The Hindu : A shortsighted approach

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003

Opinion

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A shortsighted approach

THE SEQUENCE OF events clearly points to a link between the closing down of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference's Delhi office and the arrest, three days earlier, of two of the Kashmiri separatist conglomerate's activists with money intended allegedly for funding terrorist outfits in Jammu and Kashmir, an incident that has had an impact also on India's diplomatic relations with Pakistan. The circumstances under which the arrests were made, the reported profiles of the persons picked up (one of them was the man in charge of the Hurriyat-run Kashmir Awareness Bureau, who was held following a raid on the office premises), and the fact that the charges slapped on them relate to the highly stringent anti-terrorism law do add up to a serious enough situation for the investigators to make a thorough professional job of it. In such circumstances, it is not uncommon for the police to conduct raids and, where necessary, have the premises concerned sealed to prevent any tampering with evidence or any other attempt to prejudice the enquiry. What is of the essence is that such actions by the crime investigating or law-enforcing agencies should be transparent and credible if they are not to be seen as instances of a colourable exercise of authority. In the case of the Hurriyat's Delhi Office, the outfit's leadership has spoken of a "forced closure", related presumably to indirect pressure from the authorities and the aggressive majoritarian elements.

This said, it will be naive not to view the Delhi episode in the larger political context affecting Jammu and Kashmir, more specifically the strikingly shortsighted approach of the Central Government to the imperative of initiating a broad-based dialogue. Take, for instance, the Atal Behari Vajpayee regime's attitude towards the Hurriyat. While the BJP-led coalition's responses to Kashmir-related issues, from time to time, seemed to be significantly conditioned by the `Hurriyat' factor, more recently, the Deputy Minister, L.K. Advani, made it known that the separatist groups whom he called "Pakistan proxies" (read the Hurriyat) would be kept out of the dialogue process. And this was followed by a patently regressive move such as imposing curbs on travel abroad by separatist leaders and the first target, ironically, was Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, by no means a pro-Pakistan hawk but one who has emerged as a credible moderate face in the Hurriyat, speaking up for a political solution of the Kashmir problem through a comprehensive dialogue. Against this backdrop, one needs to be reassured that the Vajpayee regime has not allowed, and will not allow, its palpable obsession with the Hurriyat to stand in the way of launching the much-needed dialogue process.

If the State Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, over three months in office, is rather anguished that the Centre is yet to come up with an initiative for talks, it is quite understandable. In fact, the popular mandate, as registered in a universally hailed democratic exercise held in October 2002, is nothing but a collective expression of yearning for peace and call for an end to the pervasive sense of alienation, and this has been recognised and acknowledged by the Vajpayee Government. Within the constraints that are inherent in a coalition arrangement as the one he is heading — not to speak of those set by the political imperative of not rubbing the Centre the wrong way — Mr. Sayeed has for his part taken some significant steps by way of providing a "healing touch" as promised in the Common Minimum Programme. But the onus of initiating a credible and all-important process of conciliation is primarily on the Centre and, needless to say, it has to be as inclusive as possible. And this means the dialogue — its format, composition, scope and structure — has to be free from the narrow partisan impulses and deep-seated prejudices flowing from the majoritarian agenda of the leading partner of the ruling coalition at the Centre.

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