INDIA/PAKISTAN
Never in the past two decades has the situation been as favourable as now for progress on one of the most intractable Southasian conflicts of our times. We are talking of Kashmir.
The non-aggressive style of Manmohan Singh and the freethinking autocracy of Pervez Musharraf have delivered a remarkable and sustained transformation of the Kashmir equation. The international as well as domestic conditions in India and Pakistan appear to be just right to build on the peace momentum. There is also developing opinion among the public Kashmiri figures in Srinagar itself that it is time to accommodate the concerns of New Delhi and Islamabad in order to break the impasse.
Look at Pakistan first. General Musharraf has shown remarkable flexibility. He has given up demands for implementation of the United Nations resolutions of 1948, a plebiscite among Kashmiris on what they would want, as well as third-party mediation. And the general is throwing up innovative ideas for a solution even as he prepares the domestic audience for a compromise. He is telling Kashmiri separatist leaders who would want out of India, and whom Pakistan had been supporting, that azadi is a pipedream. And Gen Musharraf is engaging with the moderates of Srinagar. In consistently pushing for more engagement with India, the general has gone further than any other Pakistani leader since as far back as, perhaps, Ayub Khan. And so we have come to see the day, for example, when the ruler of Islamabad asserts that Pakistan holds no territorial claim over Kashmir. Gen Musharraf's evolving position may be the result of several factors: international pressure, the search for calm on the eastern front at a time when the Afghan front is strife-torn, the realisation that a Kashmir stalemate does not serve Pakistan's economic interests, or even a desire to craft a legacy as a means to thwart the political parties that he has shoved aside but which will doubtless make a comeback. Whatever be the precise motivation, it is undeniable that the general has pushed the envelope on Kashmir.