Lamayurugoaway

OK. This urban-rural divide is something I was completely unaware of. Could you furnish some links that can back it up? No offense meant.

See we have to realise that it was a supremely over confident Centre that rigged the state elections and forcibly tried to suck in Kashmir. They have been cheesed off ever since. In the initial stage of the conflict there was support for jihadis among the local populace, now that is ebbing. Now terrorism primarily survives through fear. Not accomodating a terrorist will kill you, not accomodating the forces will get you a wrap on the knuckles kind of thing. People must be tired of the cycle of violence.

If IA withdraws then we loose the plot obviously. I am just saying they should not be intrusive and so conspicuous. They have to be almost invisible. Pakistan already has launchpads as far south as Kerala, has linked up with Naxals, our dissenting folks in the NE. SO that way they are very smart. Again by militarising Kashmir you only end up alienating Kashmiris. The fact that they are a response to wide spread violence, does not occur to people who are man handled by state agents on a day to day basis and hence accumulate bad karma!

If you see the number of incursions is very very less from the LoC yet there are attacks in Srinagar. I doubt if a vast majority are still coming in cross the LoC what with all the sensors along the fence.

Don't mind my asking and you are free to reply/not reply why did you choose an anti name? What are you trying to probe here?

Insurgency works at a different level. You should not club the disaffection of Kashmiris with insurgency.
- Given a chance today Kashmiris will not object to India, if only to get on with their lives in peace, if nothing else. Most of them want Independence, or Pakistan or India in that decreasing order, but the most favoured two may not be forthcoming. ( I speak as an armchair academic and I have no more authority here, so I may be wrong)
- The insurgents have been coming to challenge the state. The state is everywhere in the form of the Central forces etc. Pull them back, you have automatically removed so many easy targets for jihadis (external) to attack, demilitarise Kashmir and you solve 95% of the Kashmiri (internal) problem - that has to do with constant frisking, manhandling and being in a state of war. Both NC and PDP are trying hard for this but there are vested interests and egos involved.
- India/Nepal have a open border, jihadis flush with oil funds can obviously make the round trip, they can come from the coast, they can be sleeper cells. What have we really achieved by isolating the 2 Kashmirs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon_Line

Earlier it was the Qing dynasty, Tibetans came later, also look at the role played by Chen Ifan. Specifically,
After Beijing repudiated Simla, the British and Tibetan delegates attached a note denying China any privileges under the agreement and signed it as a bilateral accord.
So there is a signed peice of paper to flash in front of the present day Chinese dispensation. Though the way Chen Ifan behaved is in line with the Chinese principle of waiting out a problem till time and fortune transfer the aces to their side.

Pakistan avoiding the problem of NWFP is obvious, it was & probably still is a young nation with too many other priorities.

I can understand your apprehensions wrt open borders. But Kashmiris clamor for Pakistan and Jihadis battle for Kashmiri brothers because they ::FEEL:: there is a better Islamic future/abject subjugation on respective sides. So why not allow people to move around? If you are open, then people will for themselves realise what makes sense for them. Look at US/Canada or EU or Nepal/India. In any case when you hear a Kashmiri shouting "Bharat teri maut aayi" or some such vitriol I guess it is best to show them the real face of what they are looking for and themselves decide where they wish to go. People are selfish and extremely wise in making such selfish/personal decisions. As of now they see that Indians have by and large been apathetic to their region, are you telling me they will choose Muslim brotherhood of an Islamic but culturally strife torn Pakistan over a stable secular India? Where they were living in relative peace till 1989.

The world in general is a messy place. But you gotta live with that :)

The whole idea of buffer zones allowed an adventurous British to arm twist (somewhat since the Chinese Govt of the day did not sign the agreement) a weak Chinese to the McMohan line and similarly they have created arbitrary lines where Pashtuns are families across pak and afghanistan so diligent were they in protecting their crown jewel (the colony of India) from other marauding imperialists.

Over simplification helps keep the big picture in mind. Isn't the Indian partition & 60 yrs of conflict also the result of randomly drawn borders by the Brits? at one level, though agreeably there is a lot more to it than just that.
You are right Pakistan will be unstable with this legacy, but their solution was even more ingenious! They let the ancient system be as is- in the sense that NWFP really is the wild wild west of Pakistan. There is no element of state control there, they still operate out of jirgas and shuras as they have always under tribal lords.

Going forward IMHO, the solution lies in porous borders, the proposed solution for J&K/*** has to be replicated across all these random borders. Though nationalism is strong in this part of the world, slowly people will gravitate to that idea of people before the flag.

http://news.rediff.com/column/2009/jul/28/guest-call-for-pashtun-nation-is-not-far-away.htm

I think its more messy than you make it out to be. If Pakistan's borders are not accepted by people on either side, how does it hope to achieve stability? The only permanent solution would be to either swallow up the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan or to give up the western areas to them.

This is another reason why Pakistan has a vested interest in keeping Afghanistan weak and ungovernable. A stable Afghanistan will invariably try to regain territories that are now part of Pakistan, and an Afghanistan friendly with India, even more so.

NWFP is a historic problem, from the British Raj. They unfairly cut up the Pushtoons between Afghanistan and NWFP. The Pathans never recognized that border. Similarly the Balochis have ethnic brothers over the border in Iran. While British are responsible (the buffer state for Russia theory) for the NWFP mess, Balochis have been looking for more compensation - since their grievance has to do with not being financially paid enough for what is taken from them
http://*****************/wa/balochistan-cruces-of-history-part-i/405/
so it is more or less a local problem, requiring a local solution.

You are right on that. PM MMS had laid no redrawing borders as a cornerstone for smoking the peace pipe with Pak. That was accepted and some bright ideas were suggested, to the extent that both sides were close to the final settlement until Mush took on CJ Iftikar. AAZ and BB have spoken of subcontinent EU so has Sharif. Though everything may not be rosy there is hope, vested interests and a lot of skeptics.

You probably know, that may not be the best way to work things out. The Arab muslim, like the Arab steed is the a notch above the rest esp. when subcontinent muslims are concerned. You can see how Saudis etc treat Pakistanis and Indian Muslims, once these folks get there. Whether they have anything to do with us or vice versa is something I wont comment on, but lasting peace comes here only when we create something like an EU, with free (as in speech, not as in beer) movement of people and ideas.

yup, that is the idea

how else would you have it?