Times of India, April 19, 2006
Kashmir Revisited
DILEEP PADGAONKAR
New York: Kashmiri separatists in India, Pakistan and in the West now appear to acknowledge the pertinence of the adage that the best is often the enemy of the good. In public, as I found out during an international conference held here at the end of February, some speakers did harp on familiar themes: 'self-determination' for the people of the 'disputed territory' in accordance with the 1948 resolutions of the UN Security Council and on the 'atrocities' committed by the Indian 'occupation' forces. But the organisers of the meeting, the US-based International Educational Development and the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), politely yet firmly reminded the speakers that such rhetoric has outlived its time.
The talk inside, and especially outside, the conference hall focussed on the need to adopt what Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Executive Director of KAC, called a "pragmatic, realistic and tangible strategy" to resolve the vexed issue. The clearest indications of such a strategy can be found in what figures, or, more importantly, does not figure in the declaration unanimously adopted at the end of the conference. There is, to begin with, no reference to the UN resolutions, let alone to 'atrocities' by 'occupation' forces or to the 'sacrifices' of the 'freedom fighters'. The document, in a bid to avoid any offensive language, urges both state and non-state actors to uphold human rights in full measure. And, aware of New Delhi's stand on the matter, it leaves out anything that smacks of third party intervention.
Equally significant is the emphasis in the document on the protection of the rights of minorities "at all costs". To drive home the point it insists that "members of the Pandit community displaced in the recent past should be facilitated to return and their rehabilitation (should be) guaranteed." Such a return alone, according to several speakers, would ensure that Kashmiriyat, the force that has sustained the people of Kashmir throughout its history, reigns supreme in the strife-torn state once again.
At the very beginning the declaration welcomes the start of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service across the Line of Control. Speakers, distancing themselves from hardliners who have rubbished the bus service, indeed urged that more such routes should be opened to allow for a seamless flow of people, goods and services between the divided portions of the state.
This shift in the approach suggests that the vast majority of separatists have realised at long last the futility of clamouring for the accession of the Valley to Pakistan, or for the formation of an independent, sovereign entity, or even for an arrangement jointly supervised by India and Pakistan. They doubtless also recognise that the dynamics of the burgeoning relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad are such that anything that is seen to thwart it will simply fall by the wayside.
President Musharraf seems to be willing to seek a people-centred rather than a territoriality-centred solution to the issue. He said so explicitly to Mirwaiz Omar Farooq during their recent meeting in Amsterdam. Now therefore is the moment for New Delhi to seize and retain the initiative of the peace process. Let it involve the separatists, including the Pakistan-based militants of the Hizbul Mujahideen, in formal talks with the Centre. Allow them to go wherever they wish to in order to meet anyone of their choosing.
Steps are also required to reduce the pervasive sense of fear in the Valley. The release of 'political' prisoners, a more discreet presence of the armed forces and the scrapping of the draconian anti-terrorist laws should go a long way to strengthen India's hands when the time comes to hammer out a solution to the issue which leaves no stake-holder burdened with a sense of bitterness, humiliation or injustice.
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