India insists that Pakistan is to blame for the violence in Kashmir. And to a large extent, India is right. Pakistan has provided arms, money and training facilities to militant Kashmiri groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad. If Islamabad cut off support, such groups would be forced to disband–or to establish vulnerable bases inside Indian-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan could also bar Arabs, Chechens and its own nationals from reaching the battle zone. Yet the intense focus on Pakistan has obscured India’s own role in the crisis: Indian policies have spawned a homegrown rebel movement made up of men like Khan, burning with hatred and determined to achieve independence for Kashmir. “India regards the Kashmir struggle as a proxy war,” says a Western diplomat. “They’re convinced it will go away if Pakistan ends its support, so they see no reason to negotiate.”
That’s part of the knot that Colin Powell must try to undo as he visits India and Pakistan this week. Tensions between the two countries are dangerously high–one Pakistani diplomat last week compared the standoff to the Cuban missile crisis. India has massed divisions along the border and conducted war exercises, raising fears in Washington that a single misstep by either side could spark a nuclear conflagration. In a televised address on Saturday, Gen. Pervez Musharraf tried to dampen tensions by calling for dialogue with India over Kashmir and promising to root out “terrorists.” But he also warned India that any attempts to pursue militants across the border would be met by Pakistani forces “ready to face any challenge to the last drop of blood.”
Foreign fighters have made up half the casualties in the Kashmiri struggle over the past two years. But over the longer term, the fighters have been overwhelmingly local: just 2,300 of the 14,500 militants killed since 1990 were foreigners, according to police. Hizbul Mujahedin, a pro-Pakistani outfit founded in 1990, consists entirely of local Kashmiris. Though its ranks were decimated in Indian strikes in the mid-1990s, the group still boasts 2,000 guerrillas.
Abuses by the Indian Army and police have stoked Kashmiri anger. According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in Srinagar, roughly 7,000 Kashimiris have been killed in custody and 3,000 have disappeared. Even the most flagrant crimes usually go unpunished, human-rights workers say. Last October NEWSWEEK visited the village of Jagarpura, where Indian soldiers had allegedly shot dead a father and son. The local police chief called the incident “cold-blooded murder.” But three months later nobody has been punished and, according to an intelligence official in Srinagar, “no investigation took place.” (Acting Police Inspector General Ashok Bhan acknowledges that “mistakes are committed” but he insists that “there is no impunity.”)
“We are caught between the two stones of a mill, and we are being crushed,” says teacher Habib Lawani. “The people are fed up with this disturbance, but they want to be free from India.” That may be an impossible dream. In state elections later this year, all candidates will be required to sign a statement recognizing India’s right to rule Kashmir in perpetuity. Still, diplomats say that if Musharraf takes firm action against the insurgents, India will have to make concessions–such as freeing more than 2,500 political prisoners. “If Pakistan can muster the political will to stop [the infiltrations], and India doesn’t clean up its human-rights record,” warns a Western diplomat in New Delhi, “the tap [of militancy] will reopen.” India will have only itself to blame then.
