In the Line of Fire: Musharraf memoirs sell 'personal' Kashmir plan

NEW YORK: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who prides himself on his out-of-the-box ideas for resolving the decades-old Kashmir dispute, is keenly selling a “bold new Kashmir plan” in his memoirs, In the Line of Fire.

“I have myself spent hours on many a day pondering over a possible out-of-the-box solution,” Musharraf says in a chapter titled ‘International Diplomacy', delving into a four-pronged plan. He says his “purely personal” solution would not get off the ground without a generous spirit of compromise: “The idea that I have evolved, which ought to satisfy Pakistan, India and the Kashmiris, involves a partial stepping back by all.”

According to Musharraf, the first element in settling the contentious issue is to pin down the geographic spread of Jammu and Kashmir, and the areas under dispute. Musharraf asks whether all five provinces — the Northern Areas and ‘Azad' Kashmir comprising the Pakistani part; and Jammu, Srinagar, and Ladakh comprising the Indian part — are “on the table for discussion or are there ethnic, political and strategic considerations dictating some give and take”.

The second thrust of Musharraf's broad plan presses for de-militarisation of the “identified regions” and curbing “all militant parts of the freedom struggle”. He says: “This would give comfort to the Kashmiris who are fed up of the fighting and killing on both sides.”

Part three of the solution rests on introducing “self-governance or self-rule in the identified regions”.

He says “this would enable Kashmiris to have the satisfaction of running their own affairs” while remaining just tantalizingly “short of independence”.

Lastly, Musharraf wants the establishment of a powerful joint mechanism, common to all the regions, with the “membership of Pakistanis, Indians and Kashmiris” to oversee the self-governance of subjects. But one can only imagine how this joint mechanism would function because the general does not spell it out.

Musharraf, perhaps cognizant that his suggestions will make the fur fly, is quick to point out that this Kashmir solution is not something that the Pakistan government is hawking, but an idea which “is purely personal and would need refinement”.

He expressed optimism on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last week that the peace process would move forward against a backdrop of vastly improved ties since his recent meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Havana. He also seemed surprisingly cheerful that an “acceptable solution” to the long-standing Kashmir dispute was “within reach”.