Personal perspectives: Thoughts on the India-Pakistan conflict

When my generation was growing up, we heard our Pakistani families heatedly discuss the India-Pakistan conflict, the dangers of war and the waves of internal political and social unrest — all of which combined to leave a deep impression on our young psyches.

After 50 years of independence, the same issues repeatedly return to haunt us Pakistanis because we never moved forward from square one. Starving children still beg for food on our streets and religious minorities continue to be persecuted. It is easy, for example, for the government to ignore members of the Ahmadi-Muslim community forced by political policy to abandon their homes and to seek political asylum abroad. How ironic for the same nation to feel so strongly for the safety of its Kashmiri brothers!

A significant part of the Pakistani political consciousness still revolves around our shaky relationship with the hostile neighbor across the border. This consciousness is reflected just as much in rational, scholarly debate over the fate of Kashmir as in the profound sense of grief that we experience over a cricket match lost to India. But it is our parents' generation that has lived through the real nightmare of passing sleepless nights in dark shelters during air raids in the 1965 war. It therefore comes as no surprise that fear and insecurity characterize the average Pakistani's perception of what our neighbor country represents. Sadly, it is this trans-generational legacy of mistrust that we have inherited from our elders.

At the heart of the tumult is the irresolvable matter of Kashmir. As a child, my simplistic understanding often made me wonder why those in charge, appearing to be concerned about the Kashmiris' welfare, could not devise a reasonable solution to end the conflict. Was it not the moral duty of Pakistani and Indian political leaders to reach a decision, regardless of who made the concessions? But gradually, I began to appreciate the myriad political complexities that render the Kashmir problem virtually impossible to solve.

Diplomacy does not work. Neither does military intervention. Both sides have standard, irrefutable arguments for what they believe to be just. What to do, then? I suspect sometimes that our very understanding of territorial disputes like the one over Kashmir is fundamentally flawed. As a result, all measures taken fail. Ideally, genuine compassion for those whose futures are at stake — the Kashmiris in this case — should be sufficient to ensure the resolution of the conflict. Unfortunately, most political maneuvers in the subcontinent today are not based on good intentions.

That is why the child in me sees humanitarianism as incompatible with politics. Religion may have created this and other conflicts worldwide, but territorial interest and ulterior motives rooted in political dominance have fueled them over the years.

What I can never forgive, though, is that India and Pakistan have categorically rejected all opportunities to foster cooperation based on a shared cultural heritage. Rabia Ali '04 is from Lahore, Pakistan. She can be reached at rali@princeton.edu.