Indian reaction to Obama’s talks with Pakistani President Zardari and his statements about U.S. mediation of the Kashmir dispute has been fairly intense. The Times of India has a thoughtful editorial that also explains the views of many Indians on this question:

This bristling response to even the mildest proposal that perhaps New Delhi might like to do some rethinking on Kashmir is not restricted to officialdom; many, if not most, Indians feel that Kashmir is, or ought to be, a closed book, and any attempt to open it, by Indians or by outsiders, immediately compromises India’s national security and sovereignty. Even after more than 60 years of conflict – in which the worst sufferers have been the Kashmiri people, both embattled Muslims and exiled Hindus – any attempt to introduce a new perspective to the problem is summarily chucked out of court, as the thin edge of a wedge which would eventually and inevitably balkanise India.

C. Raja Mohan wrote in Indian Express just before the election why American involvement in Kashmir negotiations would be unwise and counterproductive:

India and Pakistan have made progress in recent years, because their negotiations have taken place in a bilateral context. Third party involvement will rapidly shrink the domestic political space for India on Kashmir negotiations.

For another, the prospect that the U S might offer incentives on Kashmir is bound to encourage the Pakistan Army to harden its stance against the current peace process with India.

Finally, the sense that an Obama Administration will put Jammu & Kashmir on the front burner would give a fresh boost to militancy in Kashmir and complicate the current sensitive electoral process there. Kashmiri separatist lobbies in Washington have already embraced Obama’s remarks.

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, editor of The Hindustan Times, sees some of the same political problems in any U.S.-led mediation effort:

But any Kashmir peace process that is seen to be a consequence of US pressure is politically dead on arrival in India. Kashmir is a diplomatic minefield. One misstep by the new Obama administration could result in a deep freeze of the Indo-US relationship for years.

Mahendra Ved, writing for The New Straits Times, observes that Obama’s Kashmir position is out of date:

However, his recent remarks on Kashmir are seen as a throwback to American postures [of] 10 years ago.

In an interview to MSNBC, Obama said: “We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants.”

This is well-meaning to the extent that the US would want to keep India and Pakistan engaged and avoid a confrontation. But it is ill-advised and outdated and indicates that his advisers have not kept up with the times.

Despite this acknowledgement from a number of sources in India and the region that Obama’s proposal of mediating the dispute is politically disastrous and substantively wrong, there seems to be little awareness of this in Western commentary. Here is Aryn Baker writing for Time:

India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir twice since 1947. Resolving an issue that has been the failure of many great diplomatic efforts will by no means be an easy task. But Obama, strengthened by his mandate at home and even abroad, and spurred on by his pledge to fix Afghanistan, is the man for the job. The time is right. Despite the economic meltdown, the U.S. has leverage in the form of an agreement to sell India civilian nuclear technology and fuel. Pakistan has a civilian government for the first time in nine years, and a desperate need for cash and trade. There is nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

This is absolutely wrong. There is a great deal to be lost, almost nothing to be gained and there is also the potential for destroying one of our better international relationships. Until the Indians approve the nuclear deal, Washington has no leverage, and this talk of using the nuclear deal’s provisions as leverage to force India to make concessions on Kashmir will harden the strong Communist opposition to the agreement and probably kill its chances in the lower house.

Update: C. Raja Mohan elaborates on the problems with Obama’s approach in Forbes:

Obama appears poised to make the same mistake that he had accused Bush of–mollycoddling Pakistan’s now fallen strongman Gen. Pervez Musharraf and relying on his Army rather than the democratic forces in that nation to fight the war on terror. Obama is now buying into the Pakistan Army’s argument that it cannot fight on two fronts–on the east with India and on the west against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The argument that Obama’s people have bought into ignores a simple truth. India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has presided over a productive peace process with Pakistan and has been engaged in important back-channel negotiations with its leaders on resolving the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan’s new civilian leaders, too, are enthusiastic about normalizing relations with India.

The only institutional force that remains hostile to India in Pakistan is its army; it is a pity, then, that the Obama team is ready to buy into its new story about the link between Kashmir and Afghanistan. The sources of the troubles of the United States, Afghanistan and India stem from the unwavering dominance of the Army over national security politics of Pakistan.

If Obama were to focus on changing the civil-military relationship in Pakistan and develop a joint set of initiatives with India for the stabilization of the region, New Delhi will be eager to respond. But if Obama’s foreign policy team insists on a unilateral approach to Kashmir, the resistance from India might be fierce and the new president might set himself up for an early foreign policy defeat.

Second Update: I had missed this short item by Meghan O’Sullivan in the Post, in which she pushes the crazy Kashmir option and completely misreads the situation:

India has resisted U.S. mediation on Kashmir in the past, but the growing U.S.-India strategic relationship may now make American involvement possible.

O’Sullivan misses entirely that we there is a growing U.S.-India strategic relationship because Mr. Bush has carefully avoided meddling in the Kashmir dispute. The two governments have built this relationship partly by accepting that each state’s internal affairs are not the business of the other.