Talking at Last

The British raj, which once controlled India's northwest frontier province of Kashmir, exacted a token annual tribute of two Kashmiri shawls and three handkerchiefs from the maharajah. Never since has the price of peace been as small. In the years after independence in 1947 split the Indian subcontinent into the sovereign states of India and Pakistan, the two nations have paid with strife and bloodshed to establish their conflicting claims over the disputed region. Last week, after 15 years of bitter wrangling, Indian and Pakistani delegates finally met in the Pakistan capital of Rawalpindi to seek a solution to the Kashmir problem.

The disputed land is the size of Minnesota, lakes and all. It falls from the wind-whipped mountains of Gilgit and Ladakh in the north to the idyllic Vale of Kashmir. In the Himalayas, primitive mountain tribesmen keep herds of graceful, sure-footed Kashmir goats, whose soft fleece becomes the cashmere of Fifth Avenue and Regent Street; the cool lakes near Kashmir's capital city of Srinagar are dotted with the elegant houseboats of wealthy Indians.

Vow Forgotten. At the time of partition, Kashmir, like all of India's 562 princely states, was given the choice of joining either Pakistan or India. The fact that 77% of Kashmir's 4,200,000 people were Moslem pointed to control by Moslem Pakistan. But though he had signed preliminary trade and administrative agreements with Pakistan, Kashmir's Hindu maharajah began to hedge. Angered by his failure to accede to Pakistan, hordes of Pakistani "volunteers" swept into Kashmir to establish Pakistan's claim to the land. In terror, the Hindu ruler opted to join India, appealed for immediate military aid. India was happy to respond, airlifted troops into Kashmir to fortify its own claim.

Thus began a full-scale war in Kashmir. India went to the United Nations for relief. In 1949 the U.N. demarcated a cease-fire line that gave India the richest two-thirds of Kashmir, including most of Ladakh, the Vale, and the predominantly Hindu area of Jammu. But India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had pledged that "the fate of Kashmir must ultimately be decided by its people." Declared Nehru: "We are prepared, when peace, law and order have been established, to have a referendum under some international auspices like the U.N."

Nehru soon forgot that vow, for it became obvious that Kashmir would vote either for independence or accession to Pakistan. Indian Kashmir's Moslem ruler, Sheik Mohammed Abdullah, an old friend of Nehru's and a fiery Kashmiri nationalist, confused things by starting to pro mote a local independence movement. India clapped Sheik Abdullah into jail in 1953 and introduced a series of repressive measures to halt other nationalist or pro-Pakistan movements. Except for three months in 1958, Sheik Abdullah has languished in prison ever since, was last week on trial on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Nudge from the North. The imprisonment of Sheik Abdullah symbolized all of Pakistan's deep distrust of Nehru. Despite his outward devotion to the U.N., no amount of U.N. pressure could bring Nehru to the bargaining table with Pakistan over Kashmir. But when Red China thrust deep into India's Himalayan borderland last October, Nehru reluctantly yielded to the insistent envoys of the U.S. and Britain who suggested that unless India and Pakistan settled their differences, there would be little hope of defending the subcontinent against Chinese aggression.

Hotheaded extremists in both countries opposed the idea of talks. KASHMIR is NOT FOR SALE, screamed an Indian headline; in Pakistan's National Assembly, politicians argued that Communism was far less an evil than "Hindu domination."

Where was the room for negotiation? Officially Pakistan maintained that an overall plebiscite is the only solution to the problem. But privately Pakistan has fallback positions, is willing to hold regional referendums that would give India both Jammu and Ladakh. The real issue, however, was Kashmir's Vale. Pakistan seemed agreeable to the internationalization of the important region. Nehru, however, feared that secession of any part of Kashmir would encourage separatist movements in other Indian states with strong nationalist tendencies.

Nevertheless, Indian officials showed up in Rawalpindi for the start of negotiations last week. They were prepared for almost any surprise but the one that actually arrived. On the eve of the conference, Pakistan suddenly announced an agreement "in principle" with Red China for a complete settlement of their mutual border differences. To the Indians it was a stunning blow, for it seemed that the Pakistanis were deliberately using the Chinese bogeyman to blackmail them into yielding better terms on the Kashmir question. After two days of no progress, the Rawalpindi talks were adjourned for three weeks.

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