I am tired of the voices that talk about collective self determination of the people of the both the Indian side and the Pakistani side of Kashmr, without even once looking at the consequences of such an election. As usual we are addicted to key words that stop us form thinking beyond. As if democracy is the sweet mantra for all ills of society. Democracy in all of India is a corrupted, uncomfortable form, and we know that. And it is no different in Kashmir and worse in Pakistan.
If you announce an election today in a combined Kashmir, it is the surest way to a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan as opposing forces in Pakistan, in India and within Kashmir jockey , threaten, kill and burn to ensure that the power structures comes to them.
Why are the liberal voices so bright, analytical and yet so naive ??? Or do they just choose to be impractical because they actually will never take responsibility for consequences ? Consider this …

If elections were announced today in both Kashmirs , every political, every sect within a political party will attempt to take advantage of the issue – the Hindutva parties will set Indian aflame – thousands will be killed, the separatists forces in Kashmir will begin a campaign of terror, terrorizing the people int a submission to their will. Taliban will swifty move in the Pakistani Kashmir – it will be their new haven – their new centre of operations, and then into the rest fo the valley. Ladakh, and Jammu will want to break away from the state of Kashmir and within Ladakh, Kargill will want t break away into separate state.
We will be looking at the balkanization of first India’s Northern parts, then India’s Eastern parts – and how long before there is a a Tamil Nation and a Maharatha nation carved out. You really think that an election in Kashmir will contain all the violence in Kashmir itself ? It will spread to Mumbai at the flick of an eyelid.
The ghosts of Partition will revisit us. Millions will die, and what the colonists did to us will be repeated by our own inabilities and corrupt practices.
So lets stop this talk now. If the people of Kashmir are to be given right to self determination, then first everything must be normalized. Kashmiri elections must be contested form a situation of peace and not from a situation of war. There has to be a clearly worked out, UN approved, agenda for the next (at least) 5 years of creating an atmosphere allowing the two kashmiris to come together. Pakistan, China, India, the US and the UN have to come to the table to agree.
Only once there is peace, only when the army is no longer needed on either side, only when there a return to prosperity and hope, can there be a free and fair election in Kasmir.
Perssonally I agree that under those circumstances, if Kasmir decides to be an in dependent nation, then India, China and Pakistan must sign an accord to protect it’s sovereignty. Or we are creating a kashmir that will turn into another Aghanistan, or an Arunachal Pradesh that will turn into another Cambodia.
Remember that India was never one country, it was a series of princely states that came together and parted on their own whims. It is still fundamentally that – and if that is the nature of India – then is better to be more like Europe ? 10 countries under a common market ?
Shekhar