LOOKING for signs of cheer can be frustrating in Kashmir, the /stunning mountain territory over which India and Pakistan have argued for more than 60 years, and three times gone to war. The most highly contested area, the Kashmir valley-controlled by India, populated mostly by Muslims and contested by Pakistan-has by turns been the focus of militancy, terrorism, popular violence and state repression. There have been lulls in violence, and shifts in strategy or fortune among actors. But those who discern an opening for a more hopeful future, even a glimmer of outright resolution, have always been proved wrong. Yet there seems room, for now, for relations to warm. Take, for example, the swift and friendly return from Pakistan of an Indian army helicopter and crew which drifted 12 miles (19 km) over the Kashmiri line of control on October 23rd. What could easily have been a diplomatic rumpus instead became a token of tentative co-operation. Within the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir itself are signs of a new-found reasonableness. The state's chief minister, Omar Abdullah, has started saying in public what he has expressed in private for over a year: that it is time to scrap the repressive Armed Forces Special Powers Act. For two decades the law has given immunity to Indian soldiers who kill or beat up civilians. In some urban areas, Mr Abdullah says, it will no longer apply from early November. Army men will be aghast, but Mr Abdullah is quite right that it is not their job to decide.
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