Comments on: Kashmir: Time for a Bold Gambit

By: Arjun

Arjun — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:31:07 +0000

I must add: I respect this blog and almost everything written in it- Not this article though and I think it is an incredibly naive post coming from an incredibly intelligent source. Please, no more of these ‘love all peace to all’ solutions. Most Indians by and large are sick of Pakistan and would hope they NEVER prosper…god forbid with help from us.

By: Arjun

Arjun — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:27:23 +0000

I also believe, like the poster of the first comment, that acts of Indian magnanimity have been done to death with no solution. We must be hard, we must be strong, and more importantly we must be firm, because we CAN. There is no need to cede anything to anyone, we must look for the best solution in India’s interest and India’s interest only. How do you think China would have dealt with the problem?
No, I believe we have a economic, political and military clout now to force solutions and we must force them to suit us. The time for weakness and currying favor with the world like a subservient state is over.

By: sam

sam — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:25:33 +0000

It would be treasonous and outright illegal for the Indian Prime Minister to even seriously consider such a downright naive and dangerous proposal. If India ever de-militarizes the State and opens up “soft borders,” you might as well as kiss Kashmir – and perhaps the Indian Union as we know it today – goodbye with it. Once the jihadi hordes (and disguised Pakistani military personnel) have swept in en masse, there will be nothing that India could do to change the ground reality – just as India has been able to do squat about the illegal Pakistani occupation of POK for 60 years. Thus, it’s a pure fantasy and fallacy to believe – as does this author – that India can revert to status quo ante. Why do you think Musharraf et al. were peddling this idea? Because they know Kashmir would fall into their lap in a mere 5 to 10 years, and they would have accomplished what they failed to do on the battle-field over the last 60 years (not to mention the “war of thousand cuts”). Moreover, Musharraf is on record for saying that even if Kashmir is resolved, Pakistan’s conflicts with India will continue. What next – Junagadh, Hyderabad, control of water, Hindu-Muslim relations, ad infinitum? The painful Indian as well as American experience with Pakistan over the last 60 years makes it crystal to anybody but the most naive that Pakistan is a fanatically driven, treacherous state that can never be trusted. Pakistan is imploding (reaping the fruits of hatred that were sowed as its ideology from the pre-independence period to the present), and we must let it implode for global peace and security. However well intentioned, Indians ought not be be peddling dangerous and foolish concepts such as this one.

By: Parag Sayta

Parag Sayta — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:28:49 +0000

You are right when you say that India is an upward trend and Pakistan is heading the other way. And India has both the manpower and the financial wherewithal to continue its policy of status quo.
Where I disagree with you is when you use the word “winning.” I certainly do not see a situation where a good percentage of the Kashmiri population is so unhappy with status quo that we need to maintain a police state as winning. I am also a bit skeptical about these separatists changing their mind just because India is doing better economically than Pakistan is because this is a political problem. If, as you say, Kashmiris would want to join hands with a functional India than a fraught Pakistan, then logically you should be prepared for a plebiscite, for how else would we be able to determine their wishes? Are you prepared for that, given all the problems with a plebiscite I highlighted above?
Finally, just to add, if this deal is agreed, then the territorial borders of India would not change. If agreeing to a joint mechanism and ceding some powers to a united Jammu and Kashmir assembly is the price we have to pay to buy peace with Pakistan and satisfy the separatists, then I believe its a price worth paying.

By: Arghya

Arghya — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:23:40 +0000

Very persuasively argued but isn’t your solution a little counter-intuitive? If India is headed in the right direction and Pakistan the wrong and the trend lasts, as it seems like it will for some time, do you not think the people of Kashmir who I believe must have the primary say in the decision will want to ‘settle’ the issue by joining hands with a functional India rather than a fraught Pakistan? I would have thought the recent downturn in Pakistan, tragic certainly, means that we can be a little more assertive in our Kashmir policy.
If 1948 teaches us any lesson it’s that don’t quit when you’re winning; you may think it’s an act of magnanimity, instead it gives you 60 years of bloody conflict.