The Kashmir Dispute: Key to South Asian Peace

Not only the future of Indo-Pak relations but prospects of peace in South Asia hinge on resolution of the Kashmir dispute. The seeds of the dispute were sown by the British and all efforts by Pakistan and international agencies have been frustrated by Indian intransigence which rejects arbitration and uses all diplomatic guiles to delay efforts towards a negotiated settlement. Pakistan policy has been consistent all along and achieve success in internationalizing the issue which India wishes to maintain as a bilateral tussle. The on-again off-again composite dialogue process together with backdoor diplomacy all seem to be getting nowhere. In such a situation out of the box strategies need to be tried towards which a beginning was made by general Musharraf resulting in some softening of communication between the two Kashmirs. Deep rooted distrust, differing security perceptions and chosen ideologies continue to mark all thresh approaches. The history of these trends and developments are discussed and the pros and cons of various approaches together with the China like strategy of putting problems on the back burner and pursuing CBMS are discussed with implications.