India-Pakistan Peace Process: Problems and Prospects

The emergence of India & Pakistan with sovereign status 57 years back opened a Pandora’s Box of issues rooted in colonial legacy as well as historical acrimony. The region is often referred to as a high risk conflict zoon owing to history of tense relations, border clashes, and limited or large scale wars between these two neighbors. As the two south Asian nuclear rivals, India and Pakistan, step into an ‘era of peace’ things have started to change. They sent a clear message to the world that they have serious intentions to resolve their conflicts. They realized the risks of derailing the peace process through the politics of confrontation and understand the benefits if they move in the direction of peace-building.  In the sixty years of their existence as independent states, India and Pakistan took 50 years-half a century-to develop a process in 1997. In May 1997, in Male, capital of the Maldives, on the sideline of SAARC summit, Indian Prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif mooted the idea of a structured dialogue or the CDP (Comprehensive Dialogue Process). Both the leaders agreed to start a dialogue on eight baskets of issues. The eight baskets were J and K, Siachen, Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project, Sirceek, Terrorism and Drug Trafficking, Economic and commercial co-operation, Peace and Security and Promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields. What exactly is a peace process? A peace process is a mechanism or a set of negotiations where the parties involved attempt to avoid war or a war like- situation and wish to settle conflicts peacefully by using techniques such as diplomacy, tradeoffs and mediation. Peace is considered as an end in itself and such techniques are used to achieve that end. A peace process cannot be launched, unless some basic requirements are met. Although, these requirements might differ from case to case yet they can be used without major modifications. The peace process between India and Pakistan was affected by the acts of terrorism indirectly supported by Pakistan like kargil war, parliament attacks, Mumbai train blasts and the inefficient policies of Pervaiz Musharraf. On 26 November, 2008, the biggest blow to the peace process between India and Pakistan came in the shape of a series of terror attacks in Mumbai that targeted two luxury hotels and other landmarks across the city and led to the deaths of 172 people while Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was on a visit to India to discuss important issues related to the ongoing dialogue process including Kashmir, the Chenab River water dispute and trade ties.