians, schoolchildren, businessmen criss-crossthe Indo-Pak border. The other day, some friends who were coming over rang up toask if they could bring two house guests. Of course, we said. They turned out tobe a charming young couple from Karachi who it transpired enjoyed drinking wine.As the lady from Karachi finished her second glass of the local red we wereserving, she observed, "When you come to Pakistan we will give you betterwine."

The core reason why politicians in India and Pakistan are in a hurry to burythe hatchet is because of the intense pressure from civil society. There is awhole generation of Indians and Pakistanis who have no memory of the horrors ofpartition in which nearly a million people were butchered. It is thisconstituency which is pushing for an early peace.

On Tuesday morning a slightly worried New Delhi welcomed the Prime Ministerof Pakistan, ShaukatAziz, wondering if he would be pushing his President’s controversialproposal. He did not, saying that the proposals were meant for an "internaldebate" in Pakistan. By the time he left there were embraces and warmhandshakes. The Indo-Pak peace dialogue is still on track - in fact both sidessaid limited progress has been made during the Shaukat Aziz visit.

In a dispute which has lasted for over five decades and caused muchbloodshed, there are bound to be temporary disappointments. India, it must beadmitted, has little room to manoeuvre when it comes to Kashmir. Happily,creative solutions which do not include radical re-drawing of maps and change innational boundaries are being thrown up.

I was born in Rawalpindi in Pakistan. My family, part of the old generation,fled to India during Partition. I unreservedly accept Pakistan as anindependent, sovereign nation. And I hope in the next few years, the transitionfrom permanent enemies to permanent friends will become a welcome reality.