I have often spoken to friends and acquaintances who are convinced that India can buy peace with Pakistan by "just giving them Kashmir". These same people continue to be persuaded (quite sincerely I may add) that the entire middle east will become a shining beacon of peace in the world if Israel were to give the Palestinians "what they want". From somewhere in a long forgotten grave, Chamberlain must be smiling !
There are two fundamental reasons why the reasoning of these well meaning people is fallacious, naive and downright dangerous.
In the first place, "what they want" is itself highly nebulous. If we consider the Middle East for a moment, the objectives of Hamas and Fatah who at present administer two different parts of the so called Palestinian state are not exactly congruent. If we step beyond these two entities and then look at the various Arab states who are actively interfering in the Israeli-Palestinian problem, then again we fail to find any convergence of objectives. To take but one example, the objectives of Mr. Bashar Assad and his murderous regime in Syria are hardly similar to the goals of say, Jordan. The question then arises as to whose demands are to be met or if the solution then is to somehow meet a "Super set" of demands encompassing the objectives of virtually everybody who is disposed to raise a demand !
In the context of the West Asian problem, there is yet another issue. Because of the overwhelming presence of Arab despotic regimes, whose popular support is highly questionable, the question arises as to whether the demands or opinions being expressed by a particular country's government is equivalent to the popular position in that country. For instance, if one considers the case of Mr. Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, there is ample evidence that the vast majority of the citizenry have a very different opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian question than their unelected leader (yes I know Mr. Mubarak nominally holds elections but his democratic credentials are barely better than Mao or Brezhnev)
Nor is this a peculiarity of West Asia politics. If we consider what Pakistan's aims are with reference to India, again one has to ask the question "Which Pakistan ?". Is it the Government of the day, the army (the real arbiters of institutional power), the ISI (which virtually behaves like a parallel state) or the so called "non-state actors" ? Is the Kashmir issue really central to the entire India-Pakistan conundrum ? I would argue that it is not and has not been so for a long period of time. The real issue is that the idea of India, a secular democratic nation where people submerge their religious and regional identities to a larger national objective, shows up the utter bankruptcy of the Pakistan ideal itself. I would therefore argue that no peace in the true sense can ever occur with Pakistan at all for there are significant forces within that country who will never be able to live with the idea of an India showing the world 24 x 7 the contrast between their own failed country and India.
In the second place, conceding demands begins to feed further demands putting pressure on the state conceding demands to concede some more. No better example exists than that of Hitler but I think that anyone who has seen the behavior of a high-school bully knows that giving in seldom buys any relief from further unreasonable demands.
It is said that Chamberlain after negotiating his infamous "peace in our time" deal with Hitler returned to England in triumph and amidst great popularity. The leader of the opposition, one Winston Churchill, then quite unpopular in Britain for his militaristic stance had this to say about the Chamberlain mission: "The Prime Minister had to choose between war and dishonor. He has chosen both !"
All of us want peace. What kind of peace and with whom is the question ? And is any peace worth having if we have to sacrifice the basic values we hold dear ?
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