“Tank Agay Chalay Ya Peechay Hatay
Kaukh Dharti Ki Banjh Hoti Hai”
(Whether tanks advance or retreat, it’s the land that turns barren)
Sahir Ludhianvi’s timeless words perfectly encapsulate India and Pakistan’s seven-decade conflict over Kashmir.
The recent Pahalgam tragedy, where unarmed innocent civilians were killed, epitomizes the structural violence festering beneath the veneer of negative peace. The traditional ‘social contract’—as Rousseau envisioned—demands the rule of law, not the rule of vendetta. Unfortunately, the response is the reverse.
To raze homes of Kashmiris, calling it dynamite justice—punishing kin for the sins of relatives—is to descend into ‘deep anarchy’. These acts are not justice but absurdity, rather a collective punishment violating every tenet of legal positivism and Kantian ethics. A house destroyed is not merely brick and mortar; it is the ‘polis’ itself collapsing.
State-enforced family separations create hardships for cross-LoC marriages, invoking psychosocial fissures through structural violence. This bifurcation of kinship echoes Luther’s paradox, where authority supplants marital bonds, weaponizing alienation. Collective anxiety fosters social malignancy from partitioned identities, exacerbating anomie and transforming love into geopolitical collateral.
Since 1947, Kashmir has oscillated between wars, sporadic armed rebellion, and ceasefires, with its people reduced to pawns in a zero-sum game of territorial absolutism. The nuclearisation of 1998, far from cementing mutually assured destruction as a deterrent, has instead institutionalised a security dilemma, where both nations invest resources into defence and security while poverty, illiteracy, and climate crises metastasize.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s lament—”Yeh daagh daagh ujala, yeh shab-gazida sahar…” (This stained light, this night-bitten dawn…)—mirrors the collective trauma of generations raised on conflict. Soldiers, romanticised as “heroes”, are, as Habib Jalib starkly reminded us, “Insaan ka khoon khoon hai yeh, paani nahin” (This is human blood, not water).
Each casualty fractures families, leaving orphans and widows whose grief is subsumed within geopolitical calculus. Tolstoy’s dissection of war’s banality of evil resonates here; conflict is not chess but chaos, a violation of human reason that thrives on moral disengagement—dehumanizing the “other” through confirmation bias and groupthink.
The realpolitik of retaliation—exemplified by the pyrrhic victories of 1947, 1965, and 1999—has yielded only frozen hostility. Even the 1971 bifurcation of Pakistan, which birthed Bangladesh, failed to thaw Indo-Pak relations. Today, Dhaka–Delhi ties strain under shifting geopolitical currents, underscoring the fragility of transactional alliances.
Kashmir’s agony, meanwhile, defies temporality, persisting through changing geopolitical eras. Militancy has morphed from tribal incursions to hybrid warfare, yet the core grievance—the people’s will—remains unaddressed. Track II diplomacy flickers intermittently, but without institutionalised peace architectures, hopes for positive peace (rooted in justice, not mere ceasefires) remain ephemeral.
The abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, which stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and downgraded it to a union territory, has led to widespread disenfranchisement and an assembly without legislative power, deepening political alienation.
While some celebrated the move as integration, many Kashmiris faced harsh realities—witnessed various types of communication blackouts, detentions, and economic decline—exacerbating their suffering. The state’s portrayal of Kashmir as a hub of “violence” contradicts the cultural pride of Kashmiris, who see themselves as resilient custodians of heritage, not villains.
Central governance frames dissent as anti-national, sidelining local voices and dismissing their struggle for dignity, turning their quest for identity into a battleground of conflicting narratives.
The recent abeyance of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT)—a rare triumph of hydro-diplomacy—signals a perilous shift towards resource militarisation. By leveraging control over the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum rivers, India risks turning a 1960s-era confidence-building measure into a provocation for war.
For Pakistan, where 90% of agriculture relies on Indus-fed irrigation, this politicisation of water—a UN-recognized human right—poses an existential threat. The stability–instability paradox theorised by Kenneth Waltz looms large. Nuclear deterrence may prevent total war, but it incentivises sub-conventional conflicts, as seen in Kargil 1999.
The dividends of peace are not abstract. India and Pakistan collectively spend $72 billion annually on defense—funds that could instead combat their true adversaries: poverty (22% of Indians, 39% of Pakistanis below poverty lines), illiteracy, and healthcare deficits.
A win-win framework could emulate the European Coal and Steel Community, which laid the groundwork for peaceful integration between France and Germany. Imagine a South Asian energy grid, cross-LoC trade corridors, or a climate resilience pact sharing Himalayan water data. The 2003 LoC ceasefire, though fragile, proved the dialogue’s potential; the IWT’s six-decade endurance—until recently—showcased functional cooperation.
The zero-sum game peddled by extremists—where one’s gain is another’s loss—is a fallacy. The ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ of geopolitics must yield to ‘non-zero-sum solutions’.
Sheikh-ul-Alam, Kashmir’s mystic sage, proclaimed, “Kartal Featrim Teh Gari Meas Dreat” (Alas, I broke my sword and created a sickle from it!) This ethos—transforming instruments of death into tools of prosperity—must guide reconciliation. As Kashmir’s most revered poet Mehjoor implored: “Nayae travev mai thayev panwaen, pouz mohabbat bagrayev panwaen” (Forget the conflict, keep compassion with one another, and spread true love with each other). Let tanks rust into ploughshares. Let soldiers’ children inherit textbooks, not trauma.
In the words of Gandhi, “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” Let that day begin in Kashmir. Enough is enough. Let the rule of law be our dharma, dialogue our doctrine.
Rumi said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. Let’s meet there.” Let us sow prosperity in this field. When Kashmir breathes peace, the world inhales hope. Kashmiris have consistently rejected violence, embraced love, and sacrificed for non-violence they deeply understand.
If one pricks Kashmiris, do they not bleed? Their blood is neither saffron nor green—it is red, a universal hue of humanity. Let Jammu and Kashmir rise—a phoenix from ashes—to reclaim its legacy as ‘heaven on earth’.
Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of a world “where the mind is without fear” remains distant, yet attainable. Poverty, illiteracy, and indignity are the true enemies. Amartya Sen reminds us, “Development is freedom.” Let us wage war on want, not on one another.
Sahir Ludhianvi’s plea—”Isliye aye shareef insanoon, jang talti rahay to behtar hai” (O noble humans, it is better to avoid war)—is not idealism but an imperative. Reject rancour; embrace complex interdependence. Initiate the acumen of true diplomacy, not destruction; dialogue, not dogma.
Essentially, in the trenches of food security, farmers from India and Pakistan wage a relentless battle, their tractors as tanks and seeds as bullets in a war against hunger. These agrarian warriors, battle-hardened by droughts and floods, know the frontlines better than any combat zone, their arsenals stocked with grit and monsoon hopes.
While generals might strategise over maps, the real war of attrition is fought in sun-scorched fields where every harvest is a hard-fought victory. A military clash would be a scorched-earth policy, leaving both nations with barren trophies and empty granaries. Let the only fire be the midday sun ripening crops, not artillery; the only ceasefire a shared monsoon blessing both sides of the border. After all, no one wins a war where the collateral damage is tomorrow’s dinner.
Ahmad Faraz, echoing the South Asian ethos of romance intertwined with resilience, poetically asserts: “Hum Palanhar Hain Phoolon Kay, Hum Khusboo Kay Rakwalay Hain” (We nurture flowers, guardians of fragrance). This reflects a timeless regional identity, accepting one and each on the basis of togetherness, outrightly rejecting otherness.
For South Asia’s dawn to be lit by the sickle of peace, its leaders must heed the silenced voices scripting a future where no one loses—and humanity wins.
(Rao Farman Ali is a Kashmiri based researcher and author of a book titled ” History of Armed Struggles in Kashmir-2017 and five other books.)
Courtesy: Kashmir Times