Peace with Pakistan: Can Modi-Mufti open up J&K borders?
When Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb Drabu meets the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur in early May, you can be sure the BJP-PDP wheel will come full circle. Drabu has been invited to spend a couple of days at the RSS headquarters and “explain Kashmir” both to the willing and unwilling. It may not be a bad idea, considering the nation’s most famous pracharak-prime minister has not so long ago decided to support the so-called “soft separatist” PDP’s agenda in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley and other parts of the state.
Several differences
Much has been said and written about the RSS/BJP’s special vindication in returning to a place that is synonymous with Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee’s much-vaunted criticism of the Congress decision to accord special status to J&K. At the time Mukherjee had declared, “Ek desh mein do vidhan, do pradhan aur do nishan nahin chalenge.” (There cannot be two constitutions, two prime ministers and two flags in one country). And yet the most interesting aspect of Narendra Modi’s decision to ally with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is not his special interest in pursuing the flowering of the lotus in the Kashmir Valley – that is an, admittedly prosaic, given – but the fact that Modi and Mufti have decided to put their several differences aside to come together and attempt another breakthrough between India and Pakistan.
The idea is so simple that it’s almost beautiful. It’s also ready-made for a Manmohan Desai-type big Bollywood ending in which a partnership – note, not a union – of twins separated at birth is greeted with much cathartic grief and joy. Imagine the scene dissolving as newly minted heroes Fawad Khan and Sonam Kapoor sing the evergreen "Kashmir Ki Kali" number in a field full of looming chinar trees.
So before I get ahead of myself in this self-indulgent mixing of metaphors let me explain: The union of Modi and Mufti in the J&K experiment, between a right-wing party and a centre-right separatism, is the perfect wedge to once again pry open the “frozen turbulence” (to take a leaf from the book of the former BJP governor in the state, Jagmohan) that is the divided state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Mufti has been here before, when as chief minister ten years ago in 2005, then in alliance with Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party, he pushed for the inauguration of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus across the Line of Control to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. I vividly remember that April day when ordinary Kashmiri men and women came out of their homes in Baramullah as the first bus from PoK rolled in from the LoC. Only the day before in Srinagar, militants had burnt down the Tourist Reception Centre. But Mufti was undeterred.
Perfect harmony
As the Pakistani bus, festooned with the green Pakistani flag drove through, people clapped wildly. It was like an orchestra, a perfect harmony of hand-clapping that sent the goosebumps crawling up our skins – those of us who had the privilege to witness this immense outpouring of controlled joy, as well as the grief of unnecessary separation from loved ones that states decree with the lines they draw on the map.
That cross-LoC bus is as good as dead these days. It still rattles along, but it’s often empty or has one or two passengers, courtesy the stultifying travel permit and security clearance procedures put in by bureaucrats – including India’s incumbent ambassador to the US Arun Singh, who as joint secretary in charge of Pakistan in the ministry of external affairs at the time insisted that rigid travel procedures that resembled tough visa conditions be incorporated into the travel permit – has practically rendered that confidence-building measure redundant.
Opening up
Imagine, therefore, what Modi-Mufti are contemplating today, thereby making permanent their places in history. Just as he did the daring – and completely right legally – thing by releasing Masarat Alam, Mufti is expected to open up to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in ways that have never been seen before. There will be trade, travel, joint cooperation in saving the environment – such as dealing with the Jhelum which, disdainful of borders and lines of control, criss-crosses between the two countries – and perhaps, even tourism.
Notice that a similar plan of action between the two Kashmirs was in 2007 ready to be signed between then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. The plan never came to pass because history intervened…
The reason the Modi-Mufti partnership is special because Kashmir, once again, lies at the centre of the possibility of a new détente between India and Pakistan. Mufti can only pull off an opening-up between the two Kashmirs if Modi can support him on the one hand and make peace with Nawaz Sharif on the other. In fact that’s what Modi has done, by sending foreign secretary S Jaishankar to Pakistan to offer the olive branch.
Modi has one year to invoke “saam, daam, dand, bhed” (to offer advice, to buy out the antagonist, to punish, to exploit), the many colours of his Chanakya-niti. With Pakistan set to host the SAARC summit in 2016, the intervening months must be well utilised by Mufti to first make peace at home and then pursue the opening up with PoK. The PDP-BJP Agenda for Alliance has all these clauses allowing both partners to fulfil their respective destinies. Drabu’s trip to the RSS in May is an effort to bring this to pass.