The glaring holes in Modi's Jammu and Kashmir policy
At the public level, the Modi government has articulated a desire to deal with the Jammu & Kashmir issue within the parameters outlined by Atal Bihari Vajpayee - "Insaniyat, jamhuriyat, Kashmiriyat".
But at the level of implementation, the government is working along lines which are quite distinct from those followed by past governments.
The outline of the Modi strategy was available in his concluding speech to the all-party meeting on Friday.
It rests firmly on the belief that minus Pakistan there would be no Jammu & Kashmir problem.
So, the government's focus will be on Pakistan's misdeeds. Terrorist actions will get a tough response.
The government will seek to isolate Pakistan across the world as an irresponsible state sponsor of terrorism.
Confusing bits
There were some confusing bits in the speech about the need to talk about all its four parts - Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and POK.
Just why this should be done, considering there are no real problems in Jammu and Ladakh is not clear.
If the PM is signalling the need to focus on regaining POK, then he should say so, it is a perfectly legitimate aim.
It would give India a huge geopolitical heft, though I am not sure whether the BJP would be happy to see the proportion of Muslim electors rise sharply in the state and the country.
At some level, it seems, the issue is of "Kashmir", the real estate, and Kashmir, the place where millions of people live, a majority of them professing the Muslim faith.
Holding on to the real estate is fine but when it comes to the people, especially the ones who are agitating, there is less clarity.
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| Far from being isolated, Pakistan has succeeded in rebuilding its American ties, strengthened its Chinese ones, and establishing a new bridge to Russia. (Reuters) |
The PM is unhappy, as he noted in his speech that "children are not able to study, apple produce is not able to reach to the mandis, shopkeepers are not getting their daily income and government offices are not able to implement works of public interest".
But who are the agitators? Are they dupes of the Pakistanis? Over ground workers of the jihadi organisations? Or, to use the favourite phrase of our politicians, "misguided youth"?
We don't know how they will be dealt with, because we don't know how the government classifies them.
Sure, as a senior security official told Mail Today recently that there would be restraint "in dealing with citizens", though "terrorists will not be spared".
The problem is that neither the PM, nor the security official, gave any indication as to whether those involved in the current agitation fell in the "citizen" or "terrorist" bracket.
And therein lies the real problem.
More complex
Once again, the PM spoke of the Vajpayee path. But that path was much more complex than the one we are seeing unfold under Modi and Doval.
Pakistan-borne violence was far more intense in the Vajpayee years, yet he reached out to Islamabad and succeeded in obtaining a ceasefire on the LoC in 2003.
This had a huge impact in reducing the casualties of service personnel and civilians in the border zone and took away a crucial cover under which the militants infiltrated from Pakistan.
More important, it enabled India to build a border fence which has reduced the ingress of men and weapons to a minimum.
Another key effort of the Vajpayee government was to seek a ceasefire with the Hizbul Mujahideen.
The government took the bold step of declaring a ceasefire to facilitate the process in 2000.
Just why and how this was sabotaged is another story, suffice to say, the opponents of the efforts do not live only on the other side of the LoC.
All this enabled the first genuinely fair elections to the J&K Assembly in 2002.
What we have today is a one-dimensional policy of focusing on Pakistan as the cause of the problems in Jammu & Kashmir.
So, the government seems determined to take the war into the Pakistani camp and abroad with a view of neutralising it.
Whether or not it can succeed is another matter.
Few results
The thinly veiled anti-Pakistan edge of the Modi government's global anti-terrorist campaign has yielded few results in the past two years.
Far from being isolated, Pakistan has succeeded in rebuilding its American ties, strengthened its Chinese ones, and establishing a new bridge to Russia.
Since Modi is the prime minister of India and the head of our government, he is fully entitled to take a new approach to a chronic problem.
A caveat that emerges from his approach is whether the government has thought through the end game in relation to Pakistan and J&K, or are merely retailing slogans in the guise of policy.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)