A curious miasma of public indifference and official lethargy continues to prevent resolution of the half century old Indo-Pak dispute over the status of Kashmir. Although telling it like it is will certainly raise the hackles of this country’s ubiquitous tribe of supra nationalists and fellow travellers, there’s a growing mountain of evidence which indicates that greater efforts are being made in Islamabad than in Delhi to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio which has bedeviled Indo-Pak relations ab initio after the two nations suffered bloody partition in 1947 and provoked an open, continuous and uninterrupted arms race in the sub-continent which neither nation can remotely afford.

Undoubtedly the latest four point proposal made on December 5 by President Mussharaf to discuss the grant of substantial internal governance autonomy to a united Kashmir with defence and foreign affairs jointly supervised by Pakistan and India represents a new initiative which should be welcomed. It is considerably removed from Pakistan’s traditional insistence upon a plebiscite in Pakistan-held Azad Kashmir and the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to determine whether the people of the disputed territory wish to accede to India or Pakistan.

This new proposal is not an obiter dicta but a deliberate break from the negotiation position of the past half century as indicated by the insistent statement made on December 11 by Pakistan foreign affairs spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam. According to Aslam, independence of Kashmir according to the wishes of the people of the territory is the primary objective of Pakistan and that it has never been Pakistan’s claim that this erstwhile Hindu princely state with a Muslim majority should merge with it.

While there is no gainsaying that there is considerable sophistry in this claim, there can be no doubt that read together with President Musharraf’s new proposal, the two statements represent a determined and commendable effort to break the Kashmir logjam which is the condition precedent of peace in the Indian subcontinent. On the other hand the exaggerated caution and tepidity with which South Block which houses the Union ministry of external affairs, has reacted to this new proposal, is deplorable and indicative of the obstinate and obdurate mindset of the Indian Foreign Service establishment which has prevented post-independence India from reaping the peace dividend for over half a century.

The UPA government at the Centre led by reformist Dr. Manmohan Singh, if not the IFS establishment, urgently needs to heed the Kennedyesque injunction to never negotiate out of fear but never fear to negotiate. Therefore New Delhi should lose no further time to respond to the new initiative from Islamabad by getting back to the negotiating table.

Alacrity of response and bona fide efforts to resolve the burdensome Kashmir imbroglio are urgently needed on both sides of the border so that one wasted generation later, the new generation in both neighbouring countries languishing at the bottom of global human development indices tables can look forward to reaping the elusive peace dividend promised to the people way back in 1947.

Urgent need for criminal law reform

The positive outcomes of the much publicised Priyadarshini Matoo and Jessica Lall murder cases in New Delhi and the conviction of apex-level politicians — Union coal minister Shibu Soren and former text cricketer and member of Parliament Navjot Singh Sidhu — for murder have provoked considerable euphoria within middle class India. Moreover in the recently concluded year the Supreme Court pronounced two verdicts of great significance which could break the back of serpentine bureaucratic corruption which has enmeshed the public in its coils for the past half century. In these historic judgements the apex court upheld the public’s right to access bureaucrats’ notings and remarks on official files under the Right to Information Act, 2005 and removed the protection of s. 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code which required written government permission for citizens to prosecute government servants for all acts of omission, commission and malfeasance.

Although these happy judicial outcomes seem to suggest that post-independence India’s moribund justice system is on the mend, it’s important to bear in mind that the perpetrators of the heinous Matoo and Lall murders had been acquitted in trial courts of the first instance because of deliberate official manipulation of evidence, perjury and blatant suborning of witnesses. It was only after a great hue and cry was raised by the media that the Delhi high court was goaded into exercising its supervisory appellate powers and re-hear the two cases. It is pertinent also to bear in mind that the violent murders for which Soren and Sidhu have been convicted were committed more than a decade ago.

The plain unvarnished truth is that contemporary India’s justice delivery system is a disgrace to any self-respecting democracy. Its crumbling infrastructure, archaic criminal and civil procedures, agonizing delay, abysmal judge-public ratio and indifference to reform and upgradation are a standing indictment of the bar and bench of the legal profession. Currently 24 million cases are pending in subordinate courts across the country and 3.4 million in the higher courts. This is mainly because of the archaic civil and criminal procedure codes drafted more than a century ago which slow down the judicial process. Moreover the adversarial British style justice system has outlived its purpose, as so well demonstrated in the Priyadarshini Matoo case. It’s imperative that the judge plays a more active role in investigating the truth and ensuring justice is done. 

It is apposite to note that most of these suggestions are incorporated in Justice V.S. Malimath’s detailed report of recommendations for reform of the criminal justice system. Inevitably this valuable report submitted to the Union government in 2003 has been gathering dust for the past three years. Meanwhile justice continues to be delayed — and in effect denied — to millions of citizens caught within the asphyxiating coils of a legal system which is a heavy drag on the renewed national development effort.