An open letter to the people of India on the Kashmir issue

To the People of India,

India's elections have begun and you are exercising your votes to choose your new political representatives. Whoever you end up electing will be momentously placed to exercise real leadership and take the difficult decisions that are needed to shape a better course for the future of India and for peace in South Asia.

In this regard, there are two clear paths ahead, each with very different outcomes. Your newly elected representatives (those in power and those in opposition) could collectively resolve to take a bold and visionary break from the past and could work together to pursue a serious political and diplomatic effort to resolve the Kashmir issue. Alternatively, they could relinquish their collective leadership responsibilities and choose to follow the same old default policy approach that has allowed the Kashmir issue to fester for more than six decades now, placing the region on the dangerous trajectory that it is currently heading towards. Ultimately, the direction that the next elected leadership of India will take vis-à-vis the Kashmir issue largely depends on all of you — the people of India — and on how effectively you can influence and support your political leaders to do what is both possible and necessary for peace.

Not an isolated issue

We urge you to recognise that the Kashmir issue is not a peripheral or isolated one. You must understand and become seized of this important matter. In the past we made many attempts to reach out to you personally and apprise you of the Kashmir issue and the grim situation on the ground, but all these efforts were thwarted by the use of brute force and hooliganism, and on many occasions we were manhandled. The Kashmir issue continues to destroy life and obliterate the rights and aspirations of our people in Kashmir who desire only to live free, peaceful and dignified lives. The continuation of this tragic conflict is also a direct threat to your interests and well-being as a people. In one way or another, this tragic conflict directly affects all the other issues that are currently being discussed and debated in the election season in India. You have a direct stake in seeing that a just and lasting resolution of the Kashmir issue is reached. The conflict is not only a threat to millions of Kashmiris, it is a serious hazard for the one billion-plus population of India and for the population of the entire region. There is no better time than now to press your representatives to exercise their leadership to resolve the Kashmir issue.

A peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue would unleash immense prosperity and economic benefits for India and for the entire South Asia Region. Unfortunately, rather than pursuing a political solution in Kashmir, successive governments in New Delhi have continued to waste your taxes and precious economic resources to pursue a militaristic policy on Kashmir. At huge economic and human cost, this approach represents a failed policy. It has only ended up deepening the conflict. Today, it should be a matter of great concern to all of you that India ranks 136 in the UN Human Development Index (HDI), but has distinguished itself as the world's largest importer of arms by a huge margin. While India's economic growth has slowed in the last few years, arms imports have increased by a phenomenal 111 per cent in the past five years. This is draining your economy, while filling the coffers of other countries that are benefiting as arms exporters.

Indeed, the Kashmir conflict is a direct threat to your prosperity. With more than 800 million people in India still living on less than $2 (Rs. 120) a day, surely the estimated $37-47 billion a year that goes as military expenditure (which is 2 to 2.5 per cent of GDP) could be put to much better use towards initiatives to lift more and more people out of poverty. If the Kashmir issue is resolved, not only would this costly arms race come to an end, it would open up the multipliers of economic cooperation and trade. Certainly, ensuring lasting peace and stability is the greatest foundation for your future prosperity, economic growth and development.

You must ask your leaders why after so many decades, military approaches have failed to resolve the Kashmir issue. Today, this conflict is a direct threat to the security and stability of the entire region. It is the main driver of militarisation and regional instability, and there is every possibility that the situation could escalate and worsen in the coming years. If the Government of India continues to avoid a political solution to the conflict, if it insists on the continuation of the same unjust and hegemonic approaches, it will spell disaster for the region. This beaten path has already proved to be a policy failure long back. Delaying a political solution has made the situation more insecure and unstable, and the conflict has only become more dangerous with time.

Engaging in a costly nuclear and conventional arms race with Pakistan and continuing to pursue militaristic approaches in Kashmir will only add to these dangers. You must ask your leaders whether these approaches are truly serving your interests. Allowing a dangerous political conflict like Kashmir to fester is no way to ensure the security of the Indian people, nor can it be a path to a stable future for the region. The Kashmir issue continues to keep all the parties bogged down in a state of perpetual hostility and distrust. In this way, conflict has become the biggest security threat to the region.

Not only is the continuation of the Kashmir issue a direct threat to your economic prosperity and security, we believe that you have a real moral stake in not letting your government continue to pursue what is a failed and unjust policy towards Kashmir. Kashmiris have legitimate rights and aspirations. Attempting to suppress the emotions and aspirations of millions of people by force is no way to address a political conflict. Widespread human rights abuses have taken place and grave injustices have been carried out against our people. Crushing the democratic right to protest and express political dissent, restricting free speech, persecuting entire sections of the population, foisting black laws and continuing to keep hundreds of thousands of military forces deployed for decades on end in Kashmir – surely this represents both a moral and political failure. There has to be an end to all of this.

Please put yourselves in the shoes of our people and try to see the conflict through their eyes. Talk to any common Kashmiri and he or she can share with you the direct pain, injustice and indignity that people continue to suffer as a result of the conflict. Surely, you have a direct moral stake in ensuring that your government takes the higher road on Kashmir towards peace. Kashmir is a human issue and it requires a political solution.

Path of statesmanship

For the sake of our children, we urgently need to resolve this dispute. Instead of a festering quagmire, we should hand over to our youth a chance to shape a peaceful, hopeful and prosperous future — for all parties concerned — for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, India, and Pakistan. We believe that every party must put forward serious efforts to resolve the conflict. For peace, many barriers and obstacles will have to be overcome. Furthermore, any lasting solution must be a just one, and that necessarily means recognising and upholding the Kashmiri people's aspirations and right to self-determination. In this regard, we are seeking only what is due to the people of Jammu and Kashmir as a matter of legal, moral, and historical right. The solution will have to be acceptable to all parties – India, Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

For long, we have hoped that India's leaders would tread precisely this type of an approach — the path of statesmanship. We expected that your Prime Ministers would take bold decisions that would go against conventional thinking to break the status quo and resolve the Kashmir issue.

It was Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who went to Lahore and declared from the base of Minar-e-Pakistan: “It is my dream and wish to resolve the Kashmir issue.” It was also Mr. Vajpayee who spoke of holding unconditional talks under the ambit of Insaniyat and vowed that India "shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past.” He proclaimed that India's leadership would act as “bold and innovative designers of a future architecture of peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian region." Similarly, on many occasions, in 2004 and again in 2006 from Amritsar, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talked quite boldly about engaging in an irreversible process of dialogue to reach a political solution on Kashmir.

Period of uncertainty

Unfortunately, these visions could not materialise and the attempts were not sustained. For the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the first decade and a half of this century has only been one of continued uncertainty, human misery, unfulfilled promises, false hopes and failed efforts to resolve the Kashmir issue. Failure has bred cynicism and destroyed hope in Kashmir. The good intentions of your Prime Ministers aside, we regret that the peace initiatives proved to be too fragile and the process too vulnerable. Ultimately, these attempts were reversible. They failed to yield visible results and no progress was achieved towards addressing the underlying realities of the Kashmir issue. As a result, many in Kashmir have concluded that the Government of India is not sincere and has no desire to resolve the Kashmir issue. Today, many people are questioning whether the political path of dialogue and negotiation is the best way to seek their rights and ensure justice.

The Kashmir issue is where it has always been – unresolved and causing great harm, suffering and cost to all. Today, all of us continue to be held hostage to the past. In this regard, we must accept the fact that domestic politics in India has played a disabling role. It has held back leadership and statesmanship in India.

Worse still, sitting governments even take hardline actions themselves that worsen the situation.

Observing all this, Kashmiris have now realised that it is not at all possible to expect any sitting Prime Minister in India (irrespective of the party they come from) to pursue peace on their own. Individual political will and personal determination have not been enough to move the process forward. Therefore, in order to resolve the Kashmir issue, your elected Prime Ministers need the consistent support of the opposition parties and they also need active support from all of you – the people of India.

Therefore, as citizens of India you have a vital role to play for peace in the region. Ultimately, visionary leadership and statesmanship in India will be enabled by your public wisdom and from your active support for peace. Whoever you vote for and whoever ends up forming the next government or sitting in the opposition, you must hold them accountable on the Kashmir issue. You must convince your elected leaders that the time has come to develop a peace process on Kashmir that is immune to domestic politics and power tussles.

The entire region is waiting for India to come forward for peace. There is already a broad political consensus in Jammu and Kashmir and in Pakistan that the Kashmir issue must be amicably resolved. Similarly, you must ask your leaders to develop a political consensus to resolve the issue. Let finding a solution to the Kashmir issue become a goal of all the parties to it.

In this direction, it is our sincere hope that you will raise your voices. You must press the elected leadership to rise above domestic politics and work towards India's strategic and moral interests. Through your resounding support for safeguarding India's interests in peace, prosperity and security and through your vocal support for justice, you can make a real impact.

There must be a serious, result-oriented and time-bound process of dialogue between the leadership of India and Pakistan, and of Jammu and Kashmir.

Let this process start sooner rather than later. Over an intensive period of one year, let all of the parties engage actively with one another. Let each party seriously consider whether they can find partners to end this conflict once and for all. We must all try our best and exhaust the possibilities to seek a peaceful solution. Perhaps together we will be able to find some way to take a historic step forward towards a real peace process.

We remain ready and willing to contribute positively and constructively towards this achievement.

Sincerely,

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

Chairman, All Parties Hurriyat Conference