What are the steps to be taken to establish peace between India and Pakistan?
Answers
The agreement between Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, and India's new prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to continue talks on all contentious issues including Kashmir has inspired optimism about reduced tensions in South Asia. If decades of conflict are to be settled, however, the two sides must both do much more to address grievances and deal with the legacies of a half century and avoid too ambitious an effort to attempt everything at once. They need to foster all forms of bilateral contact and improve the lives of Kashmiris, who have borne the worst of the conflict. Dialogue will have to be expanded beyond high governmental levels if real constituencies for peace are to be nurtured.
This report builds on previous work published by ICG on Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations and was written after extensive consultations with experts representing various viewpoints. It does not lay out a template for peace or what a comprehensive solution would look like because the circumstances for a diplomatic endgame are not yet ripe. Any such proposal at this stage would surely be rejected by both sides. Instead, it suggests steps forward to widen a peace process and make it more sustainable. Previous attempts to reach agreement have all faltered, often after highly-charged summit meetings. It is vital that the current attempts be structured in a way that makes them more durable and less prone to disruption by extremists or violence. Many suggestions are made throughout the paper on how to do this, and how to improve the lives of Kashmiris. The main themes are outlined below.