Kashmir | News & Discussions.

[Spitfighter]

Thats a good question...

I think there are two ways of doing this -

1. Re-draw the state lines India based on Muslim concentration. Then declare all the Muslim majority states as free. Rest Hindu/Sikh/Budhist states then can decide if they want to continue together or become independent as well.
2. Find an area corresponding to the Muslim populations in India closer to Pakistan/Kashmir and Bangladesh and then shift all the Muslims to these two/three new states and all the non-msulims to remaining India. New states might be Kashmir, Pakistan II and Bangladesh II. They may either decide to join with Pakistan, Bangladesh resp. or become free nations. Essentially the area will come out of current Gujrat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal, West Bengal, Tripura, Assam etc.

I personally like option 1 but two might work fine as well.

What nonsense is this? why only religion? lets do it on a language basis too!

you might want to think a little harder.

 

[MilesTogo]

What nonsense is this? why only religion? lets do it on a language basis too!

you might want to think a little harder.

Because Muslims and non-Muslims can not live together.

 

[Spitfighter]

Because Muslims and non-Muslims can not live together.

Tell that to my Muslim girlfriend, she'll nag you till your ears fall off, and believe me that would only be the start.

Also, you should be ashamed of yourself. People like you have ruined my country. I feel sorry for you, but mostly I feel sorry for India.

This is why developing nations can never match the power and wealth of the West. They're still stuck in tradition, lost in another time. All this religious/cultural garbage, ........................................dumbasses.

 

[MilesTogo]

Tell that to my Muslim girlfriend, she'll nag you till your ears fall off, and believe me that would only be the start.

Also, you should be ashamed of yourself. People like you have ruined my country. I feel sorry for you, but mostly I feel sorry for India.

This is why developing nations can never match the power and wealth of the West. They're still stuck in tradition, lost in another time. All this religious/cultural garbage, ........................................dumbasses.

You are getting unnecessary emotional...

 

[Spitfighter]

You are getting unnecessary emotional...

So I take it that your comment has valid reasons behind it. Do elaborate.

Why can't muslims live with non-muslims?

 

[Developereo]

If there's ever going to be a settlement, it will have to account for India's strategic concerns (water especially). The Northern Areas, Azad Kashmir and Aksai Chin will also have to be a part of the settlement.

India will not and should not make any concessions to Pakistan, nor is it keen on the balkanization of South Asia. IMO, the best we can hope for is a small, jointly administered region carved out of AK, IK and NA.

That sounds like a fair resolution. Unite all parts of Kashmir and make them an independent state. Hopefully, it will not become another proxy battleground like Afghanistan as a potential client-state for India/Pakistan.

I think a settlement is not in our favor right now, it might be a better idea to wait for another 5 years, the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan is still evolving, I think down the line India will be able to bargain from a position of considerable strength, and while the settlement might not necessarily be on our terms, we might be able to make it a little more favorable, certainly permanent.

I think that is exactly India's plan and it's a very good one, from India's perspective. Pakistan, as usual, thinks only short term, whereas India is planning a long term strategic resolution.

With the growing economic disparity between India and Pakistan, India will become incresingly attractive to Kashmiris compared to war-torn, economically lagging Pakistan. The only thing in favor of Pakistan is the Muslim bond.

India, for its part, could have won the Kashmiri hearts and minds long ago if it had treated it's Muslim minority better. Despite all the protestations on this board, and the heartfelt assertions of many members in support of Indian Muslims, the fact remains that there is a very strong and powerful Hindu fundamentalist movement within India. A significant portion of Indians view India as a Hindu country, with an unfortunate Islamic period, and hate Indian Muslims.

India is great at international diplomacy, but it has failed domestically with its minorities. Pakistan has made the same mistakes, which is why we lost East Pakistan, and are having trouble in Balochistan.

 

[MilesTogo]

So I take it that your comment has valid reasons behind it. Do elaborate.

Why can't muslims live with non-muslims?

First you changed my statement. I did not say "msulims can not live with non-muslims". I said muslims and non-muslims can not live together. I hope you will appreciate the difference between the two statements.

Second, this statement is based on history and current happenings in the sub-continent. I think you are trying to go away from the ground realities on a wishful journey of future possibilities and perfect world where there are no partitions, no godhras no bomb blasts, no osama bin ladens, no kargils, no wars, no 1971, no mis-interpretaion of religious text, no intolerance and the list goes on. I will save you that trip. Even before you argue that Muslims and Non-muslims can live together, let me agree with you. I agree 100% that it is possible. And I am hopeful too as you are. I wish there will be no further partitions. But at the same time let us not avoid discussion on other possibilities. Based on the fact that there has already been one partition on religious grounds, there is at least slight probability that it might happen again on the same lines.

Generalizing the above, you are trying to argue that humans can live peacefully, and my point is that humans have not lived peacefully and might not forever.

chill - nice video I found - Enjoy

 

[MilesTogo]

^ one more

 

[Spitfighter]

That sounds like a fair resolution. Unite all parts of Kashmir and make them an independent state. Hopefully, it will not become another proxy battleground like Afghanistan as a potential client-state for India/Pakistan.

I think that is exactly India's plan and it's a very good one, from India's perspective. Pakistan, as usual, thinks only short term, whereas India is planning a long term strategic resolution.

With the growing economic disparity between India and Pakistan, India will become incresingly attractive to Kashmiris compared to war-torn, economically lagging Pakistan. The only thing in favor of Pakistan is the Muslim bond.

India, for its part, could have won the Kashmiri hearts and minds long ago if it had treated it's Muslim minority better. Despite all the protestations on this board, and the heartfelt assertions of many members in support of Indian Muslims, the fact remains that there is a very strong and powerful Hindu fundamentalist movement within India. A significant portion of Indians view India as a Hindu country, with an unfortunate Islamic period, and hate Indian Muslims.

India is great at international diplomacy, but it has failed domestically with its minorities. Pakistan has made the same mistakes, which is why we lost East Pakistan, and are having trouble in Balochistan.

I think you've misinterpreted my post, I wasn't very clear though so here goes.

Kashmir will never be united into a single entity, there is simply too much at stake, Pakistan isn't interested in losing any ground in the Northern Areas, and China is a different story altogether, the last thing they're interested in is reconciliation between India and Pakistan, so they just aren't going to play ball. Kashmir also happens to be Pakistan's lifeline, no amount of votes can ever take that away from India. India will hold on to that water come what may, its a strategic imperative.

What can happen is that both India and Pakistan cede some ground, a small chunk from Azad Kashmir, Indian Kashmir and the Northern Areas, and jointly administer it. Like east and west Germany, only more like east and west Berlin. Both countries would otherwise hold on to most of what they have. People will then be able to choose where they want to live, generally speaking.

The partition has left some deep wounds in the subcontinent, Pakistan's treatment of its own minorities is just as bad if not worse by the way.

India is still a poor and uneducated country, the government, media and the people are doing what they can, people mostly just go about their lives. The ground reality is bad and there is always a tense undercurrent, but is not nearly as bad as you think. Its kind of like America sometime in the early 80's (society), but India does do what it can to stamp out institutional discrimination and the like, changes in society come about slowly, and in India, its at Pandu pace, nice and easy.

Also, Indians could have easily voted the retarded BJP jokers into office, there was a lot of anger after 26/11, yet the secular party won in a landslide, perceptions aside, facts are facts. We have crazies in India, but hardly anyone buys into their BS anymore, everyone is sick of their divisive tactics, people just want to get along and move on with their lives.

Furthermore, our relationship with Pakistan post partition has only made things worse, which is why I know that peace is imperative for the future of India and for the sub continent as a whole. If in a country like America, different races can live in relative peace and harmony then why can't we live in peace too?

India is great at international and internal diplomacy, we have so many different types of people, and while India has not completely consolidated its power at home, we've done enough to keep things moving rather briskly. The country has its problems, but I believe we've succeeded where most others have failed. That said, we still have a long way to go. Hopefully things start looking better in a decade or so.

Regards.

 

[manzar]

What % of a billion is 200 peeps? Hmm......thats what we call chicken feed....

Besides I hardly think burning the tri color and chanting anti-India slogans will get them anywhere......3 wars, armed militancy, attacks on civilians and government institutions could not "free" Kashmir.....what makes anyone think this will do the trick?

its only a way to protest to let indians know that they hate them!and they want them to go!they do not want their women and children to be disrespected by the indian milatary.so obviously they are forced to pick up arms!what do you xpect them to do???

 

[manzar]

all Indians keep mentioning tribesmen as they were aliens who entered kashmir. Stop bring tribesmen, they at the time of Muslim league call decided to join Pakistan even this territory was to go back to Afghanistan after 99years, the Durand line, Since All Pashtuns decided to say in Pakistan at it independence, so they were legally Pakistanis and were fighting for their motherland.

Now coming to resolutions, read see for yourself what it says and not what you have written down.

DRAFT 6.2.1948

38 (1948)

47 (1948)

there are many more resolution where this came from, it is funny you post your ideas as if they were on U.N.

Clearly the resolution say that if the force have withdrawn, named tribesmen than Indian must start a process to set up plebiscite plans and procedure and implement with urgency.

But you Indians read and twist it and read and twist it again again. there are billion Indians and billion interpretations of Kashmir resolutions.

You guys do not want peace only talk silly and keep killing innocents, raping women

yeah i agree with you..!and every time we try to resolve this problem,they just take the mumbai incident as an excuse.that"no talk on kashmir untill pakistan capture the mumbai culprits and hand them over"so lame...!and when the mumbai incident happen,the whole world was accusing pakistan!wat about the marroit bomb blast in pakistan?!!!?

 

[Halaku Khan]

The separatists have so far remained silent over the matter.

This is the most revealing part of the whole story. The separatists know what kind of mind-set their "movement" depends upon.

 

[Awesome]

Halaku, what about this? The official word from the people actually investigating the issue:

Meanwhile, the police have started an investigation. They say there could also be a non-militancy angle.

 

[Awesome]

Kashmir's Brutal and Unpublicized War; Indian Army Accused of Torturing, Terrorizing, Killing Civilians | Article from The Washington Post | HighBeam Research

Article from:The Washington Post Article date:June 7, 1993 Author:Molly Moore; John Ward Anderson

A little blast from the past. Helps into the understanding of how the Kashmiri separatist movement truly took off. It pretty much shows the human rights violations, which include murders, rapes and arson that the Indian Army has been committing since the very beginning in its desperate attempts to clutch onto a people that in no means identify themselves as Indians.

Masroof Sultan said he was on his way to college chemistry finals when Indian security officers pulled him off a city bus, hauled him to an interrogation camp, accused him of being a terrorist and tortured him with repeated electric shocks.

The troops then drove the 19-year-old student to a deserted canal bank and leaned him against a tree, where, Sultan recalled, five officers fired at him. Sultan crumpled to the ground, and one of the officers pumped another three bullets into his body. Two hours later, the Indian security forces told police to retrieve the corpse of a militant who had been killed near the canal in the cross-fire of a gun battle.

The only unusual part of Sultan's story is that he lived to tell it. Doctors said the husky teenager, who lost an estimated 13 pints of blood, survived primarily because none of the bullets punctured vital organs or vessels.

In recent months, a conflict little noticed in most of the world has begun to escalate in the deceptively bucolic mountain valley of Kashmir, where residents say Indian army and security forces are waging a brutal campaign of torture, terror and killings against militants fighting for independence. While militants also are accused of murders, rapes and other atrocities, residents say Indian troops are far more brutal.

The struggle is choking everyday life in Kashmir, where many more civilians are dying than either military forces or rebels. According to records maintained by local journalists, lawyers and doctors, between 12,000 and 20,000 people have been killed in slightly more than three years of violence.

"We are living in fear and terror," said Amina Nazir, a shopkeeper's wife. Her tidy second-floor apartment overlooks the charred debris of Srinagar's main shopping area, Lal Chowk, where government forces burned more than 200 houses and shops last month in retaliation for a guerrilla attack on an empty military building.

"There is no justice, no law and order," Sultan said in a bedside interview at the Bone and Joint Hospital, where he has undergone four operations for the injuries he received April 8. "A security person can do what they want to catch any person. I am not a militant. I just wanted to do my studies."

Indian officals interviewed in New Delhi insisted that Sultan was a militant who was caught in the cross-fire of a gun battle between guerrillas and security forces.

The battle over Muslim-dominated Kashmir has led to two of the three wars fought between Pakistan and India, both of which lay claim to the jagged snowy peaks and lush green valleys where generations of British colonialists escaped the New Delhi heat aboard wooden houseboats floating serenely on Lake Dal.

U.S. military officials view Kashmir and the tensions it has created between the neighboring countries as one of the world's most likely flash points for nuclear war. A growing number of political observers in the region believe the 46-year-old struggle can only be resolved with pressure from the United States or the United Nations.

The United States recently has entered the debate by warning Pakistan that it risks being named a terrorist state if it continues arming, training and financing the guerrillas in Kashmir. U.S.officials also have raised concerns with India over alleged human rights abuses by its military forces.

In addition to its political standoff with Pakistan, India finds itself in a struggle with its own people. Kashmir was granted an unusual status during the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947, and it has remained a disputed territory ever since. In the last four decades, the sentiment of the residents has fluctuated among apathy, a desire to become part of Pakistan and support for independence from both countries.

Violence erupted in late 1989 when militant Kashmiris, frustrated by years of political stalemate, drew strength from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan under pressure from guerrilla forces. Aided by arms and other support from Pakistan, the militant Kashmiris launched their own war for freedom.

Residents of the far northern Indian state are so opposed to New Delhi that the conflict has become to India what Vietnam was to the United States and Afghanistan to the Soviet Union: a debilitating war costing millions of dollars and thousands of lives with no coherent political policy to control it and little chance of victory.

"It's an absurd figure we're spending for no reason whatsoever," Salman Khurshid, India's minister of state for external affairs, said in describing the budget drain of deploying a minimum of 300,000 troops along the Indian-Pakistani border and throughout the valley.

For the almost 8 million residents of the Kashmir region, the effects of the violence have been devastating: Life in a valley that centuries of writers and poets have described as paradise on Earth has become a nightmare. Parents say they live in terror that their children will be killed in gun battles on the way home from school. Social life has dried up, with citizens afraid to venture out of their houses after dusk. Most governmental institutions have ceased to function, and the tourist-driven economy has collapsed.

Security forces daily cordon off large sections of the city, pulling hundreds of residents out of their homes in search of militants and weapons. Each day, young men suspected of being militants are nabbed by Indian security and military forces in what residents have dubbed "catch-and-kill" operations.

There are no reliable figures on the number of people who have been killed as a result of the violence, but most estimates - including those by the U.S. State Department - suggest that civilians suffer the greatest number of casualties. For instance, in February, March and April of this year, the Kashmir Times newspaper reported, the death toll from the violence was 371 civilians, 291 militants and 42 soldiers.

Human rights organizations have issued scathing reports on the conflict. "The security forces have been given free rein to murder detainees in custody, kill civilians in reprisal attacks and engage in torture, rape and arson - all with impunity," said Patricia Gossman, who has written recent reports for the New York-based human rights group Asia Watch.

In an interview with the national news magazine India Today, Jammu and Kashmir Gov. K.V. Krishna Rao replied to a question about deaths in custody and human rights violations: "I genuinely feel bad if torture leads to death."

Khurshid said there are extenuating circumstances: "I'm not justifying for a minute what any officer has done in any part of Kashmir, but one has to understand the stress in which they are working. We're not fighting kids throwing stones - we're fighting trained militants."

With more than 30 different militant groups vying for power and control of territory, the guerrillas are accused of executions, rapes and extortion, particularly against Hindu minorities living in the valley.

"People are fed up with both sides," said a Srinagar businessman who asked that he not be identified for fear of retribution from one side or the other. "We are sandwiched between the two and dare not speak out about either side."

The cities and countryside of Kashmir look like war zones. The streets are dotted with sandbagged command posts draped in rope netting to protect security troops from the grenades that militants routinely lob at them. Indian security forces, uncertain who is friend or foe, keep their fingers on their gun triggers.

Doctors, human rights workers and others who document abuses by both government forces and militants have become targets. Since last December, three of the valley's most prominent critics of human rights violations - particularly those involving atrocities by government forces - have been shot dead. There is no conclusive evidence of who killed the men, although Farooq Ahmed Ashai, the chief orthopedic surgeon of the Bone and Joint Hospital, was shot while driving his car past a military bunker.

"I feel very insecure," said Mufti Bahauddin Aftab, a former chief justice and human rights activist who said the killings of his colleagues prompted him to curtail his own investigations. "I hesitate to go out of my house now. Everybody feels scared. There's no accountability. Where there is no accountability, it is a free- for-all by uniformed people."

Javed Mohammed Mir, acting president of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, one of the largest militant organizations here, acknowledged that some atrocities have been committed by militants and said that a "coordination committee" of six militant organizations has considered the evidence and executed about a half- dozen of their "antisocial" members.

Throughout the Kashmir valley, government services have become almost nonexistent, but most alarming, according to some human rights activists and attorneys, is the collapse of the criminal justice system. From police on the street to justices on the state Supreme Court, the legal system has been abused, compromised and corrupted to terrorize and unjustly imprison innocent victims, they said.

The violence has devastated the local economy, which was almost entirely dependent on a world-renowned tourist industry. In 1988 - the biggest boom year for tourism - 722,000 people visited the region's serene lakes, majestic mountains and poplar-dotted valleys, infusing $200 million into the local economy and government coffers. Last year, only 10,400 hardy tourists visited the area.

Businessmen and craftsmen say some of their trades may become impossible to pursue if the upheavals continue. The Victorian houseboats that line the shores of the lakes near Srinagar have been a major tourist draw for more than a century, ever since laws prohibiting British citizens from owning land in Kashmir prompted them to improvise and build palatial floating retreats on the water.

All but a handful of the region's hotels have been commandeered by Indian soldiers, who have lined the windows with sandbags and allowed magnificent gardens to be overrun by weeds.

Kashmir's top religious leader, Mir Waiz Farooq, 19, who inherited the mantle at an unusually young age after his father was shot and killed three years ago, said he believes India, Pakistan and the rebels are incapable of negotiating a solution. "We appeal to the United States to intervene as they did in the {Persian} Gulf War and in Afghanistan," he said.

 

[Awesome]

Article: The Valley of the shadow.(struggle for Kashmir) | Article from The Economist (US) | HighBeam Research

The Valley of the shadow.(struggle for Kashmir)

Article from:The Economist (US) Article date:May 22, 1999

A STRETCH of the main road from Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir's summer capital, to Anantnag is lined with workshops that fashion the local willow into cricket bats. There is something cheering about these little enterprises making a living from South Asia's favourite pastime in the region's most contested territory.

The cheer quickly dissipates. Gulam Qadir (not his real name) says he shifted his stock from road level to the first floor of his shop because counter-insurgents, former anti-Indian militants who have changed sides, have been harassing him. Sometimes they just demand free bats; when angry, they ``take up these sticks and beat us,'' Mr Qadir claims, gesturing towards the stacks of unfinished planks. He wants what almost everyone in the Kashmir Valley seems to want, azadi-- independence. But like most businessmen, Mr Qadir has a pragmatic streak. ``Before azadi, we want a relaxed atmosphere,'' he says, ``which is not happening.''

Mr Qadir and his fellow Kashmiris are caught up in one of the world's most intractable disputes. There is a legal side to it, there is a fiendishly complex issue of self-determination, there is a regional tussle that involves China as well as India and Pakistan, and then there are the realities on the ground, kept rigid by the power of the gun. These forces pull in different directions. But India is happier with the status quo than are the other main players, Pakistan and the Kashmiri people, and it is with India that a solution must start.

The Kashmir problem is part of the aftermath of partition. The Hindu maharaja of Kashmir wanted independence, but hurriedly acceded to India in 1948 after Pakistani tribesmen invaded his realm. The principle that Kashmiris be allowed to determine their own future was established at the beginning. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, struck a deal with the maharaja, but thought that his (mostly Muslim) subjects should be the the true masters of Kashmir. A 1948 UN Security Council resolution, designed to end the first hostilities between India and Pakistan, calls for the withdrawal of Pakistani forces, followed by a plebiscite allowing Kashmiris to choose between joining India or Pakistan. It never happened. The state remains divided into zones of Indian, Pakistani and--because the Pakistanis let them have it and China occupied a chunk on its own--Chinese control. Pakistan regards union with the rest of Kashmir as ``the unfinished business of partition''. India, for its part, deems the state an integral part of its territory. China says it will talk about its slice once the other two have reached a deal.

Missed opportunities

India might have won a plebiscite had it not governed Kashmir so badly. Nehru had an ally in Kashmir's most popular leader, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, who thought of himself as a Kashmiri first and a Muslim second, and preferred Indian secularism to Pakistani sectarianism. It was a rocky relationship. Abdullah flirted with independence, and the central government never reconciled itself to the autonomy it had granted Kashmir. India's best friend in the state was imprisoned twice for a total of 18 years between 1953 and 1975. He won Kashmir's first genuinely free election in 1977. Yet in 1984 his son, Farooq, was dismissed as chief minister by Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi. There followed a period of obtuse and thuggish rule by the central government, a flawed election in 1987 that gave a more obedient Farooq another spell in power, and the outbreak of violence two years later.

It has been an ugly war that does none of the parties involved much credit. The 400,000 or so troops that India keeps in Kashmir have often shown the same brutality as their foes. So far, about 24,000 people have died in the decade-long insurgency, say the police. The militants say 60,000. Either way, more have been killed than in all three Indo- Pakistani wars put together.

Pakistan insists on sorting out the mess by holding the plebiscite as envisaged in the UN resolutions. That would bring more self- determination than at present, but not much. Jammu & Kashmir's population of 9m-10m is far from being all Muslim (see map). The Kashmir Valley has become almost all Muslim. Jammu has a Hindu majority and Ladakh a Buddhist one. It is a safe bet that in a plebiscite both would vote to remain with India but be dragged into union with Pakistan by the overall Muslim majority. In that event the Kashmir problem might well go on, with oppressor and oppressed swapping identities.

More important, the UN-mandated plebiscite does not offer Kashmiris what most of them really want: azadi. A 1995 poll found that 72% of the Valley's inhabitants wanted independence. Being mostly Muslims does not make them Pakistanis. Their separate identity is based on place, kinship and culture as much as on religion.

In India's view, Kashmiris would become loyal citizens again if only Pakistan would stop interfering. It sees the insurgency as a proxy war, which would end as soon as Pakistan stopped giving militants money and weapons and letting them infiltrate Kashmir across the line of control. Most militants, India claims, are foreign zealots imported from other holy wars, such as that in Afghanistan. It regards separatist political groups, two dozen of which are grouped under the All Parties Hurriyet Conference, as stooges of Pakistan

Pending a diplomatic solution, India thinks the war is going well. ``We are happy,'' says C.S Pokharia, deputy inspector-general of the Border Security Force, which keeps order in Kashmir. Fewer militants are infiltrating from Pakistan, and ``the killing of militants during encounters is quite favourable.''

Mr Pokharia has some grounds for smugness. After a period when militants ruled the roost in big towns like Srinagar and even ran a parallel administration, the government now has the upper hand. Militants have been pushed out of the towns and the bazaars bustle again, though there are still sporadic shoot-outs even in the middle of Srinagar. The security forces are trying harder to target combatants and spare civilians. Elections in 1996, which were boycotted by the separatists, replaced direct rule from Delhi with a government headed by Farooq Abdullah.

Normality is relative. Srinagar still looks like a city dumped inside a maximum-security prison, with guns poking through piles of sandbags on nearly every corner. Tourism, Kashmir's biggest industry, is still way below its pre-insurrection peak. Without the money spent by soldiers and their families, the economy would be flat on its back. And the war is far from over. The militants lie lower but strike harder, sometimes at the security forces, sometimes at innocents who happen to be Hindus. Casualties among security forces last year just fell short of the 1995 record.

The security forces have become choosier, but no less brutal. Ravi Nair, head of the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre, says that captured foreign militants are summarily executed in faked ``encounters''. Detainees are routinely tortured. Kashmir is still subject to laws that permit security forces to shoot suspects and destroy property. And when they abuse their powers, there is no redress. Parveena Ahanger speaks for the parents of 300 missing children, including her son, who disappeared in 1991 after the National Security Guard arrested him: ``Not one person has been found, not one person has been punished.''

Why peace is hard to do

Competing claims of sovereignty and self-determination can never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Even modest ambitions, such as a lessening of violence, have been frustrated because every concession has been looked upon as a surrender of principle. It is unlikely that the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers bent their principles in Lahore. Compromises offered by either country always fall short of the other side's minimum demands. Thus India might accept the line of control as the permanent border, and Pakistan is willing to talk about holding a plebiscite in Kashmir by region rather than for the whole state, which would allow the parts populated by Hindus and Buddhists to vote to remain with India. But the crunch issue for both countries remains the disposition of the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley.

Mr Sharif is as close to being soft on Kashmir as any Pakistani leader is likely to get. Looking over his shoulder are Islamic fundamentalists, who have already branded his meeting with Mr Vajpayee a betrayal of Kashmir; the armed forces, whose budgets depend on continued tension with India; and Inter-Services Intelligence, the part of the armed forces thought to be arming and training fighters both in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

In India, there are two distinct schools of thought on Kashmir. The weightier one, to which Mr Vajpayee and probably his electoral rival, Sonia Gandhi, belong, argues that there can be no compromise over the sovereignty of Indian-held Kashmir. But there are others who see merit in giving Pakistan some say in the affairs of the Valley--though such creative solutions are unlikely to be tried for years to come.

There need not be a grand settlement for things to improve in Kashmir, but two things will have to happen: Pakistan will have to squeeze the supply of violence and India will have to discourage the demand for it. If violence inside Kashmir goes down, India could reduce its security forces in the interior.

Will Pakistan rein in the rebels? It denies giving them anything other than moral and diplomatic support, and claims to have limited power to curb them. It probably exaggerates its impotence. It has a large army along the line of control, which it uses selectively. The mujahideen of Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the main guerrilla groups, mill about their office in Lahore impressively armed in full view of the police. Mr Sharif is under intense pressure from the United States--which controls the flow of money to Pakistan's bankrupt economy--to reduce tensions with India. But he is also on the hit-list of one of the extremist Islamic groups, and may be reluctant to provoke such groups further. India's behaviour towards its Kashmiri citizens should not depend on the number of terrorists infiltrating across the border. Farooq Abdullah's National Conference government in Kashmir, which had a flimsy mandate to begin with, has lost whatever popularity it had because of its clumsy administration and its failure to fulfill its promise to win back some of Kashmir's autonomy. Moreover, Kashmiris feel they are being ruled not by a popularly elected government but by policemen who behave more like an occupation force. Secessionist leaders, who represent an important slice of public opinion, play hardly any part in politics. The All Parties Hurriyet Conference is not an impressive body. Its two dozen members agree on little except opposition to Indian rule. Its leaders, fearing harassment by Indian forces, have little contact with the people they claim to represent.

Mehbooba Mufti, a member of the state assembly from the Congress party, thinks the government should open an ``unconditional dialogue'' with militant groups and their political representatives. So far the separatists have held out for tripartite talks with India and Pakistan- -``the only kind we will accept,'' says Yaseen Malik, leader of the pro-independence Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front. But Ms Mufti reckons that even hardened separatists would agree to talk to the government on its own. ``Militant boys want a normal life--with honour, not with surrender,'' says Ms Mufti. She may be wrong. But if India is to prevail over the separatists, it will have to persuade rather than simply punish them.