The Andorra Model as Final Solution
Both India and Pakistan seem to be upset over the prospect of 'autonomy' in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, but what they do not like may be what is good and necessary.
Article 370 of the Indian Constitution bestowed on the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir a 'special status' because of the terms of accession of the territory to India in 1947. 'Special status' meant more autonomy to the territory than was given to other states in the Union. In Pakistan, Azad Kashmir was also given 'special status'. Its constitution has a prime minister in parallel to the Pakistani prime minister and there is an article in it pointing to a condition of 'abeyance' till the territory in Indian control joins Azad Kashmir.
But neither India nor Pakistan, fighting over the territory, could afford to allow the Indian-held state of Jammu and Kashmir and Azad Kashmir the freedom to evolve their own solutions. From 1953 to 1986, India issued 42 constitutional amendment orders that virtually negated the 'special status' under Article 370. In the Azad Kashmir Constitution, an article vests all power in the prime minister of Pakistan. Another article disallows political parties propagating the 'third option', that is, the option of an independent state of Jammu and Kashmir, from taking part in Azad Kashmir elections.
The government of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah in the state of Jammu and Kashmir wants the 'special status' of the territory restored. A report of the State Autonomy Committee (SAC) presented to the state legislature in February 1999, asked the Union government to go back to the 1952 agreement between Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru, which pledged all powers to the state legislature, barring external affairs, defence and communications. The post-Kargil environment in India under the Bharatiya Janata Party government hardly allows the Union to give a fair hearing to the SAC recommendations. The truth of the matter is that the question of 'autonomy' in the Indian-held territory has begun to point to a 'final solution' to the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.
Both India and Pakistan seem to be upset over the prospect of 'autonomy' in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Praveen Swami writing in Frontline (1 April 2000) warns of a US-masterminded conspiracy behind Farooq Abdullah's latest initiative. He suspects the SAC report of being inspired from abroad and cites a meeting between the chief minister and Farooq Kathwari, "a US-based Kashmiri secessionist", who heads the Kashmir Study Group in New York. He suspects the BJP government, with whose approval the meeting took place in March 2000, of being 'complicit' in the secret plan to divide the state on religious lines. He looks with suspicion at the BJP policy of releasing the members of the "secessionist" All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) as that might serve to create Kashmiri consensus for a "final solution".
In Pakistan, the release of the APHC leaders has aroused suspicion despite a pledge by some of them that "no discussion can be held with India under the Indian Constitution". Writing in the Lahore daily The News (17 May 2000), Pakistan's former army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg stated: "Through a political manoeuvre, India has released the APHC leaders and showed a gesture of holding negotiations with them. In this context, the statement of the APHC leader Syed Ali Gilani is very meaningful: 'The geopolitical realities and political logic demand a solution of the Kashmir problem, whether it be right of self-determination, the autonomy of Kashmir, division on the religious basis, or a return to the pre-1947 situation'. This is in sharp contrast to the statements in the past, which reflects India's machinations."
It will not be long before Pakistani writers too latch on to a 'US conspiracy' behind the Kathwari meeting. {On the contrary, at least one member of the Musharraf government expressed interest in the Kathwari 'solution' to this writer recently – KA). Indeed, Pakistan is rapidly parting ways with the US on the issue of Kashmir. Not long ago, Pakistan advocated 'third party mediation' (read the US) in India-Pakistan talks on Kashmir, perhaps not completely realising that the Americans now favour a solution along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir. The American think-tanks also favour Kashmiris as the third party in the dispute and have taken note of the view that the Indian-held territory will have to be given more 'autonomy' than India approves, and that this 'autonomy' will have to be guaranteed by both India and Pakistan, Many Indian voices have supported this solution', the latest being that of Karan Singh, the son of the acceding maharaja Hari Singh, who suggested in his article, "A breakthrough is possible" in The Hindustan Times (27 April 2000), that an "internal dialogue" with the Kashmiri leaders was necessary and that "we will at some point of time necessarily have to talk to Pakistan".
Alastair Lamb in his book Unfinished Partition (1997) takes note of what he calls a solution of the Kashmir dispute on the "Andorra model". He traces this model in the statements of early Indian leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan and Rajagopalachari, and the views expressed by later influential opinion-writers like Khushwant Singh and Kuldip Nayar. Andorra is a small principality lying on the border of Spain and France. A 'coprincipality' since AD 803, Andorra was given an 'independent' constitution in 1993, which greatly reduced the power of France and Spain over it.
Applied to Kashmir, the Andorra model would have India and Pakistan agreeing to declare the LoC as the international border, then jointly guarantee 'independence' of the Valley. In this arrangement, India annexes Ladakh and Jammu, and Pakistan annexes Azad Kashmir. The 'Kathwari meeting' is supposed to have approved the State Autonomy Committee Report (1999) that some tehsils of Ladakh and jammu with Muslim majorities be included in the new 'autonomous' Valley. A number of respected Indian writers had earlier recommended a 'soft border' between the two sections of Kashmir after making the LoC a permanent border without, of course, supporting Alastair Lamb's Andorra approach.
India and Pakistan are weighed down by the negative jurisprudence of the Kashmir dispute and are unable to grasp the real import of the situation in Kashmir after a decade of India's military assault and Pakistan's suicidal jehad. The 'final' solution, when it comes, will not be to their liking. The 'autonomy short of independence' promised to Farooq Abdullah by prime ministers Narasimha Rao and Deve Gowda before the 1996 elections may have led to an unexpected conclusion, but this is the conclusion that India and Pakistan will finally have to accept after the post-Kargil triumphalism in India and the 'compensatory' passion for jehad in Pakistan have decayed into another absurd, 'nuclear-leveraged', deadlock. In the interim, the momentum of the developments inside Kashmir will look like a US conspiracy to both.