By Dr. Nyla Ali Khan, University of Oklahoma
The road to Kabul from India and Pakistan runs through Kashmir, my homeland.
A crucial step to winning the peace in Afghanistan is to ensure the empowerment and stability of Kashmir’s culture, economy, and democratic institutions. This is because Central and Southern Kashmir shares borders with India, Pakistan, and China. Pakistan-administered Northwest Kashmir shares a border with Afghanistan and China. China administers the Northeast Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram tract in the northeast. Various territorial disputes persist.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir (“Jammu and Kashmir” is the most northern state in India) is located mostly in the Himalayan mountains is so geographically located that it depends for its economic growth on an unhindered flow of trade to both India and Pakistan. Kashmiri arts and crafts have found flourishing markets in India for decades. At the same time, the rivers and roads of Kashmir stretch into Pakistan. Prior to the partition of India in 1947, Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan, used to be Kashmir’s railhead, and Kashmiri traders would use Karachi, part of Pakistan, as the sea-port for overseas trade.
Jammu and Kashmir has been marred by a long history of violent political and ethic struggles. On September 25, just days ago, at least nine people were killed when militants attacked a police station and an army camp.
As Kashmir is vigorously discussed at the United Nations General Assembly by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, I am of the firm opinion that the welfare of the people of the state can be guaranteed by securing the goodwill of the political establishments of both India and Pakistan, and by the display of military discipline and efficiency at the borders. The forté of the armed forces of a country, to the best of my knowledge, is national security, not national interest or foreign policy.
I recall a conversation that I had with an interlocutor nominated by the Government of India about the role of the Indian Army in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. I asked rather acerbically how the Army had become a stakeholder in the Kashmir imbroglio, and she hurriedly and just as acerbically replied that, “there are good stakeholders and there are bad stakeholders, and armed forces are, inevitably, stakeholders in an insurgent zone.” I was rather ticked off by that response because I believed that a mediator should be open to diplomacy and peaceful negotiations to further the India-Pakistan peace process.
If the political evolution of a society is nipped in the bud by an all-powerful military establishment, state policies always fall short of becoming coherent. The more the military establishment makes incursions into democratic spaces, the more shaky institutions of state remain and the more fragmented the polity becomes. The “sovereign” role played by the General Head Quarters in Pakistan is an example of such a scenario. The more military officials get involved in issues of politics, governance, and national interest, the more blurred the line between national interest and hawkish national security becomes.
Instead of deterring the growth of democracy, the goal should be to empower the populace of the state of Jammu and Kashmir sufficiently to induce satisfaction with the Kashmir constituency’s role within current geopolitical realities such that a dis-empowered populace does not succumb to ministrations of destructive political ideologies. In addition to addressing the political aspect of democracy, it is important to take cognizance of its economic aspect as well.
In order to restore peace in Jammu and Kashmir, people must learn to work together across ethnic and ideological divides and insist that everyone be included in democratic decision-making and be given full access to basic social services. It is an egregious mistake and one that has severe ramifications to allow the military of a nation-state to bludgeon its democratic processes.
Dr. Nyla Ali Khan is a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. She is the author of Islam, Women, and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Parchment of Kashmir: History, Society, and Polity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and The Life of a Kashmiri Woman: Dialectic of Accommodation and Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).