APPROACH PAPER FOR A CONFERENCE
ON
JAMMU & KASHMIR: ALTERNATIVE FUTURES

 

Organiser

The Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi.

Objectives

•  To break through the logjam of currently entrenched and conflicting positions on Jammu & Kashmir.

•  To locate the future of the entire Jammu & Kashmir region and that of its various constituent communities within the evolving geostrategic and economic architecture of South Asia .

•  To provide a forum for representatives of the various and diverse interests and communities in the Jammu & Kashmir region to articulate their perspectives.

•  To explore the imperatives of globalisation in terms of democratic freedoms, freedom of choice, of worship, of expression, of economic opportunities, of social and economic mobilisation and emancipation, and their implications for a resolution of outstanding issues in Jammu & Kashmir in the interests of all communities.

•  To explore the various and contesting identities that fall within the rubric of communities in Jammu & Kashmir, and determine the measure in which these can be accommodated within any equitable solution of the 'Kashmir issue'.

•  To identify elements of policy that could provide immediate relief to the people of the Jammu & Kashmir region, and a meaningful mechanism for redressal of grievances, pending the resolution of the larger ' Kashmir problem'.

•  To evolve a consensual understanding of non-violent patterns of resolution of the conflicts in Jammu & Kashmir.

•  To create the institutional context and framework of a permanent process of consultation, cooperation and resolution.

Background

A process of negotiations between India and Pakistan, as well as between the Indian Government and various representatives of the separatist movement in Jammu & Kashmir, has resulted in some hopes of a peaceful solution to the 'Kashmir problem', even as a wide range of international developments and internal difficulties in Pakistan have resulted in a continuous and secular decline in so-called ' jihadi ' violence in Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir. These are salutary developments, and a range of confidence-building measures (CBMs) between India and Pakistan , greater people-to-people contact, and particularly the opening up of long-blocked travel routes, have enormously improved the atmospherics of the 'peace process' between the two countries.

Nevertheless, at the most fundamental level, the conflicting positions of the two countries and various parties to the conflict have not been significantly altered. Moreover, the apparently numerous 'proposals' floated over time for the resolution of the 'Kashmir issue' have all - with rare exception - relied upon a redrawing of borders on the basis of religion, and have tended to focus overwhelmingly on perceived grievances of the Kashmir Valley, neglecting the conflicting and diverse interests of other regions and communities - including particularly the people of 'Azad Jammu & Kashmir' and Gilgit-Baltistan, who are denied basic constitutional, political and human rights. Crucially, these various 'solutions' have ignored the enveloping global and geostrategic developments that have irrevocably altered the very context of international discourse on the character and role of the state, and evolving intercourse between states.

There is urgent need, consequently, to move away from the positions that have become entrenched in the current negotiation process, and to evolve a more inclusive understanding of the diverse interests and communities of the Jammu & Kashmir region in its entirety, and in its relation to Asia 's evolving geostrategic and economic architecture.

Structure

The Conference will be held over two days, and will be subdivided into four sessions structured around the various themes defined in the objectives of the conference, and broadly encompassing the following:

  • The future of Jammu & Kashmir in the evolving global context
  • Multiple Identities and their Accommodation.
  • Economic Development, Exclusion and Integration
  • Processes and Contours of Resolution

Proceedings and Resolutions

  The entire proceedings of, and resolutions passed during, the Conference would be recorded and published in the form of a report, which would be widely circulated within the international policy community, the media, prominent Think Tanks and other concerned institutions.