The Only Way Out Is Through Dialogue

Kashmir is a political issue, not an economic or a military problem. We can’t buy or shoot our way to a solution

OMAR ABDULLAH
President, National Conference

IAM SUPPOSED to be writing about understanding Kashmir, but it’s quite a challenge to make sense of what is happening there these days. There is such a difference between the Kashmir of the first and second half of 2008. The same is true of Jammu as well, and the change is so clearly visible on the ground that one struggles to understand the change.

Bitter feelings The view in Kashmir is that people there are worse off than the people of Jammu Photos: REUTERS

This year most of us were expecting a landmark election in the state, an election that would have been talked about because of its vibrancy, the extent of participation and the healthy democratic foundations that it would have strengthened. I was more worried about dealing with the problem of too many candidates fighting for too few mandates. I was worried about minimising the fallout of rebel candidates and sulking colleagues. I never thought I’d be worried about whether we could even have a meaningful election in the state. But, in the circumstances that prevail in the state today, that is the only question I find I am asking of myself.

There is no doubt in my mind that the one trigger for this complete reversal was the allotment of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board and the events that followed it. It’s easy, but ultimately pointless, to play the blame game because depending upon which side of the political divide one is on, blame will be apportioned accordingly. One can blame the Congress-PDP government for first passing the order in the Cabinet meeting and then not standing up and defending their decision. One can blame the National Conference for playing a less than constructive opposition role. One can blame me for my speech in Parliament and its subsequent interpretation and fallout. One can blame the Raj Bhavan and it’s occupants, particularly for a highly incendiary press conference. One can blame the separatists for riding the wave of public opinion and twisting facts to suit their own politics and revive their flagging movement. One can blame the Congress party, which all but disappeared from the scene in Jammu, with one senior leader after another joining the Samiti. One can blame the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti and its supporters for its communal politics and the attacks on Muslims in Jammu.

There is no doubt in my mind that the one trigger for this complete reversal was the allotment of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board and the events that followed it. It’s easy, but ultimately pointless, to play the blame game because depending upon which side of the political divide one is on, blame will be apportioned accordingly. One can blame the Congress-PDP government for first passing the order in the Cabinet meeting and then not standing up and defending their decision. One can blame the National Conference for playing a less than constructive opposition role. One can blame me for my speech in Parliament and its subsequent interpretation and fallout. One can blame the Raj Bhavan and it’s occupants, particularly for a highly incendiary press conference. One can blame the separatists for riding the wave of public opinion and twisting facts to suit their own politics and revive their flagging movement. One can blame the Congress party, which all but disappeared from the scene in Jammu, with one senior leader after another joining the Samiti. One can blame the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti and its supporters for its communal politics and the attacks on Muslims in Jammu.

Face of anger The economic blockade made things worse, but Kashmir is still a political issue

While all this was happening in Jammu, Kashmir remained relatively peaceful until the economic blockade started to take effect. I saw the writing on the wall and rushed to Delhi to warn the government here about the mood in Kashmir as a result of the closure of our highway. The Hurriyat Conference had not yet woken up to the situation. I told people that unless something was done to break this blockade, New Delhi should prepare for a situation where the Hurriyat would line up a hundred trucks and march towards the Line of Control, claiming that since their only road link out of the Valley had been artificially blocked, they would open another route and travel via Muzaffarabad. Unfortunately, not enough was done to remove the blockade, the anger continued to simmer and it happened just as I had predicted it would. Except that I hadn’t seen the bloodshed that would follow.

I know my friends in the BJP choose to deny the blockade and claim it is a figment of us Valleywallahs’ imagination. But I wonder if I actually imagined the burnt truck drivers brought back to be buried, which, incidentally, the Sangarsh Samiti claims was a result of a road accident? Did I imagine the scores of trucks lined up on the Jammu-Srinagar highway with their fruit rotting in the heat, because the state president of the BJP had actually given a call, reported by the media, to embargo the Valley and cut it off from the rest of the country? Did I imagine the BJP ministers in the Punjab Government closing down our highway at the border between Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, to stop the Kashmiri horticulture produce from reaching Delhi?

I can imagine some of you wondering what the fuss is about if the highway was closed for a few days. It closes in winter all the time and sometimes for longer durations. So why this fuss over a few days closure? The answer is that in winter the closure is expected and anticipated and prepared for. No fruit travels in the winter months simply because none is harvested. More important, however, is the fact that this was an artificial, man-made, political closure and it had a devastating effect on the psyche of the people. In the worst days of militancy in Kashmir, all one heard was the guns of the militants. The only traffic on the highway was of the Kashmiri Pandits fleeing the Valley. But, even in those dark days no one threatened the economic link of the Valley with the rest of the country. When the political link was at its most tenuous, the economic link could still be counted upon to bridge the divide. It gave people like me an argument to take to the youth of Kashmir, that even if they felt a religious or a political affinity towards Pakistan, India would always be the place where they could guarantee themselves and their family an economic future. This argument was based on the belief that ultimately, the strength of the Indian economic dream would trump the rest. Suddenly, the highway was seen not as a link but as a weapon that could, in the wrong hands, be used as a means to threaten and browbeat us. The sort of jingoistic statements one heard, “you don’t give us the land, we will cut you off and make you feel the pinch — you ungrateful Kashmiris”, became the order of the day. The Kashmiri who was, over the last few years, willing to let economics trump ideology, suddenly jumped right back on the azaadi bandwagon.

ICOULD WRITE reams about the government’s mishandling of the march to Muzaffarabad and how they should have clamped curfew across the Valley the day before the march, instead of letting it go ahead and then shooting dead more than 27 protestors, including a senior leader of the Hurriyat Conference. The subsequent anger would only grow, and we saw that in the size of the crowds, which swelled into hundreds and thousands. These were the same leaders who, until May, were forced to address dwindling crowds on Fridays outside mosques because they had few takers. Now, suddenly, they were addressing mammoth gatherings, gatherings that mainstream parties couldn’t even dream of addressing.

Even today we compound our mistakes by a partisan approach to our follow-up action. We punish an SSP because two protestors were shot in Jammu while enforcing the blockade and defying the curfew. Rightly so. If force was used in an unjustified manner, the guilty must be punished. But what of the police and paramilitary forces that shot dead 27 people in Kashmir while marching to Muzaffarabad? No curfew had been imposed, and no prohibitory orders were issued. The government made no effort to stop the march until they decided to open fire and yet, no inquiry has been ordered and no one has been punished. In Jammu, the police cremated Kuldeep Dogra, who committed suicide over the land issue, after dark. There was an immediate and justified reaction among the people because Hindus do not cremate after sunset. The people retrieved his partly-burnt body from the funeral pyre and completed the rituals the next day. The government suspended the police officials involved and ordered an inquiry because religious sentiments had been hurt. And rightly so. The police had no business cremating the body and the guilty must be punished. But what of Muslim sentiments in Kashmir — CRPF jawans are alleged to have desecrated a most holy shrine in downtown Srinagar the other day. This caused huge anger among the people and nothing at all is done. No inquiry is ordered. It’s as if the sentiments in Kashmir don’t matter.

SUDDENLY, ELECTION fever seems to have gripped Delhi again. A pity Ghulam Nabi Azad hadn’t seen past the need to spend the last few populist months in government. If he had held the election in May, things would have been different. The focus can’t be on the election; it has to be on healing the wounds both in Kashmir and in Jammu. Jammu continues to be dangerously polarised along communal lines and Kashmir is still seething with anger. Under such circumstances, it’s difficult to imagine how we can have a meaningful election unless the government makes a concerted effort to reach out to the people in both regions.

There are issues of discrimination as well. Strangely, Jammu feels discriminated at the hands of Kashmir and Kashmir feels as strongly discriminated at the hands of Jammu. Ladakh and Kargil feel discriminated at the hands of both. These are issues that ultimately only a duly-elected government can begin to address. We can’t expect the answers and the solutions to come from a centrallyruled administration.

I have chosen in this essay to stay away from the larger questions of the ultimate solution to the Kashmir issue and the role of Pakistan in that solution because there just isn’t the space. Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on the immediate past so as to put events and their fallout in to some sort of perspective.

I’ll end only with this thought and it’s one I’ve shared at every Round Table conference on Kashmir and every seminar on the subject — Kashmir is a political issue, not an economic or a military one. There are aspects of economics and military in the problem and the solution, but the genesis of the issue lies in its politics and the solution will also have to be found politically. We can’t buy our way to a solution nor can we shoot our way to a solution. We have to talk our way to one. Whether that solution lies in greater autonomy, selfrule, Pervez Musharaff’s four-point solution, the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution or any other as yet undiscussed formulation, only dialogue will provide the answer. It is the dialogue, which is sadly absent today.