For five decades, India and Pakistan have been in a protracted conflict and deadlock over Kashmir. They have waged two wars, and survived several military crises and conflicts over the Siachen glacier and in Kargil. India withstood the external threats but was more vulnerable when Indian Kashmiris launched a violent secessionist movement in 1990. Indias military strategy of wearing down the militants had but limited value and failed to resolve the underlying issues or lead to a political breakthrough.
The elections of September 2002
Against this backdrop, the Jammu & Kashmir state assembly elections of September 2002 opened up new possibilities and symbolised an end to the rule of Sheikh Abdullahs dynasty. After twenty-seven years of electing the National Conference, people finally voted it out of power. Party chief, candidate for chief minister and heir apparent, Omar Abdullah lost. A new realisation, that their vote matters and can give voice to a real political choice, seemed to have dawned upon the Kashmiris of the strife-torn valley.
Before the elections, the political space in valley politics was sharply polarised between two groups: nationalist political parties who regard Kashmir as an integral part of India such as the National Conference and Congress; and separatist groups especially the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) that demands the right to self-determination via a plebiscite.
Between them, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeks the middle ground between the pro-India National Conference and the pro-Pakistan APHC, projecting itself as a secular pro-Kashmiri political party. By affirming that Jammu & Kashmir is a dispute (with the conspicuous absence of the prefix international), it tries to appropriate the Hurriyats political agenda without the latters secessionist overtones. This is important because most Kashmiris are battle-weary and in search of an honourable exit from the cycle of violence inflicted by the militants as well as the security forces.
The elections of September 2002 altered the terms of debate on the question of azadi (freedom). The Kashmiri movement has evolved from a demand for the right of self-determination viewed through a territorial lens. Its central tenet was a demand for an independent territory, a sovereign political space outside the state boundaries of India (and Pakistan). It was thus bound to clash with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of any nation. Elections provided the political leadership with an opportunity to start the process of disaggregating the political from the territorial in the demand for azadi. The slogan We want azadi; azadi first from the National Conference government captured the public mood. It addressed the protection of political rights of the people of Jammu & Kashmir.
The challenge of communalism
Even as the elections opened a new window of opportunity, the government formed by a PDP-Congress coalition and led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed faces enormous challenges. The first is to reverse the deepening communalisation of society in Jammu & Kashmir.
Throughout the 1990s, the entire spectrum of developments in high politics in Kashmir had poisoned the air. Among these were: conflation of the demand for azadi with Islamisation; the replacement of the militants of Kashmiri origin with Islamic warriors; inroads into the Muslim-dominated districts of the Jammu region by militants entailing a series of massacres of Hindus; religious cleansing of the valley through the eviction of the pandit community; the changing political alignments of the National Conference-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance; the figures and patterns of voting in the non-Muslim majority areas of Jammu and Ladakh in the last two general elections; and the trifurcation agenda of the right-wing Hindu nationalists.
For the first time in the political history of Jammu & Kashmir, dominant political parties such as the National Conference and the Congress contested elections on a secular platform, on secular issues and without resorting to a communal strategy for political mobilisation. Those parties which purported to safeguard the Hindu population such as the BJP or the alliance of the Jammu State Morcha (JSM)-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were roundly dismissed by the electorate.
The Common Minimum Programme of the new government promised to rehabilitate the internally-displaced Kashmiri pandits. Muftis government identified certain areas in the valley for pandit resettlement. These efforts floundered in March 2003 in the Nadimarg massacre of twenty-four pandit men, women and children by militants. The brutal murders drove home to the state government that it needed to rethink its strategy.
This must, first and foremost, ensure the physical safety of Kashmiri pandits; bureaucratic measures or mere talk of the healing touch will not suffice. Social institutions must create channels of dialogue between the Kashmiri pandits and the Kashmiri Muslims. The real challenge is to make the pandits feel secure and a part of Kashmiri society, a task that can be accomplished only by both communities, albeit with the full support and encouragement of the state government.
The challenge of regionalism
The second challenge for the coalition government is to bridge the growing chasm between the three regions under its jurisdiction Ladakh, Jammu and the Kashmir Valley. The political history of the alienation in Jammu and Ladakh and their demand for autonomy vis-à-vis the valley can be traced to as far back as the 1950s. It recently acquired a sharp edge with the awkwardly phrased demand for trifurcation of the state along a communal fault line. Paradoxically, while this idea was defeated in the electoral arena, the subsequent tussle of power between the PDP and the Congress over government formation may have given it fresh impetus.
The JSM-RSS alliance fought and lost the 2002 assembly elections on the slogan of trifurcation. Doublespeak on this issue by the BJP and the National Conference did not help their political prospects and both faced a rout. The BJP deviated from its original demand for a statutory regional council, statutory regional boards of development for the Jammu region and its state leadership quietly endorsed the trifurcation agenda. The National Conference too endorsed the communal faultline of the state, and restructured its internal organisation into eight provinces.
The report of the Regional Autonomy Committee set up by Farooq Abdullah proposed to restructure the Jammu region (into three provinces, along a Hindu-Muslim divide) and the Ladakh region (into two provinces, along a Muslim-Buddhist divide). The Chenab Valley province would comprise the Doda district of Jammu and the Muslim-dominated tehsil of Mahore (formerly part of the adjoining Hindu-majority district of Udhampur). Districts with a Hindu majority in Jammu, Kathua and Udhampur would form a Jammu province; Muslim-majority districts such as Poonch and Rajouri would make up the Pir Panjal province.
In the event, both political parties were crushed by the results the BJP retained only one seat in the Jammu region and the National Conference lost 50% of the seats it held 29 out of the 57 seats it won in the 1996 election. If ever a popular, unequivocal rejection of a regional/religious chauvinism is possible, this was it.
As coalition partners, the PDP and the Congress, variously strong in the Kashmir valley and in Jammu, increasingly found themselves on opposite sides of the regional/communal line. The Kashmir-Jammu controversy has plagued every issue from the PDPs rigid insistence on an ethnic Kashmiri chief minister to the intra-regional share in bureaucratic appointments and promotions, and the presence of Muslim migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in Jammu.
The decision of the Mufti government to grant regional autonomy to Leh district has hardened the divide between (Muslim) Kargil and the (largely Buddhist) Ladakh region. It is imperative for the new regime to learn from the mistakes of the Abdullah government. The coalition government needs to initiate a structured political dialogue on the question of power sharing between different regions and communities of Jammu & Kashmir. It must realise that institutionalising mechanisms of power-sharing to fulfil the political aspirations of various communities is important and necessary for the successful and lasting peace yearned for by the people.
The challenge of dialogue
The third important challenge for the Mufti government is to begin a dialogue with the militants and separatist groups. Indeed, the healing touch policy of the Mufti government dictated that the state government withdraw the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), release detainees, and disband the feared and hated Special Operations Group of the Jammu & Kashmir police, whose reputation for ruthless counter-insurgency operations was notorious. When these actions coincided with a spurt in the militant violence, they were bound to be politicised. Predictably, the BJP leadership alleged that the Mufti regime was terrorist-friendly. Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, for example, opposed the PDP proposal to announce a unilateral cease-fire because it had failed to reduce levels of violence in the past.
Kashmir has been brutalised, militarised and traumatised by a decade-long militancy. A healing touch is indeed the crying need of the hour for the proverbial common man harassed by arbitrary arrests and custodial deaths. It needs to streamline civic governance, strengthen social institutions that can provide shelter and education for scores of orphans that the militancy has produced. Quite a different approach is required to deal with the militants. The PDPs benign view that militancy is an expression of misguided youth who need to be brought back into the political mainstream is naïve and bound to boomerang. The guns are in the hands of militant groups based in Pakistan and with a very different agenda indeed.
The active militant groups Lashkar-i-Toyiba, Jaish-i-Mohammed (and its new offspring, the Tanzeem-ul-Furqan), Al-Badr and Harkat-ul- Mujahideen are based in Pakistan and abound with Afghan veterans and foreign mercenaries. The jihad in Kashmir is part of a worldwide religions crusade for these battle-hardened, well-armed Islamic militants. The intention was never to secure the political right of self-determination for Kashmiris. Hizbul-Mujahideen is the only group with any Kashmiri cadre. However, its ranks are sharply divided on the issue of holding peace talks after the recent killing of Abdul Majid Dar and Saif-ul-Islam over factional differences.
APHCs involvement in a dialogue is riddled with paradoxes. Its claim to be the sole spokesman of the Kashmiris does not stand especially since it does not even claim to represent nearly half the population of the state that lives in Jammu and Ladakh. Nor does it exercise control over gun-wielding militants. Yet, it does represent the separatist sentiment espoused by many in the valley.
After the assembly elections, the APHC faced a new dilemma. The PDP-led coalition favours dialogue with the Hurriyat. But, the Hurriyat leadership has dismissed the offer of talks on the grounds that the relevance of the new regime in Srinagar is confined to administration of the state and not to decide its political future. They have refused to negotiate with N.N. Vohra, a new interlocutor appointed by the central government, and may well result in a deadlock. The central government too has shied away from extending a specific invitation to the Hurriyat even when it realises that Vohras task remains incomplete unless he reaches out to all separatist groups.
Preparing a roadmap to peace
The Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayees initiative to start a peace process with Pakistan might break this logjam. From the Indian point of view, New Delhi has reached an impasse. Its coercive diplomacy in the wake of terrorists attack on the parliament in December 2002 paid limited dividends with diminishing returns. At home, it is in a strong position. The free and fair nature of the assembly elections was recognised by the international community but it cannot completely resolve the Kashmir imbroglio without talking to Islamabad.
Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan too is caught up in a domestic tangle with the elected national assembly on the Legal Framework Order of the military regime. Both governments realise the import of the Iraq war for a world order shaped by US unilateralism.
While it is hazardous to predict the future of dialogue, I have no hesitation in pointing to three factors as important to its outcome.
First, a critical test for the governments of Pakistan and India will be how they handle and manage those in their respective countries who do not favour a negotiated solution militant groups such as Laskar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammed as well as fringe elements in mainstream politics such as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MML) coalition in Pakistan or the Shiv Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in India.
A second factor relates to the perseverance needed to prepare the groundwork and sustain the peace process. Islamabad and New Delhi have learnt a correct lesson from the failure of the Agra Summit and now understand the need for a step-by-step process that acknowledges preparatory, official-level talks before considering a summit between the heads of state.
Third, while there is intrinsic merit in sustaining the peace process itself, it is also important for both sides to discuss the endgame and work towards preparing a mindset in their respective polities that supports a mutually acceptable solution of the Kashmir imbroglio.
