Praveen Swami

Quickstep or Kadam Taal?

The Elusive Search for Peace in Jammu and Kashmir

Summary

• Since December 2003, India and Pakistan have maintained a successful cease-fire 

along the militarily volatile Line of Control as part of a dialogue process that is 

addressing a wide range of disputes between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

• A key component of the dialogue centers on the disputed region of Jammu and 

Kashmir, of which both India and Pakistan control a part. (China holds a third part.) 

Both states claim sovereignty over the entire region.

• The current round of India-Pakistan détente has led to some optimism that the 

dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, one of the bloodiest conflicts in the world, could 

be ripe for resolution.

• Pakistan has recently advocated plans for what it believes is a workable final territorial 

solution to the problem—essentially, a partition of Jammu and Kashmir along ethnicreligious lines. India, however, has rejected these proposals, arguing that such a 

partition is repugnant to its secular values and could lead to a worsening of tensions 

elsewhere in South Asia.

• This dissonance in perceptions points to a larger set of problems in the dialogue 

process, all of which could take several years, if not decades, to work through.

• A second dialogue track, between India and secessionist politicians in Jammu and 

Kashmir, also appears to have reached stalemate.

• Although Pakistan has helped bring about a significant reduction in terrorist violence 

within Jammu and Kashmir, much of the infrastructure of terrorism is still intact—and 

the possibility of crisis-inducing terrorist strikes remains.

• Stalemate between the main actors has meant that the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir 

have yet to see any gains from the dialogue process and the India-Pakistan détente.

• Rather than wait for a grand resolution of these complex issues, we need to find 

ways to deliver concrete gains to the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir—principally, 

though not exclusively, through a cessation of violence. Peacemaking may thus 

be better served by turning attention away from the “Kashmir problem” to the 

“problems of Kashmiris.”

www.usip.org

1200 17th Street NW • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

SPECIAL REPORT 133 MARCH 2005

ABOUT THE REPORT

At first glance, India and Pakistan today seem 

closer to peace than at any point in the past several 

decades. The cease-fire that went into place along 

the Line of Control in December 2003 has held; 

terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir has been 

in steady decline since the two nuclear-armed states 

almost went to war in 2002; and both countries 

have succeeded in sustaining a wide-ranging and 

high-level dialogue process. All this appears to 

suggest that conditions exist for resolution of one of 

the world’s most intractable and bloody conflicts, the 

India-Pakistan war over Jammu and Kashmir.

Yet the current détente process between India and 

Pakistan suffers from the same structural infirmities 

that led past peace initiatives to collapse. Instead 

of looking for a resolution of the grand historical 

conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, peacemakers might 

do well to focus on the problems of the state’s 

peoples—thus building a base from which creative 

democratic solutions might eventually emerge.

Praveen Swami is a Randolph Jennings Senior Fellow 

at the United States Institute of Peace. A journalist with 

Frontline, a major Indian magazine, Swami has covered 

the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir for more 

than a decade.

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

SPECIAL REPORT

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect 

those of the United States Institute of Peace, which does 

not advocate specific policy positions.

CONTENTS

Introduction 2

A View of the Landscape 2

The India-Pakistan Dialogue Axis 4

The India-Kashmir Dialogue Axis 6

Moving Peacemaking Forward 8
Introduction

“Spring will return to the beautiful Valley soon,” India’s former prime minister Atal 

Behari Vajpayee promised a Srinagar audience in April 2002, quoting a passage from 

the Kashmiri poet Ghulam Ahmed Mehjoor, “the flowers will bloom again and the 

nightingales will return, chirping.” More than two years later, it is beginning to look 

like the end might indeed be in sight for one of the most bitterly fought conflicts 

in the world. Both India and Pakistan are engaged in negotiations, their borders are 

quiet, and some counterterrorist military formations are being withdrawn from Jammu 

and Kashmir. Is peace, then, somewhere around the corner—or at least not too many 

blocks away?

One metaphor, favored by optimists, for what is now under way is the proverbial 

step forward; another, which might meet with the approval of pessimists, is the 

parade-ground technique of marching vigorously on one spot, known to both Indian 

and Pakistani soldiers as the kadam taal. adam taal. This report examines the status of two related 

ongoing processes, the India-Pakistan détente and the efforts by India to engage 

political secessionists within the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It looks at the 

prospects these twin processes have for ending one of the world’s most murderous 

conflicts—one that has claimed almost forth thousand lives since 1988, one-third of 

them civilian. Although the current process of dialogue holds some reasons for hope, 

it suffers from the same structural infirmities that have led past initiatives to collapse. 

Thus, a wholly new paradigm of peacemaking may be needed to secure abiding gains.

A View of the Landscape

Although it is easy to be pessimistic about the prospects of peace in Jammu and 

Kashmir—cynics have had an alarming record of success in their prognosis—several 

features of the current situation are in fact heartening.

India-Pakistan dialogue has survived the coming to power of the United Progressive 

Alliance government in New Delhi in 2004. Both countries have agreed to open a bus 

route from Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir, to Muzaffarabad, on the Pakistanadministered side. Even though the service will initially be limited, the symbolic bridging 

of the Line of Control has generated great public enthusiasm. Dialogue is also under way 

on issues ranging from watershed management to the activation of a railway line that 

would speed access between southern Punjab and the industrial hubs of western India. 

Meanwhile, the national security advisers for both India and Pakistan have maintained 

regular contact, a process of covert diplomacy that has mirrored the public engagement 

between the two countries. 

Second, violence within Jammu and Kashmir has been in steady decline since the 

India-Pakistan near war of 2002. Data from India’s Union Ministry of Home Affairs 

show that the numbers of fatalities of both civilians and combatants, as well as the 

overall numbers of violent acts carried out by jihadi groups, have fallen to levels 

similar to those seen before the Kargil War of 1999, which started an escalatory 

cycle (see figures 1 and 2). More important, the number of foreign terrorists, mainly 

Pakistani nationals, killed by Indian forces has dropped to low levels. It is hard to 

reliably quantify the level of infiltration by jihadi cadres across the Line of Control, 

but the empirically demonstrated fact that fewer people, whether foreign or Indian 

nationals, are being killed suggests that General Musharraf has at least partially 

delivered on his 2002 promise to end cross-border terrorism.

It would be simplistic to give General Musharraf sole credit for the declining levels of 

violence. The near war of 2002, provoked by a terrorist attack on India’s parliament by the 

Jaish-e-Mohammad, a jihadi group, may have awakened Pakistan’s military establishment 

to the perils of maintaining its subconventional offensive against India at the levels

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The United States Institute of Peace is an 

independent, nonpartisan federal institution 

created by Congress to promote the prevention, 

management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Established in 1984, the Institute 

meets its congressional mandate through an array 

of programs, including research grants, fellowships, professional training, education programs 

from high school through graduate school, 

conferences and workshops, library services, and 

publications. The Institute’s Board of Directors is 

appointed by the President of the United States 

and confirmed by the Senate.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, 

Washington, D.C. • María Otero María Otero (Vice Chair), President, (Vice Chair), President,

ACCION International, Boston, Mass. • Betty F. Bumpers, 

Founder and former President, Peace Links, Washington, 

D.C. • Holly J. Burkhalter, Advocacy Director, Physicians 

for Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker,

James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School 

of Foreign Service, Georgetown University • Laurie S. 

Fulton, Partner, Williams and Connolly, Washington, 

D.C. • Charles Horner, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, 

Washington, D.C. • Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart 

Professor of International Relations, Stanford University • 

Seymour Martin Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, 

George Mason University • Mora L. McLean, President, 

Africa-America Institute, New York, N.Y. • Barbara W. 

Snelling, former State Senator and former Lieutenant 

Governor, Shelburne, Vt. 

MEMBERS EX OFFICIO

Arthur E. Dewey, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Population, Refugees, and Migration • Michael M. Dunn,

Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force; President, National 

Defense University • Peter W. Rodman, Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs 

• Richard H. Solomon, President, United States 

Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

2
Figure 2. Incidents of Violence in Jammu and Kashmir, 1989–2004. Source: Data compiled by author from public and private sources.

Figure 1. Fatalities from Violence in Jammu and Kashmir, 1988–2004. Source: Data compiled by author from public and private sources.

������������������������

�

���

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

��������� �� �� ��� ��� ��� ����� ����� ����� ����� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���

���������� � � ��� ����� ��� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ���

������������� � �� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���

���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����

����

���

����

���

Fatalities from Violence

���������������������

�

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

������������������������ � �� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� �����

������������������������������������� ��� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� �����

���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����

����

���

����

���

Incidents of Incidents of Violence Violence
witnessed after 1999. Alternatively, the enormous pressure brought to bear by the 

United States during the crisis may have prompted rethinking in Islamabad. Furthermore, 

India, aided by Israel and the United States, has made massive investments in new 

counterterrorist technology, notably an electronic and physical fence along a large part 

of the Line of Control. Any or all of these factors combined could account for the reduced 

levels of violence. Whatever the truth, however, the fact is that violence has declined.

Third, Indian and Pakistani forces have successfully maintained a cease-fire that went 

into effect along the Line of Control in December 2003. One of India’s long-standing 

complaints was that Pakistani forces provided covering fire to infiltrating jihadi cadre. 

This has ended. Although Indian officials say some infiltration continues, Pakistani troops 

no longer seem actively involved in shielding it from interdiction. India’s recent efforts to 

build public confidence in peacemaking have been helped by the reduction of hostilities 

along the Line of Control, which has paved the way for the withdrawal of some troops 

engaged in counterterrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir. No figures are available 

regarding how many troops India eventually intends to remove, but several thousand 

soldiers are reported to have been moved out since November 2004.

Fourth, but by no means least important, India has set parameters for dialogue with 

political entities within Jammu and Kashmir on the state’s future relationship with India. 

During his November 2004 visit to Srinagar, Prime Minister Singh made clear that his 

government was willing to pursue negotiations with both major secessionist political 

groups: the centrist Kul Jamaat Hurriyat Conference, also known as the All Parties 

Freedom Conference (APHC), and the hard-line Tehreek-i-Hurriyat (TH), also known as 

the Movement for Freedom. New Delhi appears to center these discussions, as well as 

a parallel track of negotiating with mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, 

on widening federal autonomy for the states. Both the APHC and the TH have rejected 

dialogue on autonomy, which falls well short of their demand for secession from India. 

However, the important fact here is that N. N. Vohra, a retired bureaucrat who has served 

the government of India in various capacities and now acts as its official interlocutor with 

political groups in Jumma and Kashmi, finally has a clear mandate that can be brought 

to the table.

Together, these four conditions suggest that the environment is favorable for 

peacemaking. Rarely in recent years has there been a conjunction of regimes with a 

stated commitment to dialogue, the willingness to scale back border tensions, the ability 

to reduce violence, and a vision of what political concessions can be made. Although the 

necessary conditions for a dialogue have been met, however, the question of whether 

these are sufficient sufficient to yield a meaningful outcome remains. to yield a meaningful outcome remains.

The India-Pakistan Dialogue Axis

As India-Pakistan dialogue proceeds, what are the prospects for both sides arriving at a 

mutually acceptable vision of Jammu and Kashmir? Speaking at a dinner in Islamabad on 

October 25, 2004, General Musharraf outlined the contours of new ideas for an eventual 

resolution of the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir. Based on a partition of the state’s 

territory, the ideas were greeted with considerable enthusiasm by some observers, who 

saw it as a potentially decisive step forward.

In essence, General Musharraf advocated the division of the territory of the entire 

pre-independence monarchical state of Jammu and Kashmir. A part of this territory is 

now administered by India (Jammu and Kashmir), and another part is administered 

by Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas of Gilgit, Hunza, and Baltistan; a 

part of the territory administered by Pakistan was unilaterally ceded by it to China). In 

Musharraf’s vision, the seven major constituent geographical units of the region would 

be offered independence or joint control by India and Pakistan, or, alternatively, be 

administered by the United Nations. Five of these units are in India—the Kashmir valley 

4

Rarely in recent years has there 

been a conjunction of regimes 

with a stated commitment to 

dialogue, the willingness to 

scale back border tensions, the 

ability to reduce violence, and a 

vision of what political concessions can be made. 

In essence, General Musharraf 

advocated the division of 

the territory of the entire preindependence monarchical state 

of Jammu and Kashmir.
and the Muslim-majority areas of Jammu, both of which lie north of the Chenab River; 

the Shia-dominated Kargil area; the Hindu-majority areas of Jammu south of the Chenab 

River; and Buddhist-majority Ladakh. The two other areas, Azad Kashmir and the Northern 

Areas, both of which have a Muslim majority, are in Pakistan. 

Musharraf’s ideas were summarily dismissed by India, despite the fact that they marked 

a considerable departure from the traditional Pakistani claim to all the territory of Jammu 

and Kashmir. Understanding India’s reaction to Musharraf’s plan is key to a coherent 

appraisal of the future of détente between the two countries. The idea of partitioning 

Jammu and Kashmir along ethnic-religious lines was first advocated in September 1950 

by UN special representative for India and Pakistan Sir Owen Dixon, who suggested that 

this could be brought about either through agreement between the two countries or by 

plebiscite. Sensitive to the consequences of ethnic-religious partitions in South Asia—the 

division of British India into the states of India and Pakistan had cost more than five 

hundred thousand lives—the Dixon Plan, as it came to be known, was rejected out 

of hand by India. Pakistan at first rejected the Dixon Plan, but the idea had gathered 

some momentum in that country by the early 1960s. Partition is believed to have been 

discussed in 1963 by the eminent Kashmir leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and the 

foreign minister who served the Pakistani military ruler Field Marshall Ayub Khan, Zulfikar 

Ali Bhutto, who went on to become president of Pakistan.

Pakistan seems to have persuaded itself in recent years that India would, sooner or later, 

come to accept the partition plan in some form or other. In 1999, Pakistan’s foreign minister, 

Sartaj Aziz, called for a districtwide referendum on the future of Jammu and Kashmir, a 

repackaging of the Dixon Plan that marked a sharp departure from the official position. Aziz’s 

ideas were anticipated in a report by a New York–based organization, the Kashmir Study 

Group, which argued for the creation of one or two new states from the Muslim-majority 

areas of Jammu and Kashmir. Together, the Kashmir Study Group said, these would constitute 

a “sovereign entity but one without an international personality.” The new state would have 

its own legislature, flag, and gendarmerie, but its security would be jointly guaranteed by 

India and Pakistan. 

From the point of view of Pakistan, an ethnic-religious partition seems an eminently 

reasonable solution to the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan came into existence 

on the basis of the religious affiliation of the majority of its citizens, and advocates of 

partition-based solutions believe that the same principle should apply to Jammu and 

Kashmir as well. Advocates of partition-based solutions, by some accounts, have found 

a sympathetic hearing from at least some elements within the U.S. State Department, 

perhaps because the idea appears to offer a way out of a stalemate. Critics have noted 

the impracticability of the idea, however. Nowhere in the world have two nuclear-armed 

adversaries jointly guaranteed the security of a third state. Among other things, it is 

unclear how disputes between the new entity and the two states bordering it, both of 

which would have compelling security interests there, would be mediated.

India’s concerns, however, transcend the purely pragmatic—just as, for Pakistan, Jammu 

and Kashmir is not simply a territorial issue, but a national project. For India, ideologically 

committed to a secular nation-state, the idea of an ethnic-religious partition is repugnant. 

State-level leaders in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as senior figures in India’s central 

government, have flatly rejected any movement in this direction, and no change in the 

Indian position seems likely in the near future. Although General Musharraf was at pains 

to package his proposal as one founded on geography rather than ethnic-religious identity, 

the fact is that the two coincide so closely as to render the distinction trivial. India is also 

concerned about the long-term consequences any ethnic-religious partition might have for 

the rest of the union. Should its sole Muslim-majority province secede on the basis of its 

religious identity, the position of Hindu fundamentalist groups seeking to replace India’s 

secular order with a state founded on theocratic principles would be strengthened.

The point here is simple: despite the illusion of forward momentum generated by 

Musharraf’s new ideas (or not-so-new ideas), both India and Pakistan fundamentally 

5

From the point of view of 

Pakistan, an ethnic-religious 

partition seems an eminently 

reasonable solution to the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir.

For India, ideologically 

committed to a secular nationstate, the idea of an ethnicreligious partition is repugnant. 
stand where they have for decades. The two states are far from having a shared vision 

of the future for Jammu and Kashmir, something that could strain the sustainability of 

the détente as it proceeds. Second, and perhaps more important, cross-border terrorism 

has decreased, not ended. As such, it remains a part of Pakistan’s negotiating strategy, 

a disturbing fact with potentially grave long-term consequences for the peace process 

itself. It is also worth remembering that agreements, in themselves, are worth little. 

India and Pakistan reached negotiated settlements in 1966 and 1973, after all; neither 

prevented further bloodshed.

The India-Kashmir Dialogue Axis

If India and Pakistan still have some distance to travel to agreement on Jammu and 

Kashmir, what about the second component of the peace process—the negotiations 

between India and secessionists in its part of Jammu and Kashmir?

As things stand, the status of talks between India and secessionists in Jammu and 

Kashmir induces less optimism than does the détente with Pakistan. Centrist APHC 

elements held a single round of direct talks with the National Democratic Alliance regime 

of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee but have since refused to continue the process. 

There are several reasons. The most important APHC leader, Maulvi Umar Farooq, and 

his immediate family came under terrorist attack for defying jihadi injunctions not to 

negotiate with New Delhi. Because Maulvi Farooq as yet has no male heir, a factor of 

enormous import to the clerical dynasty he represents, the threat of assassination is all 

the more grave. Centrist leaders such as Maulvi Farooq are conscious of the potential 

costs of peacemaking: both his father, Maulvi Mohammad Farooq, and another prominent 

moderate, Abdul Gani Lone, were executed by jihadi groups opposed to their decision to 

engage India in dialogue.

To persuade jihadi groups to withdraw their opposition, APHC leaders placed several 

preconditions for talks with New Delhi, notably permission to visit Pakistan. New Delhi 

has been reluctant to make such concessions for two major reasons. First, its principal 

interest in the dialogue process within Jammu and Kashmir is to establish a track of 

negotiation independent of Pakistan. To involve Pakistan, even symbolically, at the outset 

of the dialogue would subvert the process itself. New Delhi is also reluctant to give the 

impression of recognizing the APHC, which is just one of several pro-India secessionist 

political organizations active in Jammu and Kashmir, as the sole spokesperson for all the 

people in the state. Opponents of the APHC’s demands within the Indian establishment 

argue that allowing the APHC to visit Pakistan would concede to the organization the de 

facto status of the representative of a nation.

Pakistan has good reason to be less than delighted at the prospect of the political 

process within Jammu and Kashmir actually succeeding. A negotiated settlement between 

India and secessionists in Jammu and Kashmir would marginalize Pakistan, a fact that has 

provoked a predictable response from pro-Pakistan parties to the conflict. The United Jihad 

Council, an Islamabad-based apex body made up of several organizations designated by 

the United States of America as terrorist, has condemned centrists for even considering 

negotiations with New Delhi. So has Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who heads 

the TH. Previously a member of the APHC, Geelani formed the TH to protest, among 

other things, the decision of some moderate secessionists to contest the 2002 elections 

in Jammu and Kashmir through proxy candidates. Even if the APHC or other centrist 

secessionist groups engage New Delhi in dialogue and arrive at a settlement, therefore, 

the opposition of terrorist groups and the TH make it unclear if this would achieve the aim 

of peacemaking—an end to violence. Indeed, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the parent religiouspolitical organization of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the largest terrorist groups in Jammu 

and Kashmir, has opposed even General Musharraf’s partition idea, arguing in a recent issue 

of its journal Voice of Islam that the proposal is a sign of “cowardice under pressure.”

6

The status of talks between 

India and secessionists in 

Jammu and Kashmir induces less 

optimism than does the détente 

with Pakistan.

Pakistan has good reason to 

be less than delighted at the 

prospect of the political process 

within Jammu and Kashmir 

actually succeeding.
Jihadi threat is not the only factor at work. History suggests that political 

accommodation, while perhaps desirable, does not in itself secure an end to violence. 

In November 2004, when Prime Minister Singh visited Srinagar for the first time, two 

terrorists attempted to attack his rally with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The 

officer responsible for the police operation that prevented the attack, Javed Makhdoomi, 

was cited as a suspect in a 1966 counterterrorism investigation conducted by the force 

he now commands. So was one of his contemporaries, the current Jammu and Kashmir 

law minister, Muzzafar Beigh—and some figures who have occupied prominent positions 

in earlier governments, like National Conference leader Bashir Ahmad Kitchloo. Since the 

1950s, India has succeeded in co-opting pro-independence and pro-Pakistan elements; 

author Manoj Joshi records that the 1966 suspects were brought on board through a 

well-planned, if covert, process. The recruitment of dissidents to the ranks of the Indian 

establishment did not stop the emergence of other terrorist groups in the 1970s and 

1980s, however. In fact, one can argue that co-optation may have provided the promise 

of impunity to those considering violence.

The closer the APHC and New Delhi come to reaching a deal, then, the more interest 

jihadi groups will have in sharpening their knives to slaughter the doves. Evidence that 

momentum toward peace can, paradoxically, lead to an escalation in killing is not hard to 

come by. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declared a unilateral cease-fire in 2000–2001 

in an effort to strengthen the hands of moderate elements in the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin, 

the largest terrorist group operating in Jammu and Kashmir. Its Pakistan-based leader, 

Mohammad Yusuf Shah (better known by his nom de guerre, Syed Salahuddin), responded 

by sharply escalating attacks on both Indian forces and civilians and, in the end, 

succeeded in forcing India to resume offensive military operations. A similar upsurge in 

violence and political assassinations was recorded prior to the several elections held in 

Jammu and Kashmir after 1995. Optimists saw these elections to the state’s legislature 

and India’s parliament as elements of a normalization process that would lead to the 

displacement of armed groups by political forces.

So far, neither APHC moderates nor the Indian establishment have found means to 

break the impasse created by pressure from jihadi groups, and it is hard to see exactly 

what might be done unless Pakistan acts to decisively strip terrorist groups of the 

infrastructure that facilitates their violent operations. India, as it has often done in 

the past, has responded to the stalemate by pumping in significant amounts of central 

development aid in an effort to build a mass constituency for peace. The available 

empirical evidence, however, does not affirm conventional wisdom that there is a causal 

relationship between jihadi violence and economic deprivation. Contrary to popular 

perception, the roots of the problem in Jammu and Kashmir do not appear to lie in 

economic conditions. Jammu and Kashmir are among the most food-secure regions in 

India and have the lowest percentage of population living below the poverty line of any 

state in the union. Per capita central development aid since the mid-1990s, not including 

reimbursements to the state government for security expenditure, is higher than for any 

other state in India. Although economic development is indisputably a good thing, there 

is no reason to believe that progress will in itself end violence—particularly because the 

problem itself is not the consequence of deprivation. Indeed, scholar Sumit Ganguly has 

pointed out that the rise of terrorism in the early 1980s may paradoxically have been the 

consequence of growing affluence: the result of the frustrations of a new social class that 

had both education and economic opportunity but that was denied political power. It is 

worth noting, in this context, that although a decade and a half of violence have retarded 

economic progress in Jammu and Kashmir, it has not generated the kinds of economic 

devastation other conflicts of this kind have caused elsewhere in the world. Interestingly, 

the state’s economic backbone, the agricultural sector, has grown steadily through the 

years of carnage. The emphasis placed by Indian policymakers on economic development 

as a conflict-resolution measure may risk being a means of avoiding addressing difficult 

questions of politics and ideology.

7

Jihadi threat is not the only 

factor at work. History suggests 

that political accommodation

. . . does not in itself secure 

an end to violence.

The closer the APHC and New 

Delhi come to reaching a deal, 

then, the more interest jihadi 

groups will have in sharpening 

their knives to slaughter the 

doves.

It is hard to see exactly what 

might be done unless Pakistan 

acts to decisively strip terrorist 

groups of the infrastructure 

that facilitates their violent 

operations.
Part of the problem seems to be a failure by Indian policymakers to understand the 

limitations of their peacemaking paradigm. Writing in 1966, the home minister of Jammu 

and Kashmir, D. P. Dhar, noted that 

Pakistan’s attempt to build up a movement of espionage and subversion inside the 

State of Jammu and Kashmir continues to be an unabated and undeterred menace. 

. . . While the administrative machinery in general and the law and order machinery 

in particular have to continue to be vigilant and alert, we also have to take an 

urgent political view of the situation. In Kashmir, we have to seek and strive for 

the emotional enlistment of the people with the rest of the country.

Prime Minister Vajpayee or Prime Minister Singh could have authored much the same 

text. “Emotional enlistment” has, variously, meant the co-optation of dissident formations 

and the large-scale dissemination of economic aid. What is not clear is whether the current 

dialogue with secessionists has any greater structural purpose than merely winning over a 

section of dissidents and throwing money at the state’s people—something that has done 

precious little to halt the bloodshed in Jammu and Kashmir over the years.

The point here is not that dialogue, economic aid, or political accommodation are bad 

things. It is, instead, to suggest that although these instruments are means to achieve 

certain ends, policymakers must also be acutely conscious of what they cannot achieve. achieve.

Moving Peacemaking Forward

Where, then, does the peace process stand? 

Making peace is at best a protracted process. Whether Pakistan will be willing to wait 

the course or to accept a solution that falls short of its expectations is still unclear—and 

is likely to remain so for some time to come. Given the pressures that have been brought 

to bear on General Musharraf by Islamist groups, he may see a resumption of full-scale 

jihad in Jammu and Kashmir as a means of deflecting the attention of those opposed to 

his pro–United States stance and of rebuilding his religious legitimacy. Although he has 

cut back on cross-border infiltration, General Musharraf has so far shown a disturbing 

unwillingness to actually dismantle the infrastructure of terror. Media reports from 

Pakistan suggest that organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba—designated as terrorist 

by the United States and charged with some of the worst atrocities against civilians in 

Jammu and Kashmir—remain free to recruit personnel and raise funds; evidence has even 

surfaced that some of its cadres have begun to operate in Iraq. 

With its eyes focused firmly on Afghanistan and the Middle East, the United States 

has so far shown little enthusiasm to push General Musharraf to end the activities of such 

groups—a policy that could end up undermining another key policy goal, a stable South 

Asia. No great imagination is needed to envision the consequences of a large-scale act of ge-scale act of

terrorism; the military crisis of 2002 made these clear to even the most obtuse observer. 

In the short term, the United States needs to ensure that Pakistan moves toward shutting 

down terrorist organizations, rather than merely containing their activities. The U.S. 

record on this count is far from heartening. Pakistan is reported to have promised U.S. 

envoy Richard Gates as early as 1990 that it would shut down terrorist training camps. 

It did not. Similar commitments made by General Musharraf in 2002 have yet to be met. 

As Pakistan’s principal source of aid, the United States could impress upon Pakistan that 

violence can no longer be used as a negotiating tool—and that the principal beneficiary 

of efforts to end violence would not be the Indian state, which has demonstrated its 

ability to wage an endless war of attrition. Those who would gain most from an end to 

violence would be ordinary residents of Jammu and Kashmir, the principal victims of a 

war waged in their name.

Over the longer run, U.S. policymakers need to consider seriously whether their 

traditional modes of intervention in South Asia have yielded desirable outcomes. It may 

8

What is not clear is whether 

the current dialogue with 

secessionists has any greater 

structural purpose than merely 

winning over a section of 

dissidents and throwing money 

at the state’s people.

Musharraf . . . may see a 

resumption of full-scale jihad in 

Jammu and Kashmir as a means 

of deflecting the attention of 

those opposed to his pro–United 

States stance.

As Pakistan’s principal source 

of aid, the United States could 

impress upon Pakistan that 

violence can no longer be used 

as a negotiating tool.
be oversimplifying it to say that these interventions have consisted of providing economic 

and military incentives to Pakistan to alleviate its anxieties about the threat it believes its 

powerful eastern neighbor poses to its existence as a nation-state. Yet the core idea seems 

to be that alleviating Pakistan’s security concerns will lead it to a more accommodative 

position. Decades of such incentives have done little to take the edge off Pakistan’s anxieties 

about India. Indeed, the existence of what looks like a blank check from the United States 

could encourage irresponsible behavior and perpetuate the existence of militarist elements 

in Pakistan that have a vested interest in continued hostilities with India. In a larger 

sense, the assumption widespread in Washington that third-party intervention, albeit 

one conducted behind the scenes, will help break the India-Pakistan deadlock could also 

use some careful examination. This assumption is founded on the experience of the 2002 

crisis, but one could argue that conventional military deterrence, or the threat of nuclear 

escalation, had a more important role in preventing war than international diplomacy did. 

The jury is still out on these questions, but history gives no reason for comfort in the 

usefulness of diplomacy: UN intervention failed to break the India-Pakistan deadlock in 

1947–48; the Soviet Union could not bring about a breakthrough during the talks that took 

place after the 1965 war; years of quiet U.S. intervention since the late 1980s have failed 

to stave off a succession of near-calamitous crises.

I have no alternate prescription for the things the United States should be doing. 

Instead, I would make the somewhat heretical proposal that this might be a good time 

not to be searching for grand solutions, a good time to to be searching for grand solutions, a good time to stop looking for one-shot cures. A 

decade and a half of seemingly uninterrupted crisis have generated a policymaking climate 

in which activity and meaningful activity are often conflated. Part of the reason why the 

problem has proved so resistant to resolution is the search for a deus ex machina, a device 

that will lead a centuries-long history of violence to an instant happy conclusion. It may 

be useful for policymakers to stop talking about one single Kashmir problem that can be 

resolved through some free-floating exercise of pure reason. What we call the Kashmir 

problem is in fact several problems, for which Jammu and Kashmir is only a stage. Among 

other things, the problem involves irreconcilable ideas about the basis of nationhood, a 

crisis of religious and ethnic identity, and the still far-from-spent forces that led to the 

partition of India. For jihadi groups and their supporters in Pakistan’s establishment, the 

war in Jammu and Kashmir is merely part of an ever-larger war, one between Islam and 

unbelief. And, thanks to the involvement of both public and covert organizations with 

deep purses, the Kashmir problem is also an enterprise: a tawdry business in which there 

is substantial profit for several actors. 

What, then, might an alternate road map look like? The sad truth is that an abiding 

resolution to the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir may have to wait until India and Pakistan 

are able to reinvent their relationship, to re-imagine it free of the trauma of partition—a 

process that could take generations. In the meantime, peacemakers might do well to focus 

their energies on the problems of Kashmiris—or the many heterogeneous peoples of Jammu 

and Kashmir—rather than the problem of Kashmir. In some sense, the grand geopolitical 

narrative called the conflict in Kashmir, on which the world has for decades lavished its 

diplomatic energies, has displaced the lived experiences of those who form its core. For 

parents who must shop on Srinagar’s streets or send their children to school in Sopore, what 

the world calls the Kashmir problem is the lived experience of grenades and gunfire. For 

the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who have had to live with incessant violence and the 

hardship it brings for fifteen years, sustaining the reduction of violence seen since 2001 

may be more important than anything else. Ensuring that the everyday lives of ordinary 

people become more secure must be a cardinal objective of peacemaking. 

For this to occur, however, all parties must understand that dialogue is merely a 

process—one that does not guarantee any particular outcome. If the contours of a final 

resolution do not appear clear today, however, there are things that could be done to 

improve the everyday lives of the peoples of Jammu and Kashmir on both sides of the Line 

of Control. For one, the United States needs to persuade Pakistan to deepen the process 

9

This might be a good time his might be a good time

not to be searching for grand to be searching for grand

solutions, a good time to stop

looking for one-shot cures. 

What we call the Kashmir 

problem is in fact several 

problems, for which Jammu

and Kashmir is only a stage.

The sad truth is that an abiding 

resolution to the conflict over 

Jammu and Kashmir may have 

to wait until India and Pakistan 

are able to reinvent their 

relationship.
10

of military de-escalation by making clear that the use of violence as a medium of political 

dialogue is unacceptable. Both India and Pakistan need to allow space for a genuine 

dialogue on greater political autonomy for the regions of Jammu and Kashmir under 

their control, rather than seeing dialogue as an instrument through which their eventual 

territorial goals can be realized or obstructed. A wide-ranging dialogue on autonomy 

would give meaning and content to democracy on both sides of the Line of Control. 

Collaboration on economic issues is also possible between the two states. In the wake of 

the December 2003 cease-fire, small-scale barter-based commerce spontaneously erupted 

along some parts of the Line of Control. Authorities brought this short-lived border 

enterprise to a quick end, but it served to illustrate the potential that exists. At a larger 

level, fruit and nuts from Jammu and Kashmir have a market in Pakistan, while grain, 

cloth, and meat products can flow the other way. In several areas, collaborative use of 

watersheds would benefit villagers on both sides of the Line of Control. Such interaction 

would not jeopardize the final territorial claims of either country, but would help develop 

a grassroots interest in peace. I am not proposing that trade or political dialogue would 

constitute a resolution of the problem in Jammu and Kashmir; rather, that they might 

help create conditions from which a resolution could emerge.

One could argue that all these ideas—and others similar to them—are palliatives. 

In the absence of a cure, though, it seems unreasonable to refuse symptomatic relief. 

It is also true that even small steps forward involve difficult issues. India and Pakistan 

both seem to wish to allow greater freedom of movement across the Line of Control, yet 

negotiations to enable such movement are stalled because of concerns in both countries 

about the sovereignty implications of the travel documents that will be used to make 

the journey. Pessimism must be tempered by the very fact that there is some sign of sign of

movement, however small. General Musharraf’s new plans may have been intended to 

prepare his audience at home for less than what official propaganda has promised for 

generations. The distance that has been traversed is evident from the fact that in 1950 

the governor general of Pakistan, Khwaja Nizamuddin, thundered that “Pakistan would 

remain incomplete until the whole of Kashmir is liberated.” The prime minister of the 

Pakistan-administered province of Azad Kashmir in turn asserted that the dispute “will 

be decided only on the battlefield.” 

No politician can, with any seriousness, suggest that war is any longer an option. Yet, 

prisoners of their own paradigms, both sides seem unable to move forward. Responses in 

both countries to an ongoing dispute over a hydroelectric project on the Chenab River 

are instructive. In early 2005, Pakistan moved the World Band for the appointment of an 

arbitrator, claiming India was being intransigent on the question. In India, the Pakistani 

decision was widely seen as a sinister ruse to force third-party intervention in Jammu 

and Kashmir. Some commentators in Pakistan, conversely, claimed the dam threatened 

Pakistan‘s irrigation networks, and threw out dark hints of the threat of nuclear war. 

Little public discourse took place in either country on the details of what is, after all, 

a technical dispute over river-water usage. Both sides were reluctant to give ground, 

believing it would compromise their positions on India-Pakistan relations in general and 

Jammu and Kasmir in particular. Both countries urgently need to find ways to break down 

their dispute into discrete, bite-sized chunks—or risk adding another chapter of failed 

peacemaking to their tragic history.

No politician can, with any 

seriousness, suggest that 

war is any longer an option. 

Yet, prisoners of their own 

paradigms, both sides seem 

unable to move forward. 

Pessimism must be tempered 

by the very fact that there is 

some sign of movement, 

however small.
11

The Kashmir Region
For more information on this topic, see

our website (www.usip.org), which has an 

online edition of this report containing 

links to related websites, as well as additional information on the subject.

Of Related Interest

Several other publications from the United States Institute of Peace address issues that 

relate to the conflict in Kashmir and relations between India and Pakistan. Note: Most of Most of

our reports can be downloaded from our website at www.usip.org/pubs.html.

Recent Institute reports include:

India and Pakistan Engagement: Prospects for Breakthrough or Breakdown? (Special 

Report, January 2005)

The Political Economy of the Kashmir Conflict: Opportunities for Economic Peacebuilding 

and for U.S. Policy, by Wajahat Habibullah (Special Report, June 2004)

To obtain an Institute report (available free of charge), write United States Institute of 

Peace, 1200 17th Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036-3011; call (202) 429-3832; 

fax (202) 429-6063; or e-mail: usip_requests@usip.org.

Recent books from USIP Press include:

Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict, edited by Chester A. Crocker, 

Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (January 2005)

Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases, by Chester A. Crocker, Fen 

Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (July 2004)

For book sales and order information, call 800-868-8064 (U.S. toll-free only) or 703-661-

1590, or fax 703-661-1501.

United States 

Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036