Pakistan must not lose focus on Kashmir. India must make sure that does not happen.
Rightly said. Pakistan's recent break with Kashmir obsession is just a tactical retreat. And it is definitely not because their liberals gained voice. Some liberals like Najam Sethi advise against violence just so that the battles can be fought in other places like UN and OIC.
Just a year of lull in the domestic madness and Zardari already honked his horn in UN calling Kashmir as UN's failure. The fact that the only direct reference to Kashmir in UN came from a non-binding General Assembly resolution is not visible to these kind of Pakistanis. They never needed facts to shape their thinking. As far as they are concerned, they simply see that Pakistan can gain something by fishing in the trouble and anyway they cannot abandon the topic because many other Pakistanis won't let it go. So they think they can be patriotic Machiavellis. They would fight dirty when it suits them. The jihad in Kashmir continued under the great Benazir and Nawaz Sharif. We all know what Musharraf did. They would make overtures for peace, but would let their army continue to fuel insurgency. There is no harm in trying the mujahideen way. It is just another method for them. Always the best of the both worlds.
In India the there are no Machiavellis to be heard aloud. There is MMS who wants peace and would ignore 26/11 investigation and then there is BJP which is confused, one day they take a bus to lahore the next day they dont want to give an inch to Pakistan. God knows how they are planning to do both. All we can hope is that even MMS is playing 'the game'. But his game is really really bad. India gave much ground by leaving the 26/11 investigations out of the room. Pakistan is crying the name of Kashmir in all international organizations without facing any repercussions.
If 9/11 did not happen, India would still have had Pakistan and US on its throat. The ground situation did not change. Pakistan will not abandon the issue of Kashmir until they get the whole of it. The only other possible reason for Pakistan to leave Kashmir alone is if they find themselves in so much trouble that they will let it go and public announce so. But GoI is not willing to give any trouble at all. There are so many reasons to undermine Pakistan today - according to the world, they are the india-hating pariah state teaming with terrorists trying to get their hands on one of the largest nuclear arsenal(This is not grounded in facts, but who cares. If the narrative helps you, peddle it. Learn from what the other side is doing. They have successfully peddled the narrative that AJK is a peaceful paradise and that IAK has been burning since the accession).
It is stupidity to wait for Pakistan to come back stronger with better friends and then claim Kashmir. Neither is it prudent to hope that by a sustained drain on resources, Pak can be made to relent, because there is a larger drain on your own resources. The only good solutions are:
1) give up Kashmir to Pakistan. Just get it over with.
2) Raise the independence bogey yourself. Raise the poker stakes. Promise J&K people referendum with third option of independence if Pakistan gets its troops off all of erstwhile J&K state. This is same as giving up Kashmir but at least the initiative is India's and future J&K will more likely be friendlier to India than under present conditions. Most importantly there will never be a referendum because Pakistan never wanted the third option.
3) Make it difficult for Pakistan to live with India's anger. Block funding for their AJK dams. Make noise in UN and world bank that the dam will displace Kashmiris but will give benefits to Pakistan. Make China their sole option. Get an underwater gas pipeline from Iran(after the air clears up. Even Pakistan cannot go ahead with their pipeline until then, but they at least kept the negotiation alive). Raise more squadrons of cheaper planes like Tejas and dump them near the Western border. No more support to IMF funding of Pak(abstain at best). Join the worldwide consensus that Pakistan is a lost cause. Beetch at every arms sale to Pakistan. Again make China their only option. Completely utilise the storage capacity allowed under the IWT. When sedimentation decreases old dams' capacity, build more dams to replace the storage.
Even after all this there is no guarantee that Pakistan will give up. But at least we can try. This is one route which has never been tried before. Every time some leader or other will stand up for 'peace' in hopes of a Nobel peace prize and ends up capitulating.
I mean what else can we lose? They already hate India enough. And why does India need Pakistan exactly?
