Kashmir Policy Disconnect

Kashmir Valley was on the boil a few weeks ago, when stone-pelters stoked
by hardliner Hurriyat Chief Syed Ali Shah Gilani and backed by Pakistan,
took to the streets. The administration had almost paralyzed and life came to
stand still. The situation was brought under control with visit of
parliamentary all party delegation led by P.Chidambaram, Union Home
Minister. Subsequently the home ministry appointed a team of interlocutors
led by Dilip Padgaonkar, a leading journalist and former Editor of Times of
India.

In the few weeks that all this happened, a few mind boggling situations
stumped right thinking people. First salvo came from not less than Omar
Abdullah, Chief Minister of J&K, himself when he said that J&K had
merely acceded to Indian Union and not merged with it. This was undoing
what his grand father Sheikh Abdullah, Sher-i-Kashmir, did in his lifetime to
integrate with India. As the history shows, from official website of J&K
government, Sheikh Abdullah had stated on 1st October 1947 “Till last drop
of my blood I will not believe in two nation theory” making the future of the
state obvious. The accord between Sheikh Abdullah and Indira Gandhi on
February 24, 1975 made Kashmir a “constituent unit of India” giving all
powers to Indian Parliament to legislate on every matter of the state. The
designations of the President and the Prime Minister were replaced by
Governor and Chief Minister. This in fact converted the accession of 15th
November 1952 to full scale merger with Union of India like other 564 other
princely states.

Just think of the fact that the inheritor of Sheikh Abdullah’s legacy, Farooq
Abdullah, son of the Sheikh, and father of Omar Abdullah, is Union
Minister of UPA government in New Delhi! The faux pas of Omar
Abdullah has emboldened the hardliners like Syed Ali Shah Gilani of
Hurriyat who dared to hold a seminar on Azadi in New Delhi last week.
Omar Abdullah administration also failed to tackle the demonstrations on
the streets and added fuel to fire with such a retrograde stand.

The second development was statement by Dilip Padgaonkar, Chief

Interlocutor for J&K, that Pakistan has a role to play in resolving Kashmir
issue. I am sure that if Pakistan had no role to play, we would have
addressed the problems of Kashmir within first five year of independence
like other states. While this was blown out of proportion by media and
political hawks, the point is that interlocutors should have been more
discreet. In fact they should be working silently to gather facts and views of
people of all shades to assess the ground situation and submit their findings
and recommendations to the home ministry for any policy level statements
to be issued to the media.

India has interlocutor for Afghanistan for almost a decade but we hardly
hear public pronouncements of any kind even on peak and critical situations.
It is not necessary to give sound bites to the media for their 24 x 7
sustenance. Any divergence in views has to be managed by the political
policy makers and therefore articulation must be left to them. And precise
job of interlocutors is to discover the divergence so that a way out can be
found out. I am not saying that interlocutors should be gagged. But they
must be careful not to give fodder to the opportunists.

The third development on Kashmir front has been the Azadi seminar with
Syed Ali Shah Gilani and Arundhati Roy on the dais. While no one expects
Gilani to be any different, Arundhati Roy has invited wrath of public with
her statement on Azadi for Kashmir. The government was criticized for
permitting such a conference in New Delhi. But in the era of internet it
hardly matters where the platform is located. Arundhati Roy seems to
empathize with the cause of Kashmiri separatists as much as the Maoists.
She could not be interlocutor with either of them and perhaps has been
aiming at headlines space. She stated that Kashmir has never been integral
part of India and British imperialism was replaced by Indian colonialism in
1947. She chose a wrong company to articulate her thoughts. She has
distanced herself from the solution and the decision makers. Is she a part of
problem or solution? She has to choose if not done already!

Out of last one week’s imbroglio one things stands out and that is disconnect
between the centre and the state as well as the political system on the issues
of Kashmir. I think that the silent track II work done by Chidambaram a
while ago had raised some good hopes. While we can do all that is possible
to mitigate the suffering of the people of Kashmir Valley, economic
development must be given priority despite problems on the ground. A
political will to bring the agenda of development on the top must prevail
over any political quick fix. As is obvious, for any political solution to the
vexed problem, the issue of terrorism from Pakistan has to be off the table.
And since that is the key strategy of the Pakistan establishment, the goal
seems to be distant one. The interlocutors and stake holders on Indian side of
line of actual control all need to work to get this stumbling block off the
table.

With Barack Obama visiting New Delhi in a week, the opportunity to

emphasize quietly on the use of terror as instrument of state policy by
Pakistan would not be lost. There lies the key to political solution. Until then
we have to focus on making things easier for involvement of people for
development to take off.

Vijay M. Deshpande,
Corporate Advisor,
Strategic Management Initiative,
Pune 411021

Read my other blogs on

www.strami.com