| If only Alexander the Great had sent his entire army home and instead, settled in the subcontinent himself. He might have sired someone who possessed his courage, a latter-day name-sake who could have severed with one bold stroke the knotty problem that has bound India and Pakistan together for the past fifty-seven years, and kept them apart - the Gordian knot also known as Jammu & Kashmir. |
| Future historians will marvel why a billion and a half Indians and Pakistanis should allow themselves to be held hostage to the aspirations of 6.369 million registered voters in Indian-held Jammu & Kashmir and less than half that number in Pakistani-assisted Azad Kashmir, when there are so many greater problems that confront both nations and that merit their unifocal attention. |
| In Lahore, on 20 November, addressing a South Asian Free Media Conference, President Pervez Musharraf articulated his own position on the problem with a sabre-like sharpness. He spoke to an audience that comprised journalists from every country in the region, with a distinctive contingent from India. He began by saying that there had been a perception that his remarks at a recent Iftar party in Islamabad about a new way of looking at the Jammu & Kashmir problem were ‘off the cuff.’ Quite the contrary, he said. Whatever I say, I think through clearly beforehand. Therefore, his proposal regarding Kashmir was intentional. It should be considered not as one geographical contiguity but as seven separate components – five on the Indian side and two on the Pakistani - that could be gradually demilitarized and given local autonomy. He explained that by identifying these seven districts, he was merely recognizing the ‘geographic, ethnic and religious realities’ on the ground. In his mind, the knot was not one single rope but seven skeins that could be unravelled separately. [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 30 Nov. 2004, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE & OTHER WRITINGS (2006). |
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