Consensus on Kashmir

No settlement without support by consensus within India, Pakistan, and Kashmir (AFP).

The India-Pakistan peace process must have a Kashmir settlement as its clear goal. But no settlement will work unless it is supported by a domestic consensus within each of the three parties — India, Pakistan and Kashmir. All Kashmiris, separatists and unionists, are now agreed that the future of Kashmir cannot be decided without the concurrence of Pakistan.

In India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is sworn to oppose any initiative by the present government on any major issue, whether domestic or foreign. In 2004 L.K. Advani asserted that the Hindus would trust the BJP alone to forge an accord with Pakistan.

In 2007 he and Atal Behari Vajpayee asked Pakistani visitors to wait till the BJP returned to power; it would give better terms. Both are false. The country will back Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who received a renewed mandate in 2009 which ends in 2014. More>>