NEW DELHI: For decades, India and Pakistan have vied to claim possession of the elusive healing elixir for Jammu and Kashmir. As the decks were cleared on Friday for Mufti Mohammed Sayeed of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to become the next chief minister of the state, the initiative to repair strained ties between its two suitors seemed to have moved to Srinagar.

The people of Jammu and Kashmir created the veritable wag-the-dog scenario for India. They gave Mr Sayeed and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a nearly equal mandate to cobble a coalition in the state following recent inconclusive elections. The BJP swept a heavily Hindu Jammu and PDP emerged as the major player in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley.

Know more: PDP-BJP alliance could be a ‘paradigm shift’ in Kashmir’s history: Mufti

The former adversaries agonised for weeks over the consequences of coming together but agreed on Friday to make history on Sunday when Mr Mufti will be sworn in. The bear hug between a very eager Mr Modi and a ponderous-looking Mr Sayeed at the prime minister’s residence on Friday set up what would be the BJP’s first episode to sit with the state’s treasury benches, that too with a party they regarded separatist.

The fact that Mr Sayeed mentioned three names when he was in Delhi for the meeting with the prime minister — Pervez Musharraf, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh — as people who may had brought possible solutions to the table for Kashmir, could indicate a general direction he has in mind.

Breaking from convention, Mr Modi will attend Mr Sayeed’s swearing and would perhaps share his version of the direction to both, Delhi’s ties with the state and with Pakistan. The conventional wisdom articulated in media reports has it that there are two or three compromises, primarily for the BJP.

Though the common minimum programme agreed between them will be announced within hours after the government is installed, it is widely believed that some tweaking of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is on the anvil. Inclu­sion of the All Parties Hurriyat Confer­ence in talks with Delhi if not right away with Pakistan could be expected.

Several explanations have been offered for Indian Foreign Secre­tary S. Jaishankar’s proposed visit to Islamabad from Tuesday. Presi­dent Barack Obama’s advice and Arvind Kejriwal’s disruption of Mr Modi’s march on Delhi have no doubt played a useful hand. 

India has officially maintained that Mr Jaishankar is travelling as part of Delhi’s plans to stay in touch with Saarc neighbours. Mr Sayeed had, however, made resumption of talks with Pakistan a non-negotiable condition for aligning with the BJP in Kashmir. Mr Jaishan­kar’s visit comes after that, not before.

Given these positive possibilities for India and Pakistan, eyebrows have been raised at Islamabad’s apparent indifferent response bordering on the negative. The loud warning from Pakistan’s army chief to India to desist from cross-border firing could be a ploy to placate the hardliners in Islamabad’s Kashmir lobby.

In a similar way, the fact that Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi last week refused to grant a visa to Naeem Akhtar, the chief PDP spokesperson, for a Track II conference in Islamabad, could be a way of humouring Kashmir’s Hurriyat factions.

Mr Akhtar had apparently applied for a visa to travel to Islamabad for an event being jointly organised by Jinnah Institute and the New Delhi-based Cen­tre for Dialogue and Reconciliation. The institute is presided over by Sherry Rehman, former Pakistan Ambassador to the US and ex-minister. Reports said the visa denial could have been Pakis­tan’s way to avert any fallout on the foreign secretary’s visit. Indian government had called off the talks scheduled for August 25 last year in Islamabad after the Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit met Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi barely a week before the event.

Mr Sayeed recalled that he had met Mr Modi in 2002 in the Chief Ministers’ conference. “For the last two months, a common ground was being prepared. This is meeting of North Pole and South Pole,” he said. “History has given us a chance to work for bringing peace and development in the state. We should respect the mandate of the people. In Jammu, BJP has got the mandate while in Kashmir, PDP has got it.”

Mr Sayeed said both he and Mr Modi shared a dream to make Jammu and Kashmir a peaceful place and Pakistan also has a role in this. “I want to repeat history. We will give the state a healing touch,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015

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