Kashmir Conflict: Tracing the History Suggesting the Solution

Kashmir, once known for its mesmerizing beauty, peace and tolerance in the world, has now been seen as a bloody conflict zone, since 1989. Over the years, numbers of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) were taken by India and Pakistan, but all the initiatives fail to bring long-term peace in the region. This paper examines two questions: why Kashmiris chose to go for armed struggle against India and why peace building initiatives lead by India and Pakistan failed to bring long term peace in the region? The study will further try to analyze the interests of the different stakeholders in order to find a peaceful, acceptable, and achievable solution to the conflict region. On the basis of Stakeholder Analysis the paper argues that India and Pakistan need to go beyond existing nonengagement and occasional bilateral policy of negotiation to trilateral negotiation by engaging Kashmiri political leadership to get the win-win, peaceful resolution of the conflict. The absence of Kashmiris in any negotiation process will not bring long lasting solution to the region.