Shaky start on Kashmir

Praful Bidwai

When the Indian government announced "a new political initiative" on Jammu and Kashmir on September 25, lofty expectations were raised that high-level interlocutors would soon begin a dialogue with the state's parties and civil society. This was considered the only novel, and most important, feature of the 8-point plan of action, which otherwise recycles the shop-worn "package" approach to Kashmir. It was also the logical follow-up to the all-parties delegation's September 20-21 visit to J&K.

However, the announcement of three panelists - journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, conflict resolution academic Radha Kumar, and Information Commissioner M M Ansari - has disappointed most people and attracted anger and ridicule. To many, it represents a desperate anxiety to pretend - just before President Obama's visit to India - that the government is sincerely grappling with the Kashmir issue. The Valley's moderates as well as extremists have declared the panel a non-starter. Indian parties, from the Left to the Right, have attacked its exclusion of politicians, who they feel should lead it. Their unanimous opinion is that the Centre is not serious about finding a Kashmir solution. There is no support for the panel from political, civil society or intellectual opinion, not even the ruling Congress.

Apparently, the government first approached Congress leaders Digvijay Singh (a heavyweight who mentors Rahul Gandhi), Prithviraj Chavan (close to the prime minister) and Salman Khurshid to join/head the panel. They refused. Hence the present "Team B" panel, without a proper chair of Cabinet rank. Given this hostile reception, it will be extremely difficult to persuade a senior politician to head the panel. His/her authority would already be dented by the absence of a chance to choose the other members.

How did the hope of September dissipate into the disappointment of October? None of the three nominees knows much about Kashmir, carries much political weight in general, or a positive profile in the Valley, in particular. Padgaonkar and Kumar have only had limited exposure to the Valley. Kumar recently coordinated a European Union-delegation visit there and also held conflict-resolution seminars. But she neither conveys gravitas nor an incisive grasp of Kashmir's complex situation. Ansari is a non-entity, without a nodding acquaintance with J&K.

Kumar ventured in 2006 into "Frameworks for a Kashmir Settlement", co-authored with ultra-hawkish Pakistan-bashing former diplomat G Parthasarathy. This contains some interesting suggestions for building governance structures from the bottom-up. But they are all based on the obviously unrealised presumption that India and Pakistan have already agreed to "soft borders". Kumar carries ideological baggage from her involvement in the former Yugoslavia and the Council on Foreign Relations (US). The baggage, and her conservative pro-Western reputation, further weaken her acceptability. She's regarded a political lightweight who wouldn't bother with getting to know the nitty-gritty of Kashmiri society and politics. Nor is Padgaonkar distinguished for his grasp of Kashmir, or imaginative out-of-the-box solutions.

Several candidates, with superior understanding, experience, acceptability and reach, come to mind, including Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the J&K cadre. He's so highly regarded in the Valley that when he had a near-fatal accident some years ago, thousands prayed for him. There are also eminent individuals from J&K, including educationist Agha Ashraf Ali, economist Haseeb Drabu and vice-chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology Siddiq Wahid (originally from Ladakh).

Among the politicians from the all-parties team who visited Kashmir, two made a particularly favourable public impression: the Communist Party (Marxist)'s Sitaram Yechury and Ram Bilas Paswan. Yechury grasped the nettle by knocking on hardline leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's door. Paswan visited the grieving family of Tufail Ahmad Mattoo, the 17-year-old, whose killing in June sparked a wave of protests.

As for the Valley's politicians, it would have been eminently wise to associate people like Yasin Malik and CPM MLA Yusuf Tarigami with the panel. None of this was done. But let's not focus solely on individuals and ignore the content of their mandate. A democratic government wrestling with a thorny dispute should have initiated the broadest possible consultation to generate the contours of a feasible solution. This alone can adequately clarify the interlocutors' task and enable them to prepare for conciliation. Yet, the government, in its usual imperial style, consulted nobody - not even those involved for years in the Track-II and civil society dialogue with Kashmiris, nor the key individuals engaged in back-channel diplomacy with Pakistan, which by all accounts had almost yielded fruit by 2007.

Instead, it thoughtlessly nominated three panelists and entrusted them with "the responsibility of undertaking a sustained dialogue with the people of J&K to understand their problems and chart a course for the future". Nothing suggests that the panel will "understand" the "problems" through a few desultory visits to Kashmir and that it's better placed to suggest a way forward than dozens of recent civil society initiatives. It's not easy to instil confidence among Kashmir's widely divergent actors and produce worthy, consensual and practical solutions. In all probability, key groups in the Valley will boycott the panel. Kashmir is indeed the burial ground of countless attempts at mediation.

In constituting the interlocutors' panel the way it did, the government is making two blunders. First, the present team patently lacks New Delhi's confidence and a mandate to negotiate a deal - unlike the few past instances of successful reconciliation in Kashmir, like the defusing of the Hazratbal crisis of 1963 (caused by the alleged theft of a relic of the Holy Prophet) or the Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord of 1975. Second, there's no indication that the Centre intends to treat the Kashmir issue qualitatively differently from other separatist/insurgency problems like those associated with the Nagas, Mizos, Bodos and other Northeastern ethnic groups, to whom it has been talking.

So far only the Mizo problem has been "solved"- mainly through financial inducements and lucrative offers of office. But this manipulative strategy hasn't worked with the other ethnic groups. Dragging out talks with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isaac-Muivah), while playing off various ethnic factions against one another, hasn't produced a lasting truce or agreement on a contiguous state of the Nagas. The Kashmiris won't be fobbed off with such manipulative negotiations or with flimsy half-solutions. The Kashmir problem is unlike any other because of its international dimensions and a long history of alienation of the Valley's population from the Indian state, which has violated Article 370 of its own constitution. Military repression of the azaadi movement further aggravated matters after 1989. Pakistan cynically fished in the troubled waters.

Although the 2006 Assembly elections and the 2009 parliamentary elections restored a degree of normality in J&K, the Centre failed to use it to promote conciliation. The outbreak of the stone-pelters' protest this past June was another ominous warning against New Delhi's complacency - and an injunction to correct course. But the state substituted the all-party delegation visit - and now, the interlocutors' team - for strategy.

The interlocutors could spread yet more despair, cynicism and anger in the Valley, obstructing a real solution. The Centre should go back to basics: wide consultation, formulation of a broad-framework solution, exploration of areas of agreement, and a clear mandate for a newly constituted interlocutors' team which carries authority and political credibility.

The writer, a former newspaper editor, is a researcher and peace and human-rights activist based in Delhi. Email: prafulbidwai1@yahoo.co.in