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May 12, 2002
New hope for Kashmiris?
Karan Sawhny argues forcefully for a peace process in Kashmir which would facilitate the quick return to ‘civil’ society
GIVEN the irreconcilable positions of the Indian and the Pakistani governments on Jammu and Kashmir and the rejection by both New Delhi and Islamabad of the third option — independence — the difficulty of putting in place a peace process which would include the diverse forces which are active in the dispute over Kashmir cannot be underestimated. The peace offensive begun by the government of India in the spring of 2000, when the separatist Kashmiri leaders were released, and subsequent initiatives have proven how complex the task of peace building is and how vital is the capacity for ‘staying the course’.
After nearly twelve years of deadly conflict, however, it cannot be doubted that most, if not all, of the many protagonists in the conflict are exhausted and wish an end to the violence. Foremost among those who wish to see a halt to the bloodshed are the people of Jammu and Kashmir. When the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) announced their unilateral but short lived ceasefire in July 2000, a wave of euphoria swept Kashmir. The euphoria did not last long. HM leaders based in Pakistan called off the ceasefire on Islamabad’s instructions. They insisted that Pakistan be included in ‘tripartite’ talks.
This position is still championed by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and other secessionist leaders. New Delhi, however, will not budge on its stand that negotiations between the Indian government and its citizens cannot include a foreign state. The Ramazan ceasefire was undermined by the APHC leaders who insisted on travelling to Pakistan to consult with the military-led government (and the heads of those extremist organizations who are waging jihad against India) before accepting New Delhi’s invitation for talks.
Most analysts of the Kashmir conflict believe it is wishful thinking on the part of New Delhi to expect that General Musharraf will cease supporting the jihad. “A calibrated reduction in the level of violence is possible,” they aver, but the violence will only end as the last act of the negotiations, and until then Islamabad will continue to play the spoiler. It is not hard also to see that Pakistan has no other card to play but to continue indefinitely the low intensity conflict. Essentially Islamabad says, “If Pakistan cannot enjoy the Valley, India will not be allowed to do so.” Unfortunately for the people who live in Jammu and Kashmir, violence and the threat of violence are the only weapons Pakistan has left available to it. The not-so-veiled threats made to Abdul Ghani Lone by Ayesha Andrabi, chief of the Dukhtaran-i-Millat and the attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party’s office and functionaries after its positive response to the invitation for talks with K.C. Pant, are examples of this form of politics.
Nevertheless, the moderate and pro-independence forces in Jammu and Kashmir are showing increasingly that they are no longer paralyzed by fear of those whose only mandate comes from the barrel of the gun.
Armed struggle and military action, historically, are no more than bargaining tools, useful during certain phases of conflict. Unfortunately for the Kashmiri people, they have become ends in themselves to many of the mujahideen who operate in the state. The common man in Kashmir has understood this and, increasingly, influential voices in the Valley are appealing to the jihadi tanzeems (organizations) not to use Kashmir for their own pan-Islamist agendas.
Consequently if, by visiting Pakistan, the Kashmiri leaders are able to influence even one of the extremist groups which make up the Muttahida (United) Jihad Council, to think again and give peace a chance, facilitating their travel to Pakistan would be a risk worth taking.
The issuance of passports to the APHC leaders followed by a tour around Pakistan is more likely to be an embarrassment to the military-led government than to the peace lobby in New Delhi. It is for the Kashmiris themselves to decide how much to associate themselves with the religious fanatics in Pakistan. New Delhi will, therefore, lose nothing by allowing the APHC leaders and other Kashmiris who wish to travel to Pakistan, from doing so.
Kashmiris cannot escape their responsibility to promote reconciliation between India and Pakistan. The Kashmir conflict can only be resolved in the context of a reconciliation and will not occur prior to a paradigm strife in the relations between the “asli aur makkar dushman” (eternal and cunning enemies.)
The Kashmiris must also understand that a ‘final’ settlement of the Kashmir problem is unlikely. In history there are no final settlements, for history never stops. Sheikh Abdullah understood this when he reached an understanding with Indira Gandhi in 1975 based on mutual accommodation. As they mature, the young leaders of the ‘Azaadi movement’ are beginning to understand the wisdom that Sheikh Abdullah displayed when he authorized Mirza Afzal Beg to begin negotiations with the Indian Prime Minister’s plenipotentiary, G. Parthasarthy, in 1975. Professor A.G. Bhat, the present APHC Chairman, reflects Kashmiri public opinion when he asks rhetorically, that if New Delhi offers another such opportunity, “Where can the Kashmiris go?”
A mutual accommodation between New Delhi and the new forces that have emerged in Jammu and Kashmir will be facilitated by the involvement of Pakistan in the peace process, since its government is best placed to curb the activities of the jihadi tanzeems. The invitation extended to General Musharraf was a breakthrough for the peace process. In order that a Pakistan-India engagement resumes, it is vital, however, that the cessation of firing along the Line of Control is sustained and the Pakistani authorities use all the means that they have to stop the movement of armed men across the Line of Control. The first responses from Islamabad and its High Commission in New Delhi give reasons both for optimism and pessimism.
The Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad, Vijay K. Nambiar, stated in a newspaper interview that, “For any dialogue with Pakistan to reach a level of credibility, we need to have a basic environment established which can come about only when Pakistani authorities can give some indication that they are not going to encourage and would put some control on those militant organizations.” He also outlined the thinking behind the appointment of K.C. Pant (Deputy Chairman of India’s Planning Commission) as chief negotiator on Kashmir, saying, “We will have to move in the direction of trying to involve the political groups of Jammu and Kashmir to launch a process of dialogue with us, both to lower violence and to discuss the larger issue of resolving the political differences.”
There is no doubt that there is a long and hard road ahead, which must be traversed on its entire length before peace can return. The Pakistan-based terrorist organizations and their quartermasters, whose survival and clout are dependent on continuing the conflict, will do all in their power to undermine the peace process. Unless the military-led government in Pakistan confronts forcefully the various jihadi tanzeems that the ISI has nurtured, all initiatives will end in failure.
However, there are some positive signs. Pakistan is in crisis. Because “people only accept change when they are faced with necessity and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them”, there is reason to believe that a new sense of realism could inform Pakistan’s actions. Many thinking Pakistanis, including most retired generals, understand that Pakistan cannot flourish if it continues on the path of perpetual hostility to India. The prospect for stability and economic revival in our neighbour is dependent essentially on Islamabad reaching an understanding with India to freeze the Kashmir dispute taking the advice which China regularly gives to its time-tested friends in Pakistan.
Much more important is the position of the Kashmiri people on foreign support to their struggle for azaadi. If the Kashmiri people do not decisively reject the mehmaan mujahideen and their sponsors in their own society, they will always remain prey to those who wish to return to a mediaeval way of life such as has been created in the Taliban-ruled pare of Afghanistan.
Change in Kashmiri public opinion has long been brewing. It began when Kashmiris asked themselves what a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mir Qasim, asked the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi more than a decade ago: “Will Pakistan be able to persuade or militarily push India out of Kashmir?” When the High Commissioner gave the obvious answer, “No”, Mir Qasim Sahib asked why then was Pakistan stoking a militancy, which was slowly decimating a whole generation of Kashmiris.
To this there was no answer. Kashmiris must realize that New Delhi cannot preserve Kashmiriyat if the Kashmiris are themselves not prepared to fight the fascist gun culture which has undermined democratic politics in the Valley.
For the peace process to go forward it is important to strengthen our dedication to reality. As the consequences of miscalculation and failure become obvious, human beings turn naturally to look at what went wrong with their plans. A recent editorial in the well-known Pakistani newspaper Dawn noted: “Ten years of insurgency and a military struggle has only brought economic ruin, political disarray and social impoverishment to the Valley, apart from heavy loss of life. Would it be wise for the Kashmiris and other militant supporters to continue with this strategy when it has failed to win for them any of their goals?”
Pakistan too is bankrupt from its long confrontation with India. It teeters on the verge of default, internal upheaval and accelerating Talibanization. The Pakistani establishment’s grandiose plans for Afghanistan and Central Asia have brought it international isolation and opprobrium. Indians too recognize that the sacrifices that the Kashmiris have made, which, more often than not, have been extracted from them against their will, have given birth to forces and ideas that make a return to the past impossible.
We have to look for a peace that is relevant to the situation in the first decade of the 21st century. A settlement of the Kashmir problem that does not take account of India’s vital interests cannot, however, be a realistic option. Even more any settlement must not be perceived as a victory for the jihadi forces. Yet it must save face all around. New Delhi cannot also accept the proposition that the Hurriyat is the sole representative of public opinion in Jammu and Kashmir. However India too must make itself ready to begin parallel talks on Kashmir — one stream with Pakistan and the other with the various groups in Kashmir, including the Hurriyat.
It is vital also to strengthen the capacity for balance. Balance can also be thought of as the recognition that we cannot always get all that we want The capacity for balance is also the capacity for compromise. Many Kashmiris have struggled for azaadi. Some have for merger with Pakistan. These can only go together if India is perceived as the common enemy of both groups. But those who seek azaadi now understand that Pakistan would waste no time in swallowing up Kashmir if India was not to defend her.
Since there can be no instant solution to the Kashmir problem, it is necessary to strengthen the muscles that give us patience. The processes social, economical, political, and psychological — through which the Kashmir conflict can be resolved will take time to come to fruition. Without the capacity for patience, it will not be possible for the many parties involved in the conflict to get over their differences.
Perhaps the most important capacity that needs to be strengthened is the capacity to take responsibility for oneself. No one is going to bail out India and Pakistan from the dangers of their conflict over Kashmir if they themselves do not make the effort or take the necessary risks. This is even truer for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Before the Indian prime minister announced the Ramazan ceasefire, no one thought that a peace process was possible.
Because peace in Kashmir is too important to be left to the professional diplomats, soldiers and politicians, the best advice is that which Lord Eric Avebury gave in Gurgaon to a gathering of Kashmiri political activists: “The ownership of the peace process must be seized by the Kashmiri people.” ... Kashmiri public opinion must drive the peace process in a direction which quickly brings about a return to ‘civil’ society, if they are to enjoy, soon, the fruits of peace. By decisively offering to get off the beaten track and taking risks, the Indian prime minister A.B. Vajpayee has made himself vulnerable to the hardliners in the country. It is both for the people of Kashmir as well as Pakistan’s leaders to realize that this opportunity, if lost, is unlikely to come again.
Excerpts from
Kashmir: How far can Vajpayee and Musharraf go?
Edited by Karan R. Sawhny
Peace Publications, S-123 Panchshila Park, New Delhi-110 017.
Email: peacepubs@yahoo.co.in
ISBN 81-87345-00-4 238pp. Indian Rs250
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