The Kashmir dispute makes the Crusades look like a family argument. Being the oldest, unresolved, international conflict in the world, the squabble between India and Pakistan over who owns this snippet of land could turn that part of Asia into a living hell. Or rather, a dead hell, since both countries have nuclear weapons, and they hate each other with a passion hotter than Britney’s diary.

Moreover, if India and Pakistan ever start a nuclear war in the Middle East over tiny Kashmir it will be the irony of the age; to say nothing of probably being the beginning of the end of life on earth as we know it, at least in that part of the world.

To give the whole history of the Kashmir dilemma would take a bathtub full of ink, but key factors can be extrapolated that may explain why these perennial enemies have their safeties off.

Land-locked Kashmir, about the size of Georgia, is surrounded by China, Tibet, India, and Pakistan; with both India and Pakistan claiming “ownership” of Kashmir. Of its 13 million people, 7.7 million live in the India-occupied area, 2.6 million live in the “independent” Pakistan area; the rest being refugees or expatriates.

The 60-year old tussle over Kashmir “ownership” was a totalitarian misadventure from the beginning because neither India nor Pakistan had any legitimate claim to it. India, however, assumes that it has because of a document it signed with the Maharaja of Kashmir in return for help settling an internal dispute. But Pakistani and Kashmiri people-—also the United Nations-—never accepted the Indian claim, and the two factions have been at each other’s throat since.

When Britain partitioned off the Indian subcontinent in 1947, giving both India and Pakistan their freedom, Kashmir’s majority population was Muslim; they also were geographically close to Pakistan. So it justifiably became part of Pakistan. This left India with its claim hanging out and its feelings hurt, which didn’t set well, so they went to war with Pakistan in 1948.

In 1951, Nehru, India’s first prime minister, pledged to solve the problem, but he forgot one thing. The Kashmiri people were never consulted. So in 1965, Pakistan and India again went to war over Kashmir. And it has been nothing but a firestorm of uprisings, revolts, torture, rape, and mass murder from then on.

It is absolutely amazing to me that the one action they could never seem to agree on in 60 years, was a simple plebiscite, or vote, by which the wishes of the Kashmiri people themselves were considered. It is, after all, their country, so it is dictatorial arrogance to think that they should have no say in who runs it.

There has been, of course, much complicated political maneuvering through the years, which we do not have to get into here in order to grasp the central issue: both India and Pakistan are convinced they own Kashmir, and neither will budge an inch.

Tim Russert recently interviewed four congressional guests about the possibility of a nuclear exchange in Kashmir. One of the guests hit the heart of the challenge: the leaders of the world, speaking as one voice, MUST convince these nuclear neophytes that a war with nuclear weapons is totally unacceptable. They must be made to see that this is not a case of winning a war. This is a case of losing a world.

For the sake of life on earth, India and Pakistan must settle their dispute, or somebody will settle it for them. The choice is theirs, but they have no choice.

James T. Moore
http://jamestmoore.us/