We have a searing wound that has not healed for 78 years, that festers from time to time, makes us lose our minds, attack each other, and put the region and the world at risk. We owe it to ourselves and the world to heal this wound once in for all, liberate ourselves from this paranoia and live a full life.

So what if we have to get assistance to do this? We are not all powerful. We cannot do everything fully ourselves. We are human, and have limitations.

It is arrogant not to seek help, when it is clear that we need it. This arrogance is costing us lives, soaking up our precious resources, and keeping us from doing important work such as ending poverty and nurturing prosperity. We have held not only our two countries, but the region hostage to our hubris.

Read more: “I’d Prefer Hell Over Pakistan”: Javed Akhtar’s Statement Triggers Backlash

Some problems need a fresh perspective to solve them. We have been wedded to the Kashmir conflict day and night, living and breathing it. We are fed with a comprehensive diet of hatred ever since we are born, through our curriculums, anecdotes that our families tell us, and our media, co-opted by our states in service of the Kashmir cause.

This is the 21st century. Surely humans should have learnt by now, that more than land, it is human relations and the quality of our lives that matter. People deserve to be safe, have social and economic opportunities, and live fulfilling lives. If we think that the Kashmir conflict is an intractable problem that can never be solved, we are being arrogant again. We are people, just like people in other parts of the world. If European wars can end and the Northern Ireland question solved, why cannot the Kashmir conundrum be addressed? We need mediation because without it, we will simply get locked in the same arguments that we repeatedly have, every time the two countries discuss the conflict directly.

Our Kashmir neural pathways have solidified and fire in the same way, every time they are stimulated. We need mediation through a party whose neural pathways are wide open. Big countries often don’t solve their own problems, because the bigger a country, the less deft and........

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