Lolita Ramdas stresses a point about the importance of women's involvement in any peace process

• Kashmir has common borders with Indian, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China and is considered to have unparalleled strategic value for both India and Pakistan
• Kashmir is widely thought to be the cause and consequence of the prolonged India-Pakistan conflict, and the key reason for both countries having taken the decision to "go nuclear"
• There are over 13 million Kashmiris who have been stateless for half a century (10 million people living on the Indian side of the line of control and 3.4 million people living under Pakistani administration).
• The ratio of military to civilians in Kashmir is 1:7
• Over 60,000 people have been killed in Kashmir since militancy started in 1989

1. "That both states would have to come to terms with a withdrawal from the arms race (and of course there are vested domestic interests in obtaining arms from abroad). For example, the Kashmir issue makes gives the military a degree of political power that enables it to overrule all other segments of society and rule the country. As for the people, in parts of the country, there would have to be re-education. An independent Kashmir would be an emotionally difficult proposition for people to accept. But if it happened, I think other people would befriend the Kashmiri people."
   
   
2. Two basic fears that the Indian government may have:

First, the domestic fear in terms of real politik. All political parties have passed a resolution in government in the 1970s that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and under no circumstances will they part with an inch of the territory. So if any one of the parties seems to be getting 'soft' then they may sense they are committing political suicide.

Second, strategic and international geo-political situation in the region. Two portions of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir are already taken by China and the growing presence of US forces in the region does pose in the long-term perspective a strategic violent interest because Jammu and Kashmir won't have the strategic ability to defend itself from outside forces. From the people's point of view, in various parts of India the further they are from Jammu and Kashmir the less in touch they are with the issue. Some feel we are wasting too much money on Jammu and Kashmir to keep this artificial position. In economic terms, the government spends more per capita on Jammu and Kashmir than on the rest of India."

Film Screening
Kathy Sokol screened the mini-documentary that she produced, "Fires in Kashmir: The Long War for Kashmiri Independence" to give people more of a visual idea of the kinds of conditions the people of Kashmir have been living under, such as heavy military presence and refugee camps. The irony being that Kashmir is a mountainous land of exquisite beauty ? whose landscape has been transformed from a once-famous tourist destination to a heavily-occupied region.