The Indian government has announced a halt in operations against militants in Kashmir

for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. On its face that should be welcomed, given the
steady rise in violence this year, though skeptics have said it will give Islamist separatist
militants time to gather strength. In any case, it requires a strong leap of faith to expect
that the break, if it holds, can achieve anything resembling a peace process.

The struggle over Kashmir is one of those territorial disputes that seem only to deepen
and to assume greater symbolic importance as decades go by and the atrocities and
resentments on both sides pile up. The conflict dates back to the end of British rule in
1947 and has been the cause of the three wars between India and Pakistan. Since 1989,
an Islamist insurgency supported by Pakistan has further complicated the conflict and
raised the death toll.

Border skirmishes along the heavily armed Line of Control dividing Indian- and
Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir are common. With India and Pakistan both in
possession of nuclear arms, former President Bill Clinton once called the border “the
most dangerous place in the world.” On Friday, despite Ramadan, a fierce exchange of
fire between border posts left eight civilians dead.

The Ramadan cease-fire was sought by the chief minister of the Indian-administered
part of Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, who has found herself increasingly isolated since her
political alliance with India’s dominant party, the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party,
has failed to lower violence. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is due in Kashmir
over the weekend to inaugurate development projects.
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Another explanation for the cease-fire was evident in a new police report
on militancy in south Kashmir. It said that an Indian offensive initiated
against jihadists this year has doubled the number of local recruits to the
Islamists. It was an age-old story: Heavy-handed tactics may hold
territory, but they lose the population.

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Yet as former President Barack Obama remarked in 2009, when he

considered appointing Mr. Clinton to try his hand as mediator, Kashmir
is also “a tar pit diplomatically.” The dispute has long ceased being
purely territorial, which might be amenable to a practical solution, and
has deepened into a zero-sum clash of national pride and identity, made
all the more intractable by the rise of Islamist passions among young
Muslim Kashmiris. Under stiff Indian opposition to American
intervention, Mr. Obama abandoned his mediation effort.
A solution to a conflict that touches on so many religious and nationalist
nerves must ultimately come from within, through talks among India,
Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. They have tried before, but contacts
in 2008 collapsed when Islamist terrorists staged a series of
bloody attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai. A promising meeting in
December 2015 between Mr. Modi and Nawaz Sharif, who was then
Pakistan’s prime minister, came to nothing when Islamist militants
attacked an Indian Air Force base.

Yet the obvious and growing danger of the Kashmir conflict demands
trying again and again, however elusive the goal. It may be too much to
expect either side to surrender territorial claims on Kashmir, but India’s
Ramadan olive branch, however inauspicious, could become the start of
a sorely needed dialogue if Pakistan responds by at least suspending its
support for Islamic terrorist groups in Kashmir. Given the magnitude of
what’s at stake, Washington and other affected powers should do all they
can to encourage all sides to give this opening a chance.