Chapter Sixteen

articles about your impending trip, which were published in Urdu, Hindi and English newspapers in India […] If you permit me, I would like to say that with regard to Kashmir, Pakistan should adopt a policy that is expressed in the English saying, ‘Politics is the art of the possible.’ I have, as a well-wisher, been pondering on the Kashmir problem ever since its inception. I started writing on this subject in 1968, for the Urdu, Hindi and English press. Based on an impartial analysis of the problem, my firm opinion is that with regard to Kashmir, Pakistan has only two possible options. The first is that in this matter Pakistan should adopt a de-linking policy. That is to say, it should set aside the Kashmir issue to be resolved through dialogue and establish normal relations with India in all other spheres. And the second is that it should accept the geographical status quo in Jammu and Kashmir as the accepted international border and thereby end this problem, once and for all. Besides these, no practical solution is possible. The only alternative is enormous devastation. There is another very important aspect of this issue. You know that in present times, militancy has emerged in different parts of the world in the name of jihad. And prominent among these places is Kashmir. This militancy has produced no benefit at all. On the contrary, it has caused devastating damage, in that it has caused Islam to earn the image of being a violent religion. This bad name that has been given to it has stopped the progress of Islam that had been carrying on continuously for the last 1000 years. If you enter into a peace treaty with India, it will not benefit just Pakistan alone. Rather, because of it, a new, healthy process will be set in motion in the entire Muslim world. After this, the present violent tendencies will give way to a dawah-oriented outlook. Present-day commentators see Pakistan as a possible ‘nuclear flashpoint’. But if you act with courage and enter into a