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THE NATION:
KASHMIR CEASE-FIRE
In
Second Gear
The Centre's
divide and deal policy gathers pace even as the Hurriyat squabbles over
the mechanics
By Ramesh
Vinayaka in Srinagar
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| Hurriyat
leaders Mirwaiz Omar Farooq
and Abdul Ghani Bhat |
Nothing
expresses the shifting realities in violence-torn Kashmir more eloquently
than the nuances, the subtleties and the undercurrents. The past week
had all of these and more. Shortly before the Ramzan cease-fire was to
expire, Delhi rolled the dice again by extending the truce gambit by one
more month. Surprisingly, Pakistan's response this time was swift and
unexpected. Within hours of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's announcement
in Parliament, Islamabad declared a partial pullout of its troops on the
loc.
India and
Pakistan appeared to move into second gear as they rolled down the bumpy
road to peace. Pakistan's decision on troop reduction seemed also to be
aimed at denying the tactical and diplomatic brownie points that Delhi
was hoping to score by extending the cease-fire. It also cleverly skirted
India's "stop-cross-border-terrorism" insistence-a litmus test
for breaking the ice on frozen bilateral ties. That India would reciprocate
Pakistan's latest gesture-seen by a sceptical army as a normal winter
withdrawal-by thinning deployment along the loc looked a slim possibility,
given its vulnerability to infiltration. But from the Vajpayee Government's
stand point, an extended truce lends it leverage-and time-to step up the
heat on Islamabad to rein in jehad groups in the Valley.
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| Friday
prayers at a Srinagar mosque |
The Centre's
move draws not so much on the decline of militancy in Kashmir-which has
not abated since the army suspended operations-as on signals of a conflict
within the separatist All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). It took less
than three weeks of truce to spark a feud in the APHC-a disparate conglomerate
of 23-odd political and militant groups held together solely by a doggedly
pro-secession agenda-and bring their ideological contradictions to a boil.
A section
of the Hurriyat comprises those who have tempered their separatist mooring
with pragmatism in view of the changed groundswell in the Valley and is
not averse to breaking bread with the Centre without insisting on including
Pakistan in the talks. Arrayed against them are the tenaciously pro-Pakistan
elements led by long-time Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani,
who loathes any deviation from the "no-Pakistan-no-talks" stance
for being a compromise on the APHC's secessionist agenda.
The man
emerging as a prime mover in the Hurriyat is Abdul Ghani Lone, a maverick
politician known to be the point man of Delhi's Track Two diplomacy with
the APHC. Lone has not turned moderate but has been shrewdly chartering
a pro-dialogue approach that accords more weight to Delhi's compulsions
in not having tripartite talks on the Kashmir imbroglio.
Lone created
a major flutter by audaciously asking foreign militants to leave Kashmir
in the event of a political dialogue with the Centre-a statement that
raised the hackles of the pro-Pakistan lobby and sparked off clashes at
a human rights seminar on December 10. But Lone is unfazed. "Foreigners
cannot be allowed to call the shots," he says, adding, "Militants
are not masters of the Kashmir movement." Significantly, Lone's controversial
utterances have led the police to beef up his security. It was not a mere
coincidence that the Rawalpindi-based Amanullah Khan, chief of the Jammu
and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), whose daughter married Lone's son
in November, has also debunked the foreign mercenaries' presence in the
Valley as "very dangerous" for Kashmiris.
Geelani,
by contrast, represents those who revere foreign mercenaries as "guest
militants" fighting jehad for Kashmiris. But he may soon find himself
isolated within the Hurriyat, considering that Lone's pro-dialogue antics
are getting the tacit support of other leaders like Yasin Malik, chairman
of the JKLF in Kashmir, and Mirwaiz Omar Farooq. Malik and Farooq represent
the pro-Azadi sentiment that still enjoys support among pockets of Kashmiris.
In their reckoning, a formal dialogue with the Centre, even if exploratory,
would establish Hurriyat's credentials as a "third force" and
give it an edge over armed militants.
Understandably,
the pro-dialogue section is desperate for an invitation to talks. "An
extended cease-fire without a political initiative adds up to zero,"
says Farooq. But Geelani and his ilk view the Centre's peace overtures
with suspicion. They apprehend that any contact with Delhi without extracting
an explicit commitment on Kashmir's disputed status and tripartite talks
involving Pakistan would chip away at the APHC's credibility in the separatist
constituency in Kashmir. "Nothing short of the UN Resolution on Kashmir
is acceptable to the Hurriyat," says Geelani, whose only vocal supporter
in the APHC executive is Sheikh Aziz, the militant commander-turned-chief
of the People's League.
Lone and
his fellow travellers want to steer clear of such intransigence and lofty
illusions. "With such a fixed mindset, dialogue will have to wait
till qayamat (doomsday)," says Lone, adding that Geelani's fear are
rooted in a sense of insecurity. Despite being synonymous with the Jamaat-e-Islami
in Kashmir, Geelani's clout in the parent fundamentalist outfit has been
on the wane. However, it would be incorrect to underestimate Geelani's
capacity to veto any Hurriyat move.
Despite
Hurriyat leaders' claim of having buried their differences, the mistrust
runs deep. Recently, Geelani made a big fuss when five APHC leaders, including
its chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat, visited Delhi. He suspected that they could
be secretly cosying up to the Centre. "Mutual suspicions are rife
in the Hurriyat," admits Bhat. "But that serves as a caution
against any one of us faltering on the common agenda."
So bad is
the mistrust that the Hurriyat had to endorse the truce for a second time
after a stormy session on December 17. Though the verbal duels at the
meeting were hushed up, a violent clash outside the APHC headquarters
brought the differences into the open. Police had to intervene to enforce
a "truce" on the warring factions.
The resurgence
of the animosity between pro-Azadi proponents and those favouring Kashmir's
merger with Pakistan could well portend a new rift among separatists.
This is exactly what Delhi is waiting for because it offers a "divide-and-deal"
opportunity to the Centre. Even Lone, unsure of support from other APHC
leaders for his pro-talks antics, is sticking to a hawkish posture.
But the
Centre's expectations of an intensified tug of war within the APHC may
prove as misplaced as the separatists' hope for an exclusive offer for
talks from Delhi. After Vajpayee hinted that the Government would consider
granting permission to Hurriyat leaders to visit Pakistan, the secessionist
outfit lost no time in deciding that it would send a team to Pakistan
on January 15 to talk to militant leaders based there and convince them
to agree to the cease-fire. "The APHC needs space to manoeuvre to
convert the fragile cease-fire into a two-way truce," says Malik.
The Hurriyat sees this as a passport to gain credibility as the sole representative
of the Kashmiris. By opening a direct channel with militants, it also
hopes to establish its primacy in any dialogue on Kashmir.
However,
it seems the Hurriyat has overestimated its clout with militants. Even
the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, which had called the July cease-fire, has poured
scorn on the APHC for endorsing the truce. And, contrary to Geelani's
claim that the "militants are our sons", the Jamaat-e-Islami
chief G.M. Bhat has declared that "there is no meeting ground between
the Hurriyat and militants".
Whether
the Hurriyat would be permitted to travel to Pakistan is still unclear.
What is, is that the Centre is wary of obliging the APHC with any gesture
that could legitimise it as a "third party" in the Kashmir issue.
But with Delhi pursuing its Kashmir agenda and bilateral overtures towards
Pakistan on separate footings, the Hurriyat is in for a disappointment.
The Centre
now plans to announce the ground rules for talks on Kashmir that would
include mainstream parties such as the National Conference. The Hurriyat
is unwilling to be a party to a solution that includes "a crowd of
political parties", says Bhat. Such strident noises notwithstanding,
violence-weary Kashmiris are praying that an extended cease-fire will
usher in peace.
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