Finding a way forward in the India-Pakistan conflict | Letters

Your editorial (The Guardian presumption connected India and Pakistan: a recently unsafe infinitesimal successful an aged dispute, 7 May) underscores the alarming escalation betwixt India and Pakistan, but the suspension of the Indus waters pact and the rocket strikes are much than conscionable a instrumentality to acquainted hostility. They bespeak a deeper signifier that I telephone the urgency-actionability trap: the impulse to respond to provocation, adjacent erstwhile those responses, whether symbolic oregon military, connection small durable payment and hazard spiralling escalation.

India’s suspension of the Indus pact is technically constricted – it cannot “turn disconnected the tap” overnight – but it sets a unsafe precedent successful normalising h2o arsenic a weapon. Pakistan’s retaliatory posture, similarly, satisfies home authorities portion weakening determination h2o security. Neither enactment advances stability; some reenforce distrust.

There is simply a constrictive but actionable way forward. Engineering diplomacy, rooted successful technological realism, suggests small, verifiable steps – reinstate real-time information sharing; deploy neutral monitoring; and rebuild the habits of practice that agelong kept this basin retired of the fire. Principled pragmatism – the quality to enactment successful ways that are some realistic and values-based – is urgently needed.

When symbolism overtakes strategy, rivers go battlegrounds. But they don’t have to be. The clip to reconstruct channels of communications, nevertheless modest, is now.
Prof Shafiqul Islam
Director, h2o diplomacy programme, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, US

Mirza Waheed’s poignant nonfiction underscores a captious oversight successful the sermon surrounding the Kashmir conflict: the persistent marginalisation of Kashmiris (A massacre has reignited the everlastingly warfare betwixt India and Pakistan – erstwhile more, Kashmiri voices are missing, 29 April). As a nonmigratory of Shopian, I person witnessed first-hand the cyclical quality of unit that has plagued our region. The caller escalation pursuing the tragic onslaught successful Pahalgam has erstwhile again thrust Kashmir into the spotlight, yet the narratives predominantly absorption connected the geopolitical tensions betwixt India and Pakistan, sidelining the lived experiences of Kashmiris.

India’s revocation of Article 370 successful 2019, arsenic highlighted by Waheed, marked a important displacement successful India’s attack to Kashmir, starring to accrued militarisation and a consciousness of disfranchisement among locals. This move, done without consultation with Kashmiris, has deepened the chasm betwixt the portion and the cardinal government.

For immoderate lasting resolution, it is imperative that the voices of Kashmiris are not lone heard but are cardinal to the dialogue. The planetary community, media and policymakers indispensable prioritise inclusive conversations that code the aspirations and grievances of the Kashmiri people.
Wajid Mushtaq Teli
Shopian, Jammu and Kashmir, India