India recently celebrated the first anniversary of victory over Pakistan-backed incursion into the Kargil sector of Kashmir. Some victory: The two had faced off in the most dangerous nuclear confrontation since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. They have gone to full-scale war three times already and their relations are based on a permanent state of paranoia. Both are sites of frequent terrorist attacks; each insists that the needle of suspicion points to the other.
The major source and symbol of their 52-year-old conflict is Kashmir. In 1989-90, Indian Kashmir saw the start of a major insurgency that has waxed and waned at the cost of some 20,000 lives so far. India argues that Pakistan has concluded that it is less costly, safer and more effective to wage a proxy guerrilla war than either to fight a real war or engage in a genuine diplomatic dialogue.
The biggest obstacle to peace in Kashmir is not an insurgency armed and financed by Islamabad, but a policy vacuum in Delhi. The forcible occupation of Kashmir has left several harmful legacies for India. Its democratic institutions have been corrupted by repeated rigging of votes in Kashmir and a refusal by Delhi to accept the province being ruled by other than a pliant government. Democratic principles have been eroded by an increasingly heavier presence of the coercive apparatus of the state, preventive detention without trial and allegations that the guardians of the rule of law have themselves become brutal violators of the law in their dealings with ordinary citizens.