Song sung blue

There are epic tragedies scattered across the divided line between the two Kashmirs. That is why closer economic and political ties across the LoC make sense: to heal the wounds, still bleeding

Iftikhar Gilani Srinagar

Bus conductor Sadiq Hussain Shah rued th e day he got off his bus to chase a spare tyre that had rolled off the roof while negotiating a sharp curve in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) close to the Line of Control (LoC). He strayed into Indian territory where the BSF patrolling party promptly arrested him. He spent seven years in a Jammu jail. He was finally handed over to Pakistani authorities at Wagah in 2005 — along with the dilapidated tyre! 

Similarly, a boy from PoK spent three years in prison after he had jumped into a stream to save his drowning mother in north Kashmir. The mother was washed away and he strayed to the other bank, which was in Indian territory. He could return home after three long years to mourn his mother's death.

There are innumerable epical stories of existential tragedies and fragmentation bordering on absurdity in the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir divided by the Line of Control (LoC). Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's initiatives to make it a 'Line of Peace', notwithstanding, for locals, it has been a painful wedge drawn on flesh and blood for the past 60 years. 

Look at the Gurez region in north Kashmir, housing the Dard Shin tribe. Earlier, this tribe ruled edges of north Kashmir from Chitral and Yasin, across the Indus regions of Gilgit, Chilas and Bunji to the Gurez Valley. The LoC and the closure of Gilgit route in 1947 isolated this tribe into obscurity. Today, they are struggling to save their vanishing Shina language, their culture, traditions and distinct identity.

Many theories exist as to their origin. Some historians believe they are pure-blooded descendants of the Indo-Europeans who migrated to India, while others say they have descended from Alexander's soldiers who lost their way while returning to Greece after the war with Indian king Porus. 

For the first time in over 60 years, it was the earthquake of October 2005 that brought the two divided halves of J&K together in grief, but only for a short while. While the destruction in Uri, Tangdar and Poonch on the Indian side was terrible (around 1,300 dead), PoK was completely devastated with almost 70,000 casualties. The region lost more than two per cent of its population. This devastation once again highlighted the cruel division. For a week, Pakistani rescue teams could not reach Garhi Dup-pata and other areas close to the LoC in Uri. Pak-istani units on the LoC had lost contact with their headquarters. People at Kaman watched the despair on the other side of the border, but could do little. 

There was an identical situation in Karnah belt where no road was left to carry relief and rehabilitation operations from the Indian side. Both countries lost a golden opportunity to make the LoC irrelevant and allow respective rescue teams to help the people in distress. In Uri, Indians could very well have taken control of relief operations in Muzaffarabad district. Similarly, Pakistani rescue teams had easy access to help people in Karnah and Poonch.   Indeed, Indian officials have categorically stated that various PoK villages could have been accessed easily from the Indian side rather than from Muzaffarabad.

Almost 35.15 per cent of the total area of the 'divided' J&K is controlled by Pakistan. Another 19 per cent is with China. Pakistan has divided its territory under two broad entities: 'Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)', which is mainly parts of Jammu, Muzaffarabad and Neelam Valley adjacent to Kupwara and Bandipora, and 'Northern Areas', comprising parts of Kargil and the Gilgit-Baltistan region. While Pakistan directly controls the Northern Areas, there is a semblance of democratic rule in 'AJK'. 

Of late, the government of India, which had hitherto believed that the only solution to the Kashmir issue was to make the LoC an international border, has now woken up to the responsibility it owed to the people in PoK. Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran maintains that the issue of  J&K involves people across the whole of the erstwhile state that existed prior to 1947. “When we talk of encouraging such cross-LoC interaction, we are talking about interaction across the whole of the erstwhile state of J&K.  When the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service was being negotiated, India insisted that residents, not only of PoK, but also of Gilgit and Baltistan, should be able to take advantage of it. This is the logic also behind India pressing for a Jammu-Sialkot and a Kargil-Skardu bus service. It is important to avoid, even by implication, that the issue involves only the Valley on our side of the LoC and the sliver of territory that is described as AJK on the other side,” says Saran.

For Saran, who led the dialogue process with Pakistan in the aftermath of a terribly tense phase of 'Operation Parakaram' under the then BJP-led NDA regime, the concept of rendering boundaries is irrelevant, of which cross-LoC interaction is a component; this is part of the larger vision that seeks peace and prosperity between India and Pakistan.

The idea of making the LoC irrelevant without disturbing it politically fits with Manmohan Singh's vision, and that of his predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee, for evolving an economically and politically stable but vibrant South Asian union.  "If a web of inter-dependencies involving trade, investment and cooperative endeavors to deal with shared challenges such as energy security, management of water resources, tackling issues of environmental degradation and disaster preparedness could be built up between the two countries, if the obvious cultural affinities are given full rein, the cross-LoC links that we are talking about would be subsumed in this larger set of interactions," echoes Saran.

Indeed, both Kashmirs have a lot to learn from each other. A US-based study pointed out how PoK is backward in all respects compared with the Indian part of J&K. However, it has excelled in literacy, power and infrastructure. It has even surpassed the national literacy rate of Pakistan.  PoK has recorded a literacy rate of 61 per cent compared with just 45 per cent in Pakistan. J&K recorded a literacy rate of 54 per cent in the 2001 census as against the Indian national average of 65 per cent. Ijaz Nabi, a senior World Bank economist, says that the literacy rate in PoK is higher still at 78 per cent: primary school enrolment has been recorded with 80 per cent boys and 74 per cent girls. However, the region lacks enrolment in higher education with just 33 per cent boys and 19 per cent girls attending high school.

There is little or slow progress towards economic integration beyond the divided line. The historic trans-Kashmir trade route that was planned to be opened last July by allowing trucks between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad now appears to have gone into limbo with the government stonewalling all queries from traders in J&K.

India and Pakistan had agreed more than two years ago to allow duty-free trade between the two 'divided' parts of Jammu and Kashmir. But neither has the truck route been opened nor have traders been encouraged to finalise deals by going across to the other side. Since then, both the governments are not even restoring telephone links between the two sides. Even if trade starts tomorrow, a trader may have to travel all the way to Delhi  to enquire on telephone if his goods have reached their destination.

Even the euphoria generated by the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and the opening of five LoC points has begun to evaporate due to the cumbersome process of identification and paperwork. "It is easier to travel to Delhi and visit the Pakistan High Commission for a visa rather than wait to board the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus," said a Srinagar-based journalist. 

So will the Berlin Wall ever fall in the tortured and pristine landscape? Will the line of divide become a line of unity? So will there be a new end and a new beginning?

Your guess is as good as mine.

The writer is Delhi Bureau Chief of Kashmir Times, Srinagar