|
J&K: The
Bus to Peace remains Stalled
Praveen
Swami
The bus to peace in Jammu and Kashmir
(J&K) may be headed to that alternate destination its passengers
know so well: a place called 'impasse'.
Last month, Pakistan helped restore Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah
Geelani to the centre-stage in J&K politics, giving both Islamabad
and the jihadi groups it backs a voice in Srinagar. Now, Islamabad
seems to be considering what message it wishes to deliver from its
newly-acquired pulpit. In New Delhi for talks with his Indian
counterpart, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri,
summoned the rival secessionist leaders from J&K for a parallel
stream of negotiations. Nothing is known of what transpired between
Geelani and Kasuri at the two meetings they held on September 5,
2004. Geelani's centrist rival, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, told
journalists he emphasised the need for softer borders and re-uniting
divided families; on Kasuri's response, the Srinagar religious
leader was silent.
Secessionist politicians in Srinagar expect that Kasuri will have
placed considerable pressure on Mirwaiz Farooq to temper his
opposition to the Islamist faction of the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference (APHC) led by Geelani, and backed by the Jamaat-e-Islami
(JeI) - and to reduce the visibility of the pro-dialogue, centrist
factions he heads. Hit by the assassination of several close
relatives and aides, frightened by the burning down of his seminary,
under threat from both the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin (HM) and
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), and without an heir to carry on his clerical
legacy, Mirwaiz Farooq may well choose the second option. Yet, the
stakes for the centrists he represents are also high. Should they
fail to shape a political agenda in coming weeks, Geelani's position
will consolidate - and hopes that centrists will be able to directly
negotiate a peace with New Delhi would receive a potentially fatal
blow.
In recent weeks, Geelani has had considerable success in drawing in
fringe groupings from among J&K secessionists into the ranks of his
party. On August 30, the People's League chairman Sheikh Abdul Aziz
formally joined the Geelani faction of the APHC. Mirwaiz Farooq's
APHC, he claimed, had "deviated from the Hurriyat constitution and
entered into talks [with the Indian government]", which he described
as "a futile exercise". Aziz said his organisation would only
participate in three-way talks between India, Pakistan and
representatives of the people of J&K, a formulation New Delhi has
traditionally rejected. APHC centrists had begun to abandon this
formulation in the wake of the Kargil war, instead pushing for
direct dialogue with New Delhi.
Days later, on September 3, the chairman of Mahaz-e-Azadi, Azam
Inqilabi, urged non-aligned secessionist groups, notably Yasin
Malik's Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and Shabbir Shah's
Democratic Freedom Party, to join Geelani. Speaking to journalists
in Srinagar on September 3, Inqilabi used a formulation similar to
that of Aziz, asserting that future dialogue needed to involve not
just India and Pakistan, but representatives of Kashmir. Although
both Malik and Shah have stayed away from the centrist APHC's
dialogue with New Delhi, and sought for some time to reconcile the
warring faction's, these secessionist leaders have so far resisted
being corralled into Geelani's formation.
Geelani, interestingly, has adopted a position of opposition to any
dialogue - including the ongoing process between India and Pakistan.
A recent statement issued by his APHC faction said that confidence
building measures like the opening of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad
route, "or sticking to the ego for menial interests" would not help
solve the conflict in J&K. The press release had opposed the
scheduled meeting between Kasuri and India's Foreign Minister,
Natwar Singh, arguing that that bilateral talks had historically
failed to produce workable solutions to the problem. "These talks
are doomed to fail until the people of Jammu & Kashmir are
associated with the process", the statement read. Geelani reiterated
this position after speaking to Kasuri, declaring, "bilateral
dialogue has no effect on ground situation in J&K. Until the
contentious issue of J&K is resolved, nothing will be achieved. All
efforts are in vain."
This rejectionist polemic was provoked by the killing of the HM's
'intelligence chief', Abdul Rashid Dar, on the eve of the Kasuri-Singh
meeting. Operating under the alias Tariq Aziz, Dar had served over
the past eight years as the HM's 'Deputy District Commander' and
'District Commander' in Pulwama, before assuming charge of its
'intelligence wing'. Indian forces have not taken responsibility for
Dar's killing, but the Geelani faction of the Hurriyat said he had
been "martyred". Representatives of the group later visited Dar's
family. Significantly, the HM itself said nothing on Dar's killing -
a sign of how similar Geelani's activities now are to those of a
political wing of the grouping.
At least some believe Geelani's rejectionist position could have
Pakistan's tacit support, as a means of slowing down the dialogue
and confidence-building measures until major political concessions
by India are forthcoming. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
speaking before the talks began, made it clear that further
political progress would depend on an end to cross-border terrorism,
something Pakistan has repeatedly promised in the past. Within
Pakistan's Kashmir-policy establishment, however, there seems to be
considerable confusion on the issue, with some arguing that an end
to violence will strip that country of the sole leverage it has to
extract concessions from India.
Desperate for some face-saving measures which would give a
resumption of dialogue with New Delhi political saleability among
their constituency, the centrist APHC leadership is finding the
political climate inhospitable. On August 31, the centrist APHC -
like the Islamist APHC - attacked the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
Government's handling of J&K, criticising it for placing "conditions
and pre-conditions" for dialogue. The grouping, which had held two
rounds of dialogue with the earlier National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
Government, said that both India and Pakistan had at that time
realised the futility of rigid positions, and had decided to move
ahead. However, it argued, the coming to power of the UPA Government
had meant that the situation had "returned to square one".
What isn't clear is just what New Delhi can do to bring the
centrists back on board. Proposals like a phased reduction in troop
strength in J&K, or a unilateral ceasefire, are simply unworkable as
long as terrorist violence continues. Nor can the centrists deliver
anything to New Delhi in return, most notably a reduction in levels
of violence. Islamists like Geelani, for their part, have no real
reason to allow dialogue to go ahead as long as India is unwilling
to make the kinds of significant territorial concessions that would
be acceptable to Pakistan. Pakistan, in turn, has brought about a
phased reduction in levels of support to terror since 2002, but
seems unwilling to go further until Indian concessions are made.
India cannot make those concessions, because of their implications
for its sovereignty and domestic political opinion.
So what might happen next? Almost unnoticed by observers, Kasuri
held out a threat. Kashmiri groups, he said on September 5, had
"complained that human rights violations had increased since
November." Its hard to see just what factual basis Kasuri's claim
has - both killings of terrorists and of civilians by Indian forces
are at record lows this year - but infiltration had fallen sharply
from December 2003, as part of a calibrated Pakistani response to
open up the way for talks with New Delhi. Read through this prism,
Kasuri could be signalling that in the absence of a breakthrough, or
at least a reduction in Indian military presence in J&K,
cross-border terrorism will be unleashed at full-scale levels again.
With 17 Brigades tied down in Wana, the Pakistan Army may be feeling
insecure about its eastern flanks and wish to ensure that Indian
forces are occupied.
The fact is, since the peace process began in 2000, the fundamentals
of the problem in J&K have not changed - and seem unlikely to do so
any time soon.
Praveen
Swami
is the
New Delhi Chief of
Bureau, Frontline magazine, and also writes for its
sister publication, The Hindu
|
