|
New Delhi, Accept the Errors
WSN Bureau
 India was very
happy and feeling smug only a couple of months ago about
Kashmir.
As if
Kashmir
problem had been solved. Cross-border infiltration was at an
all-time low, tourist arrivals were breaking records, and the
political system was gearing itself for the coming election in
October. All soundings showed that the turnout in the Valley was
going to be high—if not the 71 per cent of 1983 and 72 per cent of
1977 then certainly far higher than the 30 per cent of 2002.
New Delhi
refused to forgive the Hurriyat Conference for boycotting the round
table discussions with the prime minister and it was staring at
political irrelevance. The party decided to boycott the election,
but New
Delhi
believed this was because the Hurriyat had been left with no
platform from which to advocate rejection of the polls. Most of the
suggestions that their leaders had aired from time to time as a
possible basis for a reconciliation between Kashmir nationalists and
Delhi had been appropriated by the National Conference and PDP.
 The Hurriyat, in
any case, was at sixes and sevens with each other and with other
representatives of Kashmiriyat, like Yasin Malik. So even if they
did change their minds and fight the election, they were almost
certain to be decimated.
New Delhi,
therefore, had to do nothing but sit back, ensure a fair election,
and let the exercise of democratic power bring the insurgency and
alienation in the Valley gradually to an end.
This was like
living in the land of make-believe. The reason why the Hurriyat
could not fight an election was not that it stood to lose, but that
fighting an election under the existing dispensation would amount to
a betrayal of the 60,000 or so Kashmiris who had died in the last 18
years. It is this, not electoral arithmetic, that would destroy
them. Indeed, it would put their very lives in danger.
The alienation
had gone too deep to be erased by simply conceding what the
Kashmiris should never have been deprived of in the first place. Too
many families had lost children, siblings and breadwinners; too many
had been plunged into a vale of sorrow from which they would never
fully emerge. A political settlement that gave meaning to the death
of their loved ones was the indispensable first requirement. Without
it, Kashmiris might vote, but they would do so because it was better
to live under a government of their choice than the one thrust upon
them by
New Delhi. The bitterness would remain—a time bomb waiting for
someone to light the fuse.
 That bomb has
exploded. Since the middle of June,
Kashmir has been
engulfed in an expanding wave of violence that has left hundreds,
including 60 policemen injured, and four dead. It has come close to
destroying the middle ground in Kashmiri nationalist politics. It
has brought Ali Shah Geelani, the arch enemy of any ongoing
relationship with India, back into centre stage, after five years in
the wilderness.
The fuse was
laid by three interconnected decisions: the creation, in 2000, of
the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) with the governor to head it,
if he was a Hindu; the extension of the pilgrimage period this year
from one to two months; and a proposal to acquire a large tract of
land, from Pahalgam to Amarnath, and from Baltal (on the route from
Sonamarg) to Amarnath, to be administered by the SASB. It was lit on
May 26 when the Ghulam Nabi Azad government took the decision to
transfer 39.88 hectares of forest land to the SASB. Kashmiris were
easily convinced that this was the beginning of a sequestration of
land to create a permanent Hindu presence in the Valley.
India tried to
pass off the creation of the SASB as an attempt to impart
professionalism to the management of pilgrimage, and check
littering, pollution and proliferation of ugly temporary and
permanent structures on the route to the shrine. But the provision
that the SASB would be headed by the governor made it a creature of
the Centre, and a direct imposition on the people of
Kashmir.
Indeed, this was rubbed into the Kashmiris in early June when the
SASB refused to answer a question posed by an MLA in the legislature
about the transfer of forest land to it on the grounds that the
governor was not answerable to the state legislature.
 As if that was
not bad enough, the condition that the governor could head the SASB
only if he was a Hindu turned the body into a tool for the injection
of communalism into what was striving with all its might to remain a
secular, syncretic society. Clearly, the Congress-led government,
headed by a chief minister from Doda district in
Jammu, was
intent upon warding off the BJP's challenge in
Jammu
by propitiating Hindu sentiment, and quietly transferred 39.88
hectare of forest land to the SASB. This confirmed the Kashmiris'
worst fears.
The J&K
cabinet's decision to rescind the transfer of land has been hailed
by the 'mainstream parties' as a victory for the people and a
vindication of democracy, but it is too little and has come far too
late. Humpty Dumpty is in pieces. On June 19, the two factions of
Hurriyat, which split in 2003, came together again but they did so
on terms that amount to a virtual surrender by the Mirwaiz Umer
Farooq group to Geelani. The Mirwaiz, accompanied by Shabbir Shah,
went to Geelani's house. And it was Geelani who addressed the media
after their 6-hour unity talks. He spelt out the purpose: to fight 'India's
cultural aggression in Kashmir'. Geelani also told the media that
the Mirwaiz faction had accepted that the purpose of Kashmir's
struggle was the holding of a plebiscite on 'tripartite' discussions
between India, Pakistan and the Hurriyat. The only concession to the
Hurriyat (Mirwaiz) was a commitment to carry on the struggle
peacefully.
 As for the
Mirwaiz, his statement to the media underlines the magnitude of
India's
defeat in winning the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri nationalist
core in the Valley: "India and its stooges are killing Kashmiris and
occupying their land. The Hurriyat has decided to have a joint
strategy to tackle it, as it is the question of our future. We have
to expose New Delhi's nefarious designs. We discussed India's
cultural aggression on Kashmir. I'm happy that our efforts are going
in the right direction." These are not the measured tones of the
person who stood up against mounting pressure within the Valley and
in Pakistan for two years as he stoutly defended solutions for
Kashmir
that would accept the constraints that
India and
Pakistan were likely to impose on its sovereignty.
New Delhi has
two choices: it can dismiss Mirwaiz and Geelani as men sold to
Pakistan, doing Pakistan's bidding.It can point to the Mirwaiz's
visit to Pakistan, to the well-known fact that both branches of
Hurriyat have obtained their financial sustenance from Pakistan, and
to Islamabad's near-simultaneous decision to appoint a task force to
raise international awareness on the Kashmir issue, and claim all
this is part of a fresh conspiracy to destabilise peace in Kashmir,
which should be met by force.
Or it can accept
the magnitude of its political insensitivity, and of Azad's folly.
The Amarnath yatra has become an annual inundation of
Kashmir by
people imbued with a Hindu fervour that is alien even to the Pandits
of the Valley.
New Delhi needs
to accept the errors that have been committed.
29
July, 2008
|
Read Also