A new deal for Kashmir

Constitutional concessions have failed to facilitate the Valley’s assimilation with India. The rules of engagement need to change

Article 370, Article 35A, Jammu & Kashmir, Dominion of India, Dominion of Pakistan, article 370, J&K, article 370 J&K, bjp on article 370, jammu and kashmir, amit shah, J&K news — The separatist sentiment that has been a feature of Kashmiri politics since 1948 and the militancy that has raged in the state since 1990, both draw sustenance from the constitutional arrangements, namely Articles 35 A and 370, that have defined Kashmir’s relationship with India. (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)

It has been nearly three decades since the separatist movement in Kashmir, simmering beneath the surface right from the accession of Kashmir in 1948 itself, turned into a full-blown armed insurgency. It is a conflict that has led to three-and-a-half wars as well as this insurgency that is well into adulthood. Kashmir has been the stage for two nuclear armed neighbours to play their own 21st century blood-soaked version of the Great Game. It is a game that has been encouraged by, and has in equal measure, exasperated the great powers that have jostled for space and primacy through the Cold War and the post Cold War international order. Like Berlin, Beirut and Afghanistan, Kashmir too has come to occupy a strange place in geopolitics. Each one of us imagines and inhabits a different version of Kashmir. Not just geographically, but metaphorically too, Kashmir stands at the intersection of many different forces. Any solution that aspires for lasting peace has to grapple with this complexity. In the middle of this strategic and historical jigsaw puzzle, we who fight for the idea of India in Kashmir face some tough choices.