India and Pakistan seem to be on the brink of war and its become a casual affair... sitting ontop of a barrel of gunpowder since independance. Will this issue ever be resolved or are the coming generations heirs to a threat or an actual war!!!

The tempted fox in Aesop's fable left the vineyard consoling itself that the grapes were sour just because he couldn't reach them. I can't help wondering what twist the fable would have taken, had there been two foxes instead of one. I bet they both would have sat there just to make sure that the other didn't get the bunch!

A duplicated true -to-life version of this is that of Pakistan, India and the verdant valley of Kashmir. Our whole nation keeps meditating and debating on this issue that threatens to trigger another war in the sub-continent. Now once again the tempo of the pool game between the two countries is building up to such a point that the usually static billiard balls are now bouncing off each other.

Dialogues have followed summits that have further proven fruitless. Ones side extends a negotiating hand, the other zips up and so it continues. Our neighbors have been sadly mistaken if they assumed that time itself would uncover a solution to this lingering issue and we have been dead wrong if we have believed that God will, on one fine day, just chuck Kashmir onto our laps. Both sides have been trying, but fifty years have gone by in just trying and blaming! The people who first took up words and weapons for the cause are long martyred. Demographic restructuring has come to pass in the vale and deteriorating state of affairs is threatening a nuclear exchange with the superpowers intervening.

The US is with nobody but it-self. The concern of the US and Britain is not for the Muslims or Hindus but both the nations that are armed with nuclear. A threatening and power-labeling arsenal that the United States and UK wanted so much to retain for themselves. Pakistan may be the US ally but with the end of the cold war, American suspicions of a non-aligned India with close ties to the Soviet Union have dissipated. India's economic reforms have opening a huge market of one billion potential consumers to US businesses. Pakistan may be America's wartime ally but it is India that offers the prospect of long-term friendship.

Since after the Delhi blast, Pakistan has been under great pressure to tame its militants while India is being coaxed by the Bush administration to keep a level head.
Shimon Peres visit to Delhi signified the parallel line of action of India and Israel in pursuing and grueling our freedom fighters (their terrorists) rather then negotiate with them. Confirming the fact that US would not reprimand the Indian atrocities against Kashmiri and just like they have turned a blind eye towards the Palestinian cause.

The sine qua non is that they are trying now. But besides the shortcomings from both sides, the anti-peace lobbyist like the hawkers are deadly against any amends for the better in the status quo in the Indo-Pak liaison, as this harms their interests. Any successful dialogue will shake the fundamentals and challenge the Hindu extremists and the Jihad forces as these are mainly linked to prejudice religious sects and have diminutive political understanding. They protest on same lines from different platforms. One Maulana Sahib steps down, or is pulled down; three more jump up declaring war on India. That’s what they do: ‘Declare’ the war. Then they scoff at the government for even thinking about avoiding use of nuclear. “Aray bhai, hum nuclear hai ab tu, jihad ka mamila hai, istamal na karain tu kya faiz.” (Oh, brother, we are a nuclear state now, and it’s a matter of Jihad. What good if the nuclear if we don’t put it to use?) It’s that simple for them!

Another point often brought under the limelight is the element of pride and false ego held by both countries that cannot be shelved after a span of 50 years of acrimony. There has be a solution in which no egos are bruised. One needs to be no political messiah to envisage the Indian reaction that if it has to lose Kashmir, then why lose it to Pakistan and vise versa. It is easy for us sitting here to claim that we should get Kashmir, because you and I aren't the ones in anguish. The Kashmir cause hasn't made you a wailing widow, a bereaved father or a whimpering orphan, yet. You and I haven't seen the bloodbath and carnage; our spirits are not restive for freedom and our lives aren’t the ones caught in a labyrinth of horror, pain and agony.


And what do we have to offer to Kashmir? Political leaders who are fraudulent? An ambiguous democracy with phases of militia regulation? Financial and economic morasses? Internal strife? Institutions that are discredited or struggling? The label of being part of a terrorism sponsoring state? Insecure lives? We keep pleading for foreign aid and are watchful every time United States flexes its muscles over our affaires. Is that our sovereignty? The bottom line is that are we ready to share the responsibility of more sacred lives? Or will we end up dragging them with us into the quicksand that is pulling our nation under? Or maybe this is our time to learn and make amends for ourselves and the generations to come.

And now again the spirits of our borders are restless. Meanwhile lots of concerned young people like me wonder if our generation would finally witness the dust settling down or we might just be heirs to another war.