The Kashmiri matters
Khursheed Wani

Hopes have risen and fallen for the Kashmiri many times in the past, but this week’s crushing blow to his self-confidence would have long-term implications for the peace process. A Saturday Special analysis

On January 5, Omar Abdullah, the youngest Chief Minister of embattled Jammu & Kashmir, completed his maiden year in office. His report card advertised in local newspapers boasted lessening level of violence, developing sense of security among the people, reducing footprints of the security forces and improvement in the law and order situation.

The national Press largely ignored this feel-good story. After all, since when is Srinagar a generator of good news. On the other hand, a photograph of Hurriyat separatist leader Yasin Malik and his wife celebrating the joys of peace in a Srinagar coffee bar enjoyed wider circulation. That told a thousand words about the new mood in India’s terrorism battleground city.

The next day, January 6, everything changed. Kashmir was back on the news networks after a long pause. Members of a suicide squad belonging to Lashkar-e-Tayyeba exploded grenades and fired with automatic weapons before seizing a hotel building in Srinagar’s nerve centre Lal Chowk. The 22-hour-long gun-battle resulted in the death of a civilian, a policeman and two suicide attackers besides reducing the hotel building to ruins. The stand-off paralyzed life in the commercial hub of Srinagar for two days.

The contrast within the same week is telling of the larger picture of Kashmir. There are two sides to the Kashmir coin. Statistics reveal that the level of violence did come down by 25 per cent in 2009. This was in line with a trend that began two years back. In fact, the number of fatalities caused by traffic accidents happened to be higher than that of militancy. A question that looms large is whether reducing the level of violence has improved the general public’s confidence.

In his speech during an All India Editors’ Conference in Srinagar in October 2009, Omar Abdullah made a seminal point. Kashmir is not a social or economic issue that could be resolved by pumping huge funds and investments. “It is a political problem and requires a political situation”. His father and Union Minister, Farooq Abdullah, in the presence of several cabinet colleagues accused New Delhi for pursuing a faulty Kashmir policy that initiates (dialogue) processes but terminates them midway without caring for results. This attitude, he said, was the mother of Kashmir’s ills.

Undoubtedly, peace and stability in Jammu & Kashmir is directly dependent on Pakistan’s involvement. The death of a Pakistani militant in Lal Chowk and the increase in infiltration attempts on the Line of control is a practical indication. Asif Ali Zardari’s reiteration of his slain father-in-law Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s statement to “fight a 1000-year war with India on Kashmir” serves as a theoretical backdrop.

It is not that India disproves Pakistan’s role in resolution of Kashmir issue but for past three years it is tending to club it with various other factors. Initially in 2007 when General Musharraf’s sway was waning in Pakistan, New Delhi stopped doing business with the military ruler. The installation of a democratic government too did not impress India, as the worsening internal situation from Swat to Waziristan only but extended a fledgling dispensation. The 26-11 attack in Mumbai compelled India to keep Pakistan at a distance till the latter guaranteed mending its ways and punishing the perpetrators.

But this attitude has not gone down well with the people of Kashmir. The roadblock in the Indo-Pak dialogue process has exacerbated public despair. This does not allow the concretization of arrangements initiated by India to address the dimensions of the issue. The bilateral process initiated by the Home Ministry, aimed at involving a section of separatist leadership in Kashmir did not take off presumably due to this factor.

Home Minister P Chidambaram announced in mid-October that New Delhi was ready to initiate “quiet diplomacy” to find an amicable and sustainable solution that would be acceptable to the vast majority of the people of J&K. The quiet dialogue that was supposed to be held away from media glare was an invitation to separatist groups to engage with the government. The pro-dialogue faction of the Hurriyat led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was encouraged by the offer, describing it a prelude to a triangular dialogue involving

Pakistan. However, the young Mirwaiz’s friendly approach was disliked by hardliners. Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi too sought to alienate Mirwaiz saying that any arrangement between New Delhi and Srinagar without involving Islamabad would not yield results.

Unfortunately for him, tragedy struck the Mirwaiz faction, and that too a day before the Lal Chowk terrorist attack just as he was preparing to formulate his faction’s formal response to the dialogue offer. On December 4, his confidante, Fazlul Haq Qureshi, who has brokered a failed peace deal with Hizbul Mujahideen in the past, was shot at and injured by unknown assailants. The attack on Qureshi was a statement that impacted the ground situation.

Interestingly Pakistan, which had offered space to pro-India Kashmiri leaders in the past, has withdrawn the carpet. Mehbooba Mufti, chief of the People’s Democratic Party was not allowed to visit Pakistan when she applied for a visa to attend a conference in Islamabad. This could be a reaction to New Delhi’s attempts to narrow down the scope of Kashmiri separatism. Incidentally, the much-hyped

Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and the barter trade that began with much hype, has lost their lustre. The bureaucratic hassles faced by ordinary people on the route have discredited this confidence building measure.

A common perception in J&K is that India and Pakistan should shun obstinacy to resume on the path of dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir. Observers do not view the involvement of the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role there in isolation of developments on the home front. They say that any settlement or lack of it in Afghanistan would have a direct bearing on Kashmir.

The Kashmiri tends to hope that India and Pakistan would work in mutual cooperation to renew the dialogue process. They also expect the local separatist leadership to facilitate talks. Back-channel diplomacy, such as media coordination between the Times of India group and Pakistan’s Jang-Geo group is not a misplaced effort. The arrival of Pakistan’s National Assembly speaker Fehmeeda Mirza in New Delhi and her meetings with three top-ranking separatist leaders — Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik — are also positive developments.
 

Editorial


US Aid Should be Used for Development Not War

The situation in Pakistan is worsening day by day. Counter- Insurgency operations against Taliban and other Al Qaeda sympathizing extremists in the northwest by the Pakistan Army, albeit in lieu of heavy American dole, have caused considerable damage in Swat, Buner and Dir areas of Malakand division. However, this has also made them more vengeful.

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