A roundtable meeting was jointly organised by Panos South Asia and Himal Southasian on the subject of sustaining the peace dialogue between India and Pakistan. Specifically, the agenda was to look beyond 'confidence-building measures' and to focus on the eight-point composite dialogue between the two governments. The keynote address at the retreat, held in Bentota, Sri Lanka was presented by legal luminary and columnist A G Noorani. We reproduce below an edited transcript of his address, extemporaneously delivered. While Noorani ranged far and wide on the many subjects that make up the composite dialogue, what is presented here are his views on the all-important matter of Kashmir. The Bentota meeting was the third in a series of India – Pakistan retreats, the first two being on the role of the press in escalating bilateral tensions or ushering peace, and the second on nuclear proliferation in Southasia. A forthcoming meet is planned to discuss the subject of Kashmir itself
'This term, the 'composite dia-logue', is a rather misleading summation of what has been at the kernel of India-Pakistan relations since their birth.
Immediately after partition, it became quite apparent that the basis of the Indo-Pak conflict could be neatly classed into Kashmir or 'K' and other 'non-K' issues. Kashmir on the one hand, and the others, which included evacuee property, division of cash balances, refugee movement and the division of the Punjab rivers. The passage of time dealt with some of the problems, but Kashmir remained standing in all its starkness.
Even though the problem began when the three states of Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad did not accede to one side or the other, everyone knew the issue would come to a head on Kashmir. It was unfortunate that they did not devise ground rules so that the problem of all three states would be settled in one go. On 1 November 1947, less than a week after the ruler of Kashmir had acceeded to India following a raid by the tribals, India did offer Pakistan a formula- if the ruler belonged to one religion and people to another, the matter should be settled by plebiscite. This was rejected by Jinnah. It is, however, historically correct to say in the light of available documents, that even without that raid by tribals, the ruler would have acceded to India. And Sheikh Abdullah was privy to this.