Update: Kashmir Reconciliation Package

After putting up the Kashmir post, I asked Suba Chandran of Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (and my former boss) to give me some feedback on the reconciliation package. Always one step ahead, he has already written a detailed paper on the issue, which covers far beyond what I had talked about.

The main point to take home from his paper is the idea that the current policy that New Delhi has on Kashmir is to have no policy. "[T]he calculation today in New Delhi is, perhaps, that this round of violence will also subside. So sit tight. Do Nothing. Violence will go down automatically." Although the vagueness of the reconciliation package may be due to the fact that it is a skeleton structure for future development, it may very well be motivated by the policy of no policy.

Chandran argues that such attitude towards Kashmir will be harmful in the long run. Instead he gives a brief plan of creating consensus in India and Kashmir reach an effective solution to this problem.