Srinagar says yes to freedom, no to Pak

'K'AUSE AND EFFECT: Panelists on State of the Nation discuss if the Kashmir issue can be resolved peacefully.

        

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As India and Pakistan approach the 60th year of Independence, the one issue that has divided the two countries is Kashmir. The resolution of the Kashmir issue hinges on a factor that is usually discussed in euphemisms, such as ‘ground reality’, ‘mass psychology’ and ‘emotional state’.

What does ‘the valley’ really want? Are the opinions of the people in Kashmir shared by their counterparts in Jammu and Ladakh? Will any resolution enjoy acceptance in the rest of the country? Will the hardliners in the rest of India and Pakistan veto any attempt to solve the Kashmir problem?

The first-ever Indo-Pak poll sponsored by Indian Express, Dawn News and CNN-IBN and designed by CSDS, Delhi offers us significant clues about this question and shows that public opinion offers greater room for peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute than is usually believed. The poll was carried out in the last week of July and the first week of August in the top ten cities of Pakistan (by A C Nielsen) and the top twenty cities in India (by CSDS).

Besides 1010 interviews in urban Pakistan and 2030 interviews in urban India, the CSDS conducted a special straw poll by interviewing 226 persons in Srinagar and 255 persons in Jammu city. (Methodological details about the survey will be carried in the final instalment of the reports on the Indo-Pak poll)

Let us begin by acknowledging something everyone knows but does not wish to talk about. The people in Kashmir valley want ‘Azadi’ in the sense of becoming an independent country.

As many as 87 per cent of the respondents in Kashmir chose this option over other options like maintaining status quo or merging both parts of Kashmir either with India or with Pakistan.