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THE NATION:
KASHMIR CEASE-FIRE
A
Zig Zag Road
The second
truce in five months raises hopes but with Pakistan-based militants unrelenting,
it will be a tortuous process
By
Ramesh Vinayak in Srinagar
In
Kashmir even a brief spell of peace, however tenuous, is a cause for celebration.
So on November 29, the day Ramzan began and the unilateral cease-fire
for the holy month declared by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee became
operative, an unusually festive air swept through the Valley. By noon
on that wintry day in Srinagar even reports of militants blowing up an
army vehicle in Anantnag killing four soldiers didn't dissuade crowds
from thronging Lal Chowk. By evening as the sun dipped, the jawans at
the ubiquitous Border Security Force (BSF) checkpoints, who usually hunker
down for the night with their rifles ready, were busy hoisting banners
offering Ramzan greetings. Even Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, former Union home
minister and now leader of the People's Democratic Party acknowledged:
"The peace overture is not a snow flake that will melt away quickly.
People are sure to develop a stake in it."
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| A jawan
buys provisions in dwontown Srinagar |
That's the
hope with which Vajpayee's Government launched its biggest Kashmir initiative
since the July offer to talk to the Hizb-ul Mujahideen, the largest militant
outfit in the Valley. Home Minister L.K. Advani upped the ante by characterising
the cease-fire as the second most important gesture towards Pakistan by
Vajpayee after the historic Lahore bus yatra. Speaking at a function at
Wagah on the Indo-Pakistan border on November 27, the gateway of Vajpayee's
bus diplomacy in February 1999, Advani asked Islamabad to demonstrate
its sincerity by halting the training and funding of mujahideen against
India in Kashmir. "The cease-fire is not only addressed to militants
but also to Pakistan," said Advani.
Raising
the stakes on its latest Kashmir gambit is a deft tactical move by India
to put Pakistan on the back foot but there are also strategic considerations.
The truce initiative is designed to encash some of the gains of the shortlived
initiative in July to smoke the peace pipe with the Hizb. Though it floundered
rather quickly, it proved internationally beneficial for India, with western
countries appreciative of its peace overtures. Apart from that the offer
for talks caused a deep rift in the Hizb cadres, widening the gulf between
its two main leaders, Syed Salahuddin and Abdul Majid Dar. It also showed
just how marginalised the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) had become
in Kashmir politics.
There was
an unintended fallout for the Central Government though. Jammu and Kashmir
Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, fearing that he was being sidelined, raised
the vexatious question of autonomy for the state and threatened to pull
out of the National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre.
This time
though the Centre seems to have thought its moves better. In Parliament,
Vajpayee snuffed out any political rumblings in his own alliance by curtly
shutting up Shiv Sena MPs when they tried to raise a noise over the cessation
of military operations. Other NDA partners who may have had their doubts
got the message and backed the prime minister. The Congress party, apart
from a few dissenting murmurs, too has been largely silent. By timing
it to coincide with the holy month, Vajpayee was not only playing to popular
sentiments but also directly hitting out at militant groups that in the
past used Ramzan as a time to announce that they are continuing their
"jehad" for Kashmir with a renewed zeal. The message: Ramzan
can also be seen as a time to explore peace.
The Government's
Kashmiris-want-peace rhetoric also comes at a time when there is clear
evidence of the Valley's growing exasperation with spiralling militancy,
as was evident last month in the huge outpouring of public grief at the
killing of prominent Shia leader Agha Mehdi in a landmine blast. The Government
realises too that though its security forces notched up an all-time high
kill rate against militants this year (741 until October end), they continue
to remain locked in a no-win situation. So the idea is to keep the guns
silent in favour of a political route before the groundswell for peace
can ebb away. Internationally, Vajpayee is also demonstrating that he
continues to be a man of peace despite being let down repeatedly by Pakistan.
It also eases the growing pressure to resume a formal dialogue with Pakistan
which the Government has maintained is untenable till its hostile neighbour
ends all cross-border terrorism.
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