Governments of Pakistan and India have initiated a peace process in spite of difficulties and constraints and any effort for a just and honourable peace is always welcome.
Definition of a peace process
There cannot be two opinions that patience is the key to help keep the process on the rails and those who seek peace should be objective, creative and also having courage to acknowledge the realities, understanding the value of placing the people at the heart of the process.
Albert Camus remarked in his essay 'Neither victims nor Executioners', "An endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. The only honourable course is to take everything up on a formidable gamble that words are more powerful than munitions”.
The peace process as such is an important activity, which binds the spoken and written word, which can be a powerful motivator to generate hope and create a genuine environment.
Kashmir has been ripped apart since the partition of India following independence from the colonial Britain in 1947. The intensity of the suffering has changed, and the nature of peace building at different points of time has been different.
The first attempt to establish peace was kick-started at the UN and any peace process of consequence could have been the Owen Dixon Plan, but fell through due to the cold war and political dynamics of that period and the clash of interests of the super powers.
India and Pakistan tried the bilateralism, which ended with no results including the US Institute of Peace, Pugwash, ICRD, IMTD and the Conflict Resolution in Sweden. In fact many an initiative including Track 1 and Track 2 plus Back Channel initiatives have also been there, but without any results.
During the last four years after the failure of the Agra Summit, India and Pakistan once again started a composite dialogue under the brand name of 'Peace Process'. The progress of the dialogue is discerning but we can safely say that at this point of time a breakthrough on Kashmir is not visible.
I support the positive relations between India and Pakistan, however the political will should be forthcoming and bureaucratic impediments should not be allowed to hinder a political engagement with the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The process must continue and for sustainable peace the international community should provide the required oxygen to move the process forward. Engaging the Kashmiri voices in the process of reconciliation should be initiated. Prior to this we need to check out a course of forward movement. We would require the wisdom and experience of other peace processes in different contemporary conflicts.
Learning from the Irish Peace Process:
The peace process in different conflict areas are primarily focused on specific circumstances. However there are elements in all the peace processes where we can find parallels.
The Irish peace process provides more insight for the Kashmir specific process. In Northern Ireland a desire to negotiate peace was recognized at a reciprocal level. This reciprocity made the Good Friday Agreement a reality. This reciprocity is lacking in the ongoing peace dialogue between India and Pakistan.
All voices, including the Irish Republic Army and the UDF were partners of peace in Northern Ireland. And it is imperative for any meaningful forward movement in the Kashmir peace process that all voices should be made an integral component.
The Kashmir peace process is virtually between the two governments with no presence of any Kashmiri voice. Again in the Irish peace process harsh political priorities were acknowledged by both the political parties.
It needs to be reminded that unless a political will from the leaders of India and Pakistan is forthcoming, the peace process will meet its Waterloo.
* The writer is the Executive Director at Kashmir Center London, UK and hails from Baramula in occupied Kashmir