Coming together

Thinking a lot lately about the reunification of the subcontinent. It's obviously not a new idea - the web is full of discussions on the subject (just google India Pakistan reunification for a taste). For the nay-sayers, the arguments range from your standard invective against the potential for peaceful coexistence of Hindus and Muslims to some more studied and perhaps even enlightened analyses of the logistical impossibility of a subcontinental rebirth.

The supporters employ more emotional arguments - look at Germany, they say. If the Germans can do it why can't we? The era of division has come to an end; we must unite! What a great cricket team we'd have! (This is perhaps my favourite line of reasoning - cricket, that uniter of foes!)

Viscerally, I would love to see India and Pakistan reunite. I've written somewhere before that I think the creation of Pakistan, like the creation of Israel, was one of the biggest blunders of the 20th century - 60 years later and we're still paying the price (frightening thing is, I wouldn't exist without Partition - my mother and father met because of it. Nonetheless, I would gladly give up my life in this world to prevent all of the death and destruction Partition has caused) . But the reality is that these two nations exist and rather than fantasize about their sudden disappearance, we should perhaps think more creatively about how to make them viable, stable, peaceful. As it stands, why in the world would India want to absorb all of Pakistan's problems? It has enough troubles to deal with. If reunification is going to happen, it will ironically have to happen at a point when Pakistan is working. Seems like a catch-22, doesn't it?

But it doesn't have to be.

One of the more interesting solutions I've heard to the Kashmir issue, something I've also been thinking about for years, lends itself to the future possibility of reunification of the Subcontinent. It involves reunifying Kashmir and making it a joint-administrative zone of both India and Pakistan. Hey, this solution says, why don't we just share? Sounds trite, I know, simplistic perhaps - a dream, maybe. But it's dreams that ultimately change the world.

Kashmir could be the fulfillment of a dream: the dream of Kashmiris to be the masters of their own destinies. A united Kashmir could have its own elected parliament, functioning alongside a Senate equally represented by senators from both Pakistan and India. If the system works, it could pave the way for a larger reunification, somewhere down the road. For the time being, it would eliminate the core issue between these estranged brothers, the one issue that's caused three wars.

Just a thought.