Assassination serves to sustain Kashmir conflict

significant than the deplorable fact of his death.

Dr Guru was a Kashmiri nationalist and a supporter of the militant

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), perhaps the most reputable of

a number of groups seeking Kashmiri separation from India.

He was seized by gunmen last Wednesday when he drove to a meeting of

the Supreme Revolutionary Command Council of the JKLF in Srinagar. On

Thursday he was found dead, shot three times at point-blank range.

Worse was to come. His funeral procession last week contravened laws

of assembly regulations imposed by Indian security forces. In the

ensuing argument and struggle at least 12 people, including Dr Guru's

brother-in-law, were killed when security forces opened fire.

In the depressing litany of violence and repression which has

afflicted Kashmir in the past two years the death of Dr Guru might be

passed off as just another fatality, albeit one which has robbed India

and Kashmir of a surgeon of international repute.

In the context of the current political and security situation in

Kashmir, and also in India and in Pakistan, that argument just won't

wash. Dr Guru was killed for a purpose and the best bet at the beginning

of a murder investigation, which will almost certainly go nowhere, is

that he was killed by people hostile to a settlement in Kashmir.

All of this needs some explanation as the conflict over Kashmir has

been neatly sidelined internationally despite the fact that India and

Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over that small and

spectacularly beautiful territory.

Under the control of the British, Jammu and Kashmir was one of many

princely states, but the British departure in 1947 and the partition of

the subcontinent between India and Pakistan left the princely rulers

with the right to opt for either India or Pakistan.

The ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, tried to maintain his

independence by procrastination, but events, including a Muslim

revolution, led him to decide to join India.

Pakistan objected and minor conflict broke out in 1948 and was ended

by a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations in 1949. The ceasefire

line established then divided the administration of the territory and

was regarded as temporary. It is still there, by and large, and although

a plebiscite has been called for by the UN, the Indian Government has

refused to hold one.

More serious hostilities over Kashmir took place in 1965 and 1971 and

led to pious declarations that the entire question should be settled by

negotiation. Tension grew again at the end of 1989 and by 1990 a

full-scale guerrilla insurrection was under way in Kashmir, ably

complemented by repression and human rights' abuses on the part of the

Indian security forces and an enthusiastic stoking of the fires by the

Pakistani authorities.

On a conservative estimate some 9000 people have died since the

rebellion erupted in 1990 and there have been frequent allegations of

rape, torture, and murder by the Indian security forces in what is

predominantly-Hindu India's only Muslim majority state. Indian

authorities have admitted some abuses but insist that most are

propaganda.

Until recently the situation in Kashmir could best be described in the

words of Dr Iftikhar Malik of Oxford University. ''The world has to come

to grips with the realities in Kashmir where the prospects of

maintaining even a repressive peace are negligible.''*

Dr Malik adds: ''There is no doubt that India, not simply because of

its size and resourcefulness, holds the pivotal position in the

resolution of the conflict over Kashmir ... A bold initiative on

Kashmir, involving both give-and-take, would certainly help to

demilitarise the region, stabilise movements and processes for democracy

and development, and augur well for more than one billion people in the

region with the world's largest concentration of poverty.''

And so, pragmatically and sensibly, a ''bold initiative'' is just what

is needed. Everyone agrees on that, but where is it to come from?

The Indian Government in New Delhi, plagued by mounting economic and

social problems and fearing political ambush at any moment by the Hindu

extremists of the Bharatiya Janata Party is in a desperately weak

position.

The Pakistani Government, similarly weakened by a political feud which

led to the resignation of four Ministers last week, is not in a position

to offer much creative momentum.

And yet, to the credit of both India and Pakistan, both have managed,

despite their weakness and fragility, to at least try to ease the

situation.

The Indian Government has appointed a new governor to Jammu and

Kashmir and has announced significant economic aid. The new Indian

Junior Home Minister, Rajesh Pilot, is believed to be keen on a softer

policy line, with the appointment of better civil servants to the

corrupt and inefficient local administration, and more sensitive

military action.

Pilot is also believed to have held meetings with militants in

high-security detention centres last month. Pakistan, for its part,

pledged to halt the weekend march on the border by supporters of Benazir

Bhutto.

Sadly, even before Dr Guru's murder, which has outraged Kashmiris, it

was unlikely that India's tentative moves to ease the situation would

have worked. Informed sources in Kashmir say that any detained militants

or leading citizens approached by the Indian authorities would have been

devalued in the eyes of the Kashmiris by such contacts.

There are rumours that Dr Guru may have been one of those the Indian

Government wanted to talk to in an attempt to improve the situation.

This makes it unlikely that the Indian security forces killed him, as

almost everybody in Kashmir seems to believe.

And so the murder of Dr Guru is possibly the result of an attempt to

bring an end to the faint hopes of halting the conflict in Kashmir. A

bold initiative is needed yet, but who will deliver it?

* The Continuing Conflict in Kashmir by Dr Iftikhar H. Malik,

published by the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and

Terrorism.