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THE NATION:
KASHMIR TALKS
Peace
Offensive
The Centre's
strategy is to portray the Hurriyat Conference and Pakistan as hurdles
in its quest for a political solution
By
Harinder Baweja
This
game of chess would have flummoxed even Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand.
It's not just the subtle moves and counter moves that make it difficult
for players on both sides of the board, it's also the composition of the
two teams that make this match complex. In the high-stake game between
Delhi and Srinagar, players like Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra, Intelligence
Bureau Director Shyamal Dutta and A.S. Dulat, former raw chief and currently
officer on special duty in the Prime Minister's Office, are pitted against
wily moderates and hardliners drawn from the All Party Hurriyat Conference
(APHC) and foreign mercenaries operating from Pakistan.
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Simmering
differences in the seven-member Hurriyat executive could further
marginalise the conglomerate
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The start
is always simple. And so it was when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
announced a cease-fire on November 19 to coincide with the beginning of
the holy month of Ramzan. The initial response was encouraging. People
in Kashmir breathed easier because security forces were asked not to initiate
seek-and-destroy operations and Pakistan reciprocated by announcing maximum
restraint along the Line of Control; a promise that was borne out by the
artillery guns falling silent. The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen -which had abruptly
called off its offer for a cease-fire in August last year-too changed
tack by not making tripartite talks a precondition.
The moves
till then were in Delhi's control. Vajpayee had made the gesture only
after the backroom players were reasonably sure that the Government had
little to lose. It made a shift from the decade-old law and order approach
to a political one after receiving inputs from even the army that a political
solution must be evolved. Mishra had also ascertained through the raw
that the Hizb-the only indigenous militant group in the Valley-would not
play spoiler this time round. Contact with Abdul Majid Dar-the chief commander
in charge of operations and also the one who had made the cease-fire offer
in July 2000-continued even after Syed Salahuddin, the militant outfit's
Pakistan-based chief called off the cease-fire on August 8.
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| Vajpayee
rejected Farooq's autonomy call but was open to APHC |
The complexities
of the game came out only after the Centre announced a further extension
of its Ramzan cease-fire and the Hurriyat offered to go to Islamabad to
talk to the foreign militants and the Pakistan Government. "A dialogue,''
as APHC Chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat said, "is only a natural corollary
to the cease-fire and the effort to find a sincere solution.'' That the
Hurriyat leaders would be allowed to visit Islamabad too was something
that Delhi had cleared in advance during the talks. Though the ticklish
questions of how far the Centre was willing to go and what it would concede
in its quest for peace-especially since it had rejected Chief Minister
Farooq Abdullah's demand for more autonomy-were left unanswered, the APHC
leaders felt that the trip to Pakistan would give them the status of mediators.
This is
what the Centre wants to avoid. It only wants the delegation to go as
individuals, not as official representatives from India. While moderates
like Bhat and senior leader Abdul Ghani Lone (who was in Pakistan recently
for his son's marriage) are willing to accommodate the Centre's concern,
hardliner S.A.S. Geelani is not willing to play ball. Nor is Pakistan-beyond
a point-for Salahuddin has now queered the pitch by saying that the delegation
must include all seven members of the executive council, including Geelani.
For its
part, Delhi is quite content to see the simmering differences within the
APHC come to a boil. As a Home Ministry official says, "It suits
us to have the APHC seen as a divided house." That the leaders are
wary of each other was apparent at its recent meeting to decide who would
go to Pakistan. When a consensus could not be reached, the decision was
left to the chairman. But this was decided by a vote and not through mutual
agreement.
The Centre
does not want hardliner Geelani, who does not have a passport, to go.
In fact, four of the seven members do not have travel documents-only Lone,
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Maulana Abbas Ansari have passports. Bhat says
he will select the team only if the Centre issues passports before January
15, the day the Hurriyat team is planning to leave. This will be tricky
because the militants in Pakistan have placed a precondition that all
seven must come. If only some go, they may be branded "Delhiwallahs".
The other option for the APHC is to take a tough stand and blame the Centre
for trying to divide and rule.
The Centre's
Kashmir policy has three short-term objectives:
Portray
the Hurriyat leaders as a bickering lot to show that they neither represent
the Kashmiris nor have their interest at heart.
Create a
feeling among Kashmiris that Delhi wants peace through a political solution
but that their representatives are scuttling the process. Delhi hopes
this will make the people pressurise the Hurriyat.
Tell the
world that while India is pro-peace, Pakistan continues to sponsor terrorism
through groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.
The last
will be the easiest to prove for a comparison of the pre-cease-fire and
post-cease-fire violence graph (see table) clearly shows that the only
figure which has shown a decline is the one related to militants killed
and injured. While civilians and security forces continue to be targeted,
the overall figure is lower because the security forces have been asked
to hold their fire. Officers fear they may not be able to do that for
too long because they expect violence to erupt during the upcoming panchayat
elections in the state.
The Centre
too will have to watch the graph, just as it will have to keep itself
alert to any moves by either the APHC or the Pakistan-based foreign militants.
The militants have proved that they can operate without the support of
the indigenous Hizb cadre. This only means that cross-border terrorism
will continue. Till that does not stop, peace will remain elusive.
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