The way forward on Kashmir

By Malini Parthasarathy

WE SEEM to have arrived at yet another defining moment in our collective effort to persuade the people of Kashmir that their interests are best served by remaining affiliated to the Indian Union rather than anything else. The failure of the Agra Summit to help India and Pakistan put in perspective their respective beliefs about the political identity of Kashmir has freshly underscored the imperative for India to pursue an approach to the Kashmir issue that will not put at risk the basic attempt to retain the loyalty of the Kashmiris to the idea of being part of a secular Indian nation-state. Yet, the bitterness and rancour that visibly reflected in the utterances of the leading players in the Government - the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, and the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, after the Agra meeting - do not augur well for a constructive approach to what is fast becoming an increasingly complicated situation. At the least, there would have to be a recognition on the Government's part that the challenges inherent in the inflamed context of the alienation of the Kashmir Valley require a nuanced and multi-tiered approach that cannot be boiled down to a simplistic construction that once cross-border terrorism is defeated, the Kashmir problem will be ``under control''.

It is certainly the case that the murderous face of terrorism in all its ugliness is in full view in the Kashmir Valley after the Agra Summit and that the sheer brutality of the Doda massacre and the blast at the Jammu railway station which slaughtered not Indian security personnel but innocent and helpless civilians require a sharp response from the Indian state. Few would quarrel with the validity of the Union Home Minister, Mr. Advani's analysis in Parliament last week, of the tactical strategy of the militants in the post-Agra phase as attempting to stretch and disperse the security forces to new areas, thereby reducing their presence in the Valley and trying also to create a communal divide, thus further inflaming the atmosphere. It is painfully evident that the failure of India and Pakistan to reach some sort of understanding in Agra is being utilised by the militant groups, particularly the more sinister ones such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, to strike further terror in the region, presumably as a warning to India that more difficult and dangerous times lie ahead for its attempt to preserve its sovereignty of Jammu and Kashmir. In that sense, few would also quarrel with Mr. Advani and his colleagues for outlining a strategy in response to the escalation of terror that would not allow ``the counter-insurgency grid to be thinned out''.

It is perhaps inevitable that the security forces have intensified operations against the militants even as the State Government has declared Jammu, Doda, Udhampur and Kathua as ``disturbed'' areas under the Armed Forces (J&K) Special Powers Act. In other words, the Governments in New Delhi and Srinagar have shown their determination to ``fight to the finish'' for control of the Valley. But what is crucial to the success of such an effort is to ensure its credibility and widespread acceptance amongst the people there. As any elementary understanding of the strategy and tactics of militancy, particularly guerilla-style, recognises, the challenge is to slice off the roots of popular support that are required to sustain the operations, such as the assistance of villagers to militants to operate from their hideouts. Yet the ruthless way in which the security forces have embarked on their ``flushing out'' drives which target and murder the relatively more popular and far less sinister commanders such as the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's Masood who could have easily been brought around to a more amenable point of view, rather than the more dangerous leaders of the deadly jehadi outfits who get away unscathed, have only further alienated the people of the Valley and made heroes out of the otherwise unremarkable figures leading the militant groups.

The second pitfall that inevitably trips up and defeats all counter-insurgency campaigns is the temptation to enact anti- terrorism laws that are so authoritarian in sweep and focus that the eventual victims are not the terrorists being hunted down but hundreds of innocent citizens who bear the brunt of the brute violence of an overzealous and frustrated security apparatus. Mr. Advani has hinted of imposing a new anti-terrorist law similar to the lapsed TADA. What is deeply troubling in the attitude of the Union Government is its appalling lack of sensitivity and imagination in regard to the imperative of addressing the core issues at the root of the alienation of the Kashmiri people. In its overemphasis on a militaristic approach to the problem even as it has completely brushed aside the historic and constitutional obligation of the Indian Union to acknowledge the specific right of the Kashmir people to a relatively higher degree of autonomy than that which is allowed to the other Indian States, the Vajpayee administration's approach to the crisis is heading for disaster. The Government ought to take a leaf out of the book of neighbouring Sri Lanka's bitter historical experience with Tamil alienation. Years of a militaristic and a law-and- order approach only bred the dangerous and fascistic rebellion of the LTTE even as the failure to put on the table reasonable proposals for devolution of power to the Tamil minority wiped out the moderate elements among the Tamil leadership, leaving Colombo no option but to deal with a deadly and intransigent interlocutor.

The parallels in the Kashmir situation are eerily similar. India has the option at this stage to deal with a range of moderate interlocutors who can very easily help arrest the drift and turn the situation around in India's favour if only New Delhi acknowledges the urgency of the need to honour the Indian state's historical obligation to the alienated people of Kashmir. As the record of the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly testifies so eloquently, the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union in October 1947 was clearly contingent on the preservation of that State's autonomy of decision-making on a wide range of subjects. It was a condition accepted without any serious misgiving by India's leadership at that time and which was later embodied as Article 370 of the Constitution, reflecting a unique social contract between the Kashmiri people and the Indian Union. To suggest that Kashmir does not have that unique status in relation to the Indian Union despite the historical fact that its accession was conditional on that degree of autonomy is a betrayal of historical record and a violation of the Government of India's own sacred constitutional obligation. Therefore for Mr. Advani to claim in Parliament as he did some weeks ago that to give effect to the J&K State Assembly resolution calling for autonomy as envisaged in the 1952 accord would be ``putting the clock back'' is an unprincipled and irresponsible deviation from historical facts. Even if the Government wants to make the case that the 1952 accord is outdated and its implementation might render void certain advantages that the people of Kashmir enjoy as do their counterparts elsewhere in the country, it does not obliterate the reality that the right of that State to a wider degree of autonomy as part of its original social contract with the Indian Union, is inviolable and would have to be implemented sooner rather than later. Therefore while the framework within which the devolution of power is to be effected might be a matter of discussion, the obligation to effect that devolution of power is inescapable.

Once the major step of acknowledging the historical responsibility of devolving all the Constitutionally-mandated autonomy to Kashmir is taken, it would become much easier to find a set of credible interlocutors who would develop a stake in the concept of preserving India's sovereignty in Kashmir. The very fact that the NDA rulers in New Delhi are seen as being able to ``manage'' the J&K Chief Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, has taken a high toll of his own personal credibility among his people. By destroying Dr. Abdullah's credibility as a leader of his people, even as New Delhi pointedly continues to ignore the Hurriyat's set of leaders, many of whom are men of reasonableness and clear leadership capabilities such as Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Mr. Abdul Gani Lone and Mr. Yaseen Malik, India is unnecessarily signalling to the Kashmiri people a disdain of their legitimate aspirations. Small wonder then that the deadly sweep of jehadi terrorism has begun to eat into the vitals of Kashmir's once healthy civil society and traditionally pluralist culture, even as it makes mincemeat out of India's emphatic assertion that Kashmir remains an integral part of its Union.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Trench war of angst in West Asia
Next     : Maharashtra's gram sevak raj