Kashmir

As violence surges in Indian-administered Kashmir, four experts say confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan are the only way to begin solving the territorial dispute.

Five South Asia experts assess the importance of solving the Kashmir dispute in relation to U.S. security interests in the region and what policies the Obama administration should pursue.

A profile of militant extremist groups in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Howard B. Schaffer, a former top State Department official on South Asia, says Washington should seek to prevent tensions in Kashmir from complicating U.S. security interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This publication is now archived. Could the October 8 earthquake help bring peace between India and Pakistan?India and Pakistan have clashed over the disputed region of Kashmir since 1947, when the two countries were partitioned into separate states following the end of British colonial rule. The devastating earthquake—which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and struck the Pakistan-controlled region of Kashmir—killed tens of thousands of people and left millions homeless. It has also triggered international attention on the region’s peace process, which experts say could be accelerated in the wake of the Kashmir quake. There are some precedents: The 1999 earthquake in the Marmara region of Turkey prompted Greek expressions of sympathy that improved relations between the traditional rivals, and the Indonesian government and Aceh separatists agreed to a peace deal after the December 2004 tsunami ravaged the region. “As a general rule, these kinds of large-scale natural disasters do tend to have an impact, directly or indirectly,” says Stephen Cohen, senior fellow in foreign policy studies and a South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution. Has India offered Pakistan aid since the earthquake?Yes. Pakistan has accepted twenty-five tons of food, medicine, tents, blankets, and plastic sheets from India, but rejected India’s offer of helicopters to assist with relief efforts. Islamabad has also been cool to the possibility of conducting joint military-rescue operations. Experts say Pakistan has long been suspicious of its neighbor and will not allow Indian military helicopters to fly over its territory.  “It’s very telling which one Pakistan accepted,” says Mahnaz Ispahani, adjunct senior fellow for South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. What is the basic conflict over Kashmir? Each side claims the mountainous province, home to about 10 million people, as its own. At the time of partition, Kashmir’s maharaja chose to join India, a primarily Hindu state, though the majority of the prince’s subjects were Muslim. India claims this decision, as well as elections held since then in Kashmir, make the province an integral part of India. Islamabad argues that the people of the province would choose to join Pakistan if given the choice; in 1948, UN Security Council Resolution 47 called for a plebiscite to let Kashmiri citizens decide which country to join. This vote never took place, man experts say because India rejected the resolution’s plan for a truce. Islamic militants have led an insurgency in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir since 1989. India accuses Pakistan’s government of supporting the militants; Pakistan denies the charge. The two countries fought wars over Kashmir in 1947, 1965, and 1971. In 2002, escalating tensions—caused, at least partly, by an attack against India’s parliament building by Islamic militants—led each country to amass hundreds of thousands of troops along Kashmir’s de facto border, the Line of Control, which brought the nuclear-armed nations to the brink of war. Has any progress been made in negotiations?Not much, experts say. Since relations began warming between India and Pakistan in the spring of 2003, the steps forward have been small and slow. Negotiations on issues from trade to transportation links have yielded some symbolic successes—like the April 7, 2005, opening of a bus line that crosses the Line of Control—but few concrete gains have been made on the most important areas of conflict. “The Indians don’t want to make concessions and don’t think they have to; the Pakistanis feel that after investing fifty-five years trying to get a change in Kashmir, they should get some concessions,” Cohen says. Pakistan has suggested India withdraw some of the 350,000 troops it has stationed in Kashmir; India refuses. “The criteria for an agreement is that both sides can declare victory,” Cohen says; experts say the two sides are far from reaching such a point, but remain hopeful some sort of reconciliation can be reached. Despite the October 29th bombings in New Delhi, which India blames on Pakistani militants who are against Indian rule in Kashmir, the two countries have made concerted and uncharacteristic efforts to maintain good relations. Just hours after the attack, which killed at least fifty-nine people, the two governments agreed to open five points along the Kashmiri Line of Control to help reunite families and transfer relief supplies to the devastated region. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who denies his country’s involvement in the attacks, was quick to condemn the terrorist act and promised "unequivocal support for the investigation." How did the earthquake impact Islamic militant groups in Kashmir?The leader of the militant group Hezb-ul-Mujahadeen called for a ceasefire October 11 in the Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir affected by the earthquake. While ceasefires are “always relevant,” Ispahani says, she and other experts question if this one will have a lasting impact. It could be a political ploy, they say, because most of the militant bases are on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control and likely have been destroyed by the earthquake. While Pakistan has repeatedly denied Indian accusations that it supports and arms Kashmiri militants, experts say it could do more to stop them. “If Musharraf wanted to crack down on the militants, he should do it now,” Cohen says. “But [he won’t], because people in his government would then say, ‘What leverage do we have over India?’” Is there political will on both sides to reach an agreement?Experts agree that, in order to reach an agreement on such a longstanding and intractable problem as the status of Kashmir, both Indians and Pakistanis must have a change of heart about their neighbors. This hasn’t quite happened, experts say. Ispahani says Pakistani news announcers still denounce the “Indian occupiers” in Kashmir, and India seems equally unwilling to compromise. “It’s an important time for those concerned with pushing [negotiations forward] to think about how to make that a priority,” Ispahani says. “[The earthquake] should have an impact. Whether it will or not depends on the political will on both sides.” Is there precedent for natural disasters affecting politics in Pakistan?The 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed more than half a million people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and the 1974 earthquake that hit the northeastern Pakistani town of Patan, killing 5,000, hurt the credibility of the country’s leadership, under General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, respectively. In the current disaster, experts say the slow pace of relief efforts—which are increasingly being criticized by the earthquake’s victims—could hurt Musharraf. His critics and political rivals, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, could say, “It’s a military dictatorship, but where are the results?” Cohen says. That pressure, in turn, “might weaken Musharraf and make him less able to negotiate” with India, he says.

India and Pakistan have disputed the mountainous territory of Kashmir since the end of British colonialism led to independence and the partition of the two states in 1947. India controls about 55,000 square miles of the territory, Pakistan about 32,000 square miles. The province is divided by an unofficial border known as the Line of Control. The majority of Kashmir’s 10 million residents are Muslim. Clashes over Kashmir have caused two of the three wars between the two countries in the last half-century; fighting in the region has killed at least 65,000 people since 1989. William Milam, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan (1998-2001) and Bangladesh (1990-93) and currently a senior policy scholar on South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars talks to cfr.org’s Esther Pan about the impact of the recent earthquake on India-Pakistan relations. Please give an assessment of the October 8 earthquake’s potential impact on relations between India and Pakistan. It could go either way. India rushed to offer aid and Pakistan accepted, which will make things a little easier. But I’m not certain it will have much impact at all [in the long run]. I hope it does, but it’s not clear to me that it will help move things along. The difficulties are deep, and there are still hesitations on both sides. Was it unprecedented for Pakistan to accept relief aid and food from India? I don’t know if it’s ever happened before. It hadn’t happened in my time. Why was Pakistan willing to accept relief supplies but not helicopters or helicopter flights from India? Was that a military issue? Pakistan has always been very suspicious of letting Indians fly over their territory. There was a period when airplanes weren’t allowed to fly out of Delhi or even Islamabad; foreign airlines weren’t allowed to fly over some parts of Pakistan. I remember the flights had to go further north to get to Western Europe. One of the leaders of an Islamic Kashmiri resistance group, the Hezb-ul-Mujahadeen, which is based on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, called a ceasefire October 11 in areas of Indian-controlled Kashmir affected by the earthquake. What impact will that decision have? It’s a nice move. One of the major issues for the Indians is the continuance of cross-border terrorism [across the Line of Control]. They keep bringing it up in the meetings with the Pakistanis. Has there ever been this kind of ceasefire called? I’m not certain the Hezb-ul-Mujahadeen has ever called a ceasefire. There have been ceasefires along the Line of Control between the two armies, and still are, but in terms of the insurgencies, I haven’t heard of it. Do you think this earthquake could play the same role as the recent tsunami in Indonesia—that is, bring the two sides closer together and potentially lead to an agreement? Both sides have to really change their mindset about the other side and about the situation in Kashmir. But it seems as if the cooperation and goodwill on both sides during this crisis will help move that mindset forward. On both sides, I might add. What about the timing? India and Pakistan have been making quite a few friendly steps lately and the rhetoric over the last six months or so seemed much more welcoming than at other points in the past. On the Pakistani side there’s a definite will to move beyond where they were two years ago, and I think there’s been a good deal of forward movement. I don’t like to say anything that kills so many people is opportune in any way, but the peace process was progressing anyway, slowly. Whether [the earthquake] will speed it up or not is unclear to me. The tragedy itself is so devastating, that’s where the focus will lie for the next few weeks. You mentioned political will on the Pakistani side. Do you think the same political will exists on the Indian side? I’m not an expert on Indian affairs. I can only tell you I’ve heard a lot of my Pakistani sources and friends keep wishing there was quicker movement on the Indian side to acknowledge there needs to be some mutually-agreed solution in the future. And what about steps like starting the bus service across the Line of Control? Those are all helpful, but I think many of the Pakistanis are concerned—and I don’t speak for them, of course—that while India is very willing to being forthcoming on things like bus and train and communication links, it seems not to have moved in an intellectual way on the core issue, which is [the fate of] Kashmir. Is a major issue allowing Kashmiris to vote for which country they would like to join, as called for by the 1948 UN Resolution 47? Not at all. Pakistan has already moved beyond the position of the UN referendum. I don’t want to put too much meat on those bones, but many thinking Pakistanis worry the Indians are not moving quickly enough with regard to the mindset they need to be in to have a final resolution of this Kashmir problem. It will take many years, anyway. It’s a long, drawn-out process. But you feel like the willingness is there on the Pakistani side? Willingness to move into a process, yes. I’m not sure the Pakistanis have yet understood—and may not for a long time—that there will have to be some trades on both sides.

Celia W. Dugger, a former co-bureau chief for The New York Times in South Asia, says that Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s surprise move to ease tensions with Pakistan— like India, a nuclear power— suggests that he is trying to resolve the Kashmir crisis before stepping down next year. Dugger, the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that Vajpayee is likely to be replaced as prime minister by a much more hawkish successor, and so “I think the only window of opportunity here— and my guess is this is part of India’s calculation— is that the Pakistanis have to know that Vajpayee will be gone in a little over a year.” But she adds that she is not optimistic that an agreement can be reached. She was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on May 5 and 6, 2003.   Other Interviews   Prime Minister Vajpayee surprised everyone last week by restoring both full diplomatic relations and air travel between India and Pakistan after months of tension. Why did this happen now? It’s hard to say with India and Pakistan what their motivations are. Sometimes they’re rather cryptic. But I think there are several possible reasons. One is that the Indian prime minister is now 78 years old. He’s nearing the end of what will be his final term. There’ll be national elections next year. He’s always wanted to leave a legacy of better relations with Pakistan, and has been foiled in two efforts in which he regarded General Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator of Pakistan, as the betrayer. So he now has somebody in Pakistan he can deal with— the new Pakistan prime minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali. Does Jamali have the authority to make a deal? No. In Pakistan, when it comes to the central foreign policy question, which is Pakistan’s relations with India and the [disputed territory of] Kashmir, the military regime’s views are decisive. What do you think will come of Vajpayee’s initiative? Four years in the region disabused me of any facile hopes for peace. There are no real signs that either side had changed its fundamental position on Kashmir. The one slightly hopeful note is that in a statement on Tuesday by Jamali, which must have been approved by General Musharraf, Pakistan has indicated it is willing to discuss nuclear confidence measures with India, but it is still not clear that Pakistan will not continue to hold talks on the nuclear issue hostage to the Kashmir issue. Why is that important? Because the world’s greatest fear about India and Pakistan is that there might be a nuclear war between them, and at a minimum, they must take steps to ensure that this does not happen by accident or miscalculation. I gather that Jamali invited Vajpayee to a meeting in Pakistan after Vajpayee made his announcement, but he politely refused. Right. He’s not going to make the mistake he made in Agra [at a 2001 India-Pakistan meeting], which is to go without a deal already clinched. I think he’ll only go to Pakistan if they can agree to something substantive. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is making a trip to the region. Will he try to mediate? Inevitably, the United States ends up playing a role of message-carrier [between the two sides] and, of course, pressuring each to try to be more reasonable. Is there a short-term solution in sight? No, and I think the only window of opportunity here— and my guess is this is part of India’s calculation— is that the Pakistanis know that Vajpayee will be gone in a little over a year. They’re likely to end up with somebody more hawkish, meaning Lal Krishna Advani. He is the home minister— who is also the deputy prime minister— and he’s believed to be much more hawkish on Pakistan. So the Vajpayee camp’s hope is probably that Pakistan will seize this opportunity and make some compromises that it wouldn’t otherwise make. Why does Vajpayee consider Musharraf a betrayer? There were two betrayals. The first happened in February 1999, when Vajpayee took a very unusual step— he took a [ceremonial] bus [ride] to Lahore, Pakistan, [at the invitation of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to restart bus service between the two countries]. This was the first visit of an Indian leader to Pakistan in a decade, and it followed the May 1998 nuclear tests both countries conducted and the heightened tensions those tests provoked. There were very public talks with Nawaz Sharif, and they agreed to this elaborate set of things they were going to do to try to bring peace between the two countries. Well, it turned out that, even as they were speaking, General Musharraf [then the army chief of staff] was planning the [May] Kargil invasion of Indian territory in Kashmir, which torpedoed [the peace initiative]. And then there was the October 1999 coup, when the general took over. Then, in the summer of 2001, there were talks in Agra, where the prime minister of India took a risk again. Musharraf came to India, and the talks were a disaster. The general outtalked Vajpayee; he made a public presentation to a bunch of editors in which he destroyed any chances of there being an agreement with India. So, for the second time, Vajpayee felt he had been personally betrayed by Musharraf. Now there’s newly elected Prime Minister Jamali, so at least there’s somebody else Vajpayee can deal with. There’s another factor motivating Vajpayee. I think the military strategy had reached the point of diminishing returns— it was getting nowhere. The current crisis began with the shootings outside the parliament in New Delhi? Right, that was in December of 2001, and then India began this massive military build-up, and last spring there were 1 million troops along the border. You were stationed in Delhi then. Did you think there’d be a war there? I thought it was certainly a very strong possibility. We were all bracing for another spectacular terrorist attack, which, given that the two sides were nose-to-nose, could have led to some kind of military action by India and then, Lord knows what would have happened. But fortunately that didn’t happen, and Armitage came through and got a pledge from General Musharraf to rein in the Kashmiri militant groups that had been tormenting India and Kashmir and which India considered terrorists. That sort of calmed things down for a while. But the terrorism, or as Musharraf would call it, freedom fighting, in Kashmir has not ceased. The real conditions on the ground haven’t fundamentally changed. Is Kashmir a popular issue with Pakistanis in general? It is a popular issue, and it’s an issue that gives Pakistanis a sense of national identity— it’s one of the few national issues. Is Kashmir an issue where India is at fault? No, it’s a tangled historical conflict, not unlike a custody battle or a bitter divorce, where people are dividing the property and there’s this crown jewel that they can’t figure out what to do with, and that’s Kashmir. This has festered for many years. The assumption by many is that the natural solution would be to turn the so-called Line of Control [that currently separates the two sides], after some minor changes, into the international border. But Pakistan has never felt that was acceptable. Pakistan wants the whole province of Jammu and Kashmir? What they really want is the valley, the Kashmir Valley, which is the majority-Muslim part of the state. But India has vowed, and there are certainly no signs of compromise on this, that they will never give up the Kashmir Valley. What is so important about the Kashmir Valley? It’s the most beautiful part of Kashmir, and it’s the overwhelmingly Muslim part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan was founded on the idea that it was a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent, that it was an Islamic nation, and so Pakistanis feel that by rights this area of Kashmir that’s contiguous to them should be part of Pakistan. Did the Iraq war play into Vajpayee’s actions? His initiative came soon after hostilities ended. My guess is that it didn’t play a very big role. But I think it will undoubtedly play a role in how India presents this situation to the United States— the foreign minister of India [Yashwant Sinha] even made this case himself, suggesting that India had a better case for invading Pakistan than the Americans did for invading Iraq. Indians have long felt that the United States had a double standard on terrorism. The way they saw it, the Pakistanis were sending terrorists to attack them every week, and the Indians had been tremendously restrained. The Indians have demanded that the United States use its influence over General Musharraf to rein in the militants based in Pakistan and not be bought off by the fact that Musharraf is helping with al-Qaeda and so look the other way at the terrorism they believe he directs against India. So they’ll use Iraq as yet another example of what they see as American hypocrisy. How did India react when, after 9/11, Pakistan became friendlier with the United States? It was upset. Because India had a pretty good relationship with Bill Clinton? The relations were really on the up and up. Pakistan was on the outs. When President Clinton visited India [in March 2000], he stopped for a few hours in Pakistan and devoted most of the speech he delivered to scolding the general. And he spent almost a week traveling all over India effusively praising the country. All of that changed with 9/11, and that was a shock to the Indians. But they tried to use it to their advantage, because suddenly the Americans had a lot of influence with Pakistan whereas they hadn’t before, and they were able to wrest from Pakistan a commitment to crack down on some terrorist groups and reduce militancy. It’s happened some, but it’s crept back.