| | 
| |
|  |
May 22 2002: The threat of war between India and Pakistan is 'real and very disturbing', says the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. We select the best analysis on the Kashmiri dispute, the prospects for peace - and the two countries' nuclear capablities.
Special report: Kashmir
The weblog: latest issues in links
More weblog specials
| | | Pakistani view
Ghayoor Ahmed, writing in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, revisits the events of October 1947, when the rulers of British India had to choose whether to join India or Pakistan. The maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, vacillated about his decision - and then chose India, despite the fact that the state had a Muslim majority. The 'instrument of accession' with which he did so is a subject of much dispute.
Dawn
'Accordance with the wishes of the people' - Dawn
Position on Kashmir - Pakistani government
| Indian view
Arvind Lavakare, writing in Indian's Rediff.com news website, says the legality of the instrument of accession is 'unquestionable'. He quotes the British vice-regent, Lord Mountbatten, who said: 'The accession had indeed been brought about by violence, but the violence came from tribesmen, for whom Pakistan, not India, was responsible.'
Rediff.com
Kashmir timeline - Indian government
| | | The nuclear threat
Najum Mushtaq, writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1999, writes about the 'surreal' nature of the nuclear deterrent in India and Pakistan: the fact that it isn't deterring anything. 'But if nuclear deterrence guarantees peace,' he asks, 'why is defence spending by both countries continuing to rise?'
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Pakistan's nuclear capability - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
India's nuclear capability - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
| Reasons for war?
India says Pakistan is not doing enough to stop Islamic militants from committing acts of armed insurgency in Kashmir. But the Daily Excelsior, a newspaper read mostly by Jammu's Hindu minority, puts the case far more hawkishly. Pakistan, it says, has 'been instigating the youth of this state,' ... 'luring them across the border and sending them back armed to the teeth' ... 'each one of these acts is a complete reason, a full justification, for declaring a full-scale war on Pakistan'.
Daily Excelsior
India preparing for limited punitive strikes - Hindustan Times
| Death of a dove
A moderate Kashmiri separatist, Abdul Ghani Lone, was shot dead in the province yesterday - on the eve of the visit of the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Indian Express newspaper remembers the 'extraordinary fortitude' of a man who sought a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Indian Express
| Into the abyss
Dawn newspaper finds the language of India's leadership 'jingostic' - and calls on Pakistan's military leader, General Musharraf, to listen to those who want a negotiated solution to the conflict.
Dawn
Kashmir time bomb - Washington Post
| Prospects for peace
India's Newspaper Today reports from a new kind of conference on Kashmir - one where the politicians aren't there. The Indo-Pak people's summit for peace and prosperity, as it was called, arrived after two days at a mutual consensus for peace.
Newspaper Today
Peace dividend at stake - Dawn
| | | The ordinary militant
His Kashmiri parents thought he was a pilot in the US - but Nadeem Khateeb was just over the border in Pakistan, training to fight for Islamic militants in his homeland. As Muzamil Jaleel reports for the Indian Express, they only found out when he was killed.
Indian Express
Terrorism unbound - Indian Express
| Women and militancy
Sudha Ramachandran, writing in Asia Times, reports on an all-women Kashmiri separatist group, the Dukhtaran-e-Millat (daughters of the faith). Behind the burka, they provide male fighters with shelter and logistical support.
Asia Times
| Musharraf's tightrope
In January, a month after an attack on the Indian parliament building that killed 14 people, General Musharraf banned a number of militant groups from operating within Pakistan. Dawn welcomed the 'overdue' decision, but stressed that 'a hard line against terrorists' did not mean compromise on Kashmir.
Dawn
Weblog special: Pakistan after September 11
| | | The Pandits
Between 350,000 and 400,000 Hindus left the Kashmir valley in 1989 and 1990, remembers Dr Ajay Mehra in the Indian Express, after militant-orchestrated violence raised tensions between Hindu and Islamic communities. 'Most agree that the attacks were premeditated and meticulously planned to instill fear among the community to achieve ethnic cleansing.'
Newspaper Today
| Bodybag politics
But Praful Bidwai, writing in Asia Times, condemns the 'jingostic hysteria' in India as the bodybags return from Kashmir. Each coffin, he says, inspires slogans of 'martyrdom' from the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which Mr Vajpayee leads.
Asia Times
| How India lost hearts and minds
Also in Asia Times, Sudha Ramachandran catalogues India's five failings on Kashmir: 'failure to respect the state's autonomy, rigged elections, corruption, slow pace of economic development and frequent use to coercive measures to deal with dissent'. Such measures, he says, explain why Indian control over the region is as tenuous as Pakistan's.
Asia Times
| Official brutality in Kashmir
The main perpetrators of human rights abuses in Kashmir are not the army or the paramilitary, reports Chindu Sreedharan in Rediff.com, but the semi-official 'special operations group', which resembles a militant group in itself. 'It is as if the government has given it a licence to kill,' says one journalist.
Rediff.com
Facing India's army - Javeed Shah, Indian Express
| | | World news guide: India
Most Kashmiri newspapers do not archive their stories, so their perspectives cannot be recorded here. The world news guide, our directory of news sources worldwide, has a section devoted to them.
World news guide: Pakistan
|
|
What's a weblog?