The last time I visited Kashmir, in November, I was struck by an apparent contradiction: it was more peaceful than it had been in years, at least in the capital Srinagar, and yet the overwhelming mood was one of gloom.  With the peace process between India and Pakistan going nowhere, there was a sense    that thousands of people had died for nothing in the violence that had convulsed the region since a separatist revolt erupted in 1989. Although the soldiers had disappeared from the streets of Srinagar, and tourists were flocking back, it retained the some of the same tinderbox atmosphere that I had known at the height of the violence. One spark, people told me, could ignite it again.

When that spark came, in the form of a land dispute between Hindus and Muslims that triggered some of the biggest protests since 1989 (you can see my last posting on this here), the surprise was perhaps not so much that it happened but that so few analysts in Delhi (or Islamabad for that matter) saw it coming.

The sheer size and unexpectedness of the protests have prompted some Indian analysts to ask a question that has been anathema  in Delhi for decades: Is it time to consider giving Kashmir independence, or at least to let Kashmiris vote on their future?

“If the experience of the last two decades has taught us anything, it is that the situation never really returns to normal. Even when we see the outward symptoms of peace, we miss the alienation and resentment within.  No matter what we do, things never get better, for very long,” writes Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times.

“I reckon we should hold a referendum in the Valley. Let the Kashmiris determine their own destiny. If they want to stay in India, they are welcome. But if they don’t, then we have no moral right to force them to remain. If they vote for integration with Pakistan, all this will mean is that Azad Kashmir will gain a little more territory. If they opt for independence, they will last for about 15 minutes without the billions that India has showered on them. But it will be their decision,” he writes.

“Whatever happens, how can India lose? If you believe in democracy, then giving Kashmiris the right to self-determination is the correct thing to do. And even if you don’t, surely we will be better off being rid of this constant, painful strain on our resources, our lives, and our honour as a nation? This is India’s century. We have the world to conquer -the other- and the means to do it. Kashmir is a 20th century problem. We cannot let it drag us down and bleed us as we assume our rightful place in the world. It’s time to think the unthinkable.”

The Times of India runs an editorial along similar lines. ”I was once hopeful of Kashmir’s integration, but after six decades of effort, Kashmiri alienation looks greater than ever. India seeks to integrate with Kashmir, not rule it colonially. Yet, the parallels between British rule in India and Indian rule in Kashmir have become too close for my comfort,” writes columnist Swaminathan Aiyar.

“We promised Kashmiris a plebiscite six decades ago. Let us hold one now, and give them three choices: independence, union with Pakistan, and union with India. Almost certainly the Valley will opt for independence. Jammu will opt to stay with India, and probably Ladakh too. Let Kashmiris decide the outcome, not the politicians and armies of India and Pakistan,” he concludes.

For two such reputable columnists to make a suggestion like this in national newspapers is extraordinary. India has long maintained that Kashmir is an integral part of the country. It has argued that giving up Kashmir would encourage secessionist movements elsewhere in the country and undermine its commitment to secularism by acknowledging that Kashmir, as a Muslim-majority region, could have special treatment. And it has traditionally blamed Pakistan for stirring up trouble in the region, convinced that if only Islamabad could be persuaded to end what it called “cross-border terrorism”, the benefits of Indian democracy and financial support would eventually win the people of Kashmir over.

Of course, a couple of op-eds calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir does not mean it is going to happen. The issue is phenomenally complicated, not least because the much-vaunted U.N. resolutions passed in 1948 calling for a referendum were meant to apply to the whole of the former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, now divided between India, Pakistan and China. The people were to be given the choice between acceding to India or Pakistan, but not of independence; while the resolution also required that Pakistan withdraw its troops first from its side of the region, followed by the bulk of the Indian forces, before a plebiscite were held.

And any vote, even within the Indian part of the former kingdom, could stir up bitter divisions between and within the three regions that make up the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir – Hindu-dominated Jammu, Muslim-dominated Kashmir and Buddhist- dominated Ladakh — that would dwarf the recent protests. Pakistan would also be faced with tough choices over how to handle the people on its side of the former kingdom, including Azad Kashmir and the strategic Northern Areas.

However, they do suggest a new thinking in India, which, determined to win its place as a global player on the political and economic stage, no longer wants to be dragged down by the Kashmir conflict. The question is whether this new thinking — coming at a time when Pakistan is struggling to reinvent itself as a civilian democracy —  could contribute to a genuine effort towards a durable peace. Or will it simply make an intractable problem even more complicated?

After months of relative peace which turned Kashmir into a near-forgotten conflict, the region has exploded  again with some of the biggest protests since a separatist revolt erupted in 1989.  What started as a dispute over land allocated to Hindu pilgrims visiting a shrine in Kashmir has snowballed into a full-scale anti-India protest, uniting Kashmiri separatists and reviving calls for independence.

The dispute has also pitted Muslims in Kashmir against Hindus in Jammu – the two regions which along with Ladakh make up the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir – in what is the biggest communal crisis faced by the central government in Delhi since it took office in 2004.

At stake is the risk of the “Balkanisation” of Jammu and Kashmir comparable to the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In this, worst case, scenario, the state would break up into its three different regions with Jammu and Ladakh favouring India and Kashmir either battling for independence or tilting towards Pakistan.  (The state is the part of the former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir which remained in Indian hands at partition in 1947 with the other side controlled by Pakistan.)

Little wonder then that analysts in India are describing it as a major crisis, with an editorial in the Hindustan Times calling it the greatest test for the central government since it took office.

And although some Indian analysts have accused Pakistan of stoking tensions in Kashmir, the protests look to be, at least in large measure, spontaneous.

So is this a re-run of 1989? At the time separatist sentiments – which had been simmering before 1947 when the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu maharajah from Jammu – erupted into full-scale protests which were primarily Kashmiri nationalist rather than religious.  According to the Kashmiri version of history, India then tried to crush the revolt with a clumsy heavy-handedness that only inflamed Kashmiri anger further.

The revolt turned increasingly lethal and vicious — in part due to Pakistan’s involvement in supporting the separatists and to the Islamist influence of the mujahideen who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After Pakistan and India tested nuclear bombs in 1998, Kashmir was dubbed the most dangerous place on earth, bringing the two countries to the brink of war in 2001/2002.

So if today’s protests turn out to be a re-run of 1989, the outlook is grim — both for the people of Jammu and Kashmir and for the peace process between India and Pakistan. Is there still time to find a solution before Kashmir spins off into another 20 years of violence? Or have the troubles already passed the point of no return?

Take two nuclear-armed countries which are not officially at war, yet whose armies shell each other on a near-daily basis.  That is how it was between India and Pakistan before a November 2003 ceasefire ended their fighting over the divided former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir.  With that ceasefire now showing signs of fraying at the edges and India saying that its peace process with Pakistan is under stress, it is worth remembering quite what a dramatic development it was for two countries which had come close to war in 2001/2002 to tell their armies to stand down.

Nearly five months after the ceasefire, I visited an Indian border post that had seen heavy fighting for years. It was in the Jammu region, at what had been a busy railway station in pre-partition days, on a road that once ran from the town of Jammu to Lahore. The railway station was left in India, with a railroad track that led nowhere, while the road had been closed since 1947.

The station building was pock-marked with bullets, but the guns had disappeared and the grass was beginning to grow again in the surrounding fields. The Indian troops had stripped down to their vests and trousers and were out playing soccer. On the megaphone,  they played music from Hindi films. They knew the Pakistanis at the other side liked the music. But they remembered to turn it down when it was time for the call to prayers. They had a respect for the other side here, born out of the strange courtesies that grow between two land armies when they fight each other for long enough.

Beyond the Indian checkpoint, a long avenue lined with poplar trees led up to the “zero line” between India and Pakistan. Virtually every tree was marked with bullets that had scraped across them or in some cases passed right through them. In the middle of the avenue, a giant peepul tree straddled the two countries, half of its roots in India, half in Pakistan. We walked up to the tree and waved at the Pakistani soldiers at the far end of the avenue. 

This was the closest India and Pakistan had come to peace in half a century.

Is this peace now unravelling as each country faces its own domestic crisis? The current situation does not create a stable foundation for  talks — Pakistan’s shaky coalition is struggling with an economic crisis, political instability and the threat of U.S. action against al Qaeda and Taliban militants on its border with Afghanistan, while the Indian government faces a showdown over its nuclear deal with the United States.

A return to the pre-ceasefire days looks unlikely, at least for now.  But with violence also on the rise in the Kashmir Valley — at least nine soldiers were killed by an IED at the weekend –you have to ask whether the two countries might have missed their chance to secure a durable peace in the more than four years since the ceasefire was declared.