What's really biting Kashmir: Separatists have softened their stand with Modi 2.0. But the problem is deeper

Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has bowled a googly to the Hurriyat by offering talks. Hurriyat separatists had so far insisted that talks with India should include Pakistan.

That condition has for the moment been tactically abandoned. Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq responded to Malik’s offer, “I can tell you that if meaningful talks are initiated, there will be a positive response. Dialogue is the only way and that is our consistent stand.”

The government though is reportedly not pleased with the Governor’s unilateral offer. Home Minister Amit Shah knows the Hurriyat speaks with a forked tongue. The BJP’s national vice-president Avinash Rai Khanna, who is in charge of J&K, was therefore quick to retort to the Mirwaiz: “Develop faith in the country’s Constitution and assist in maintaining the law and order situation — then we can talk.”

Other central government leaders have cautioned that the Hurriyat must “publicly acknowledge the indisputable status of Jammu and Kashmir, that it is an integral part of India, and commit their loyalty to the Constitution of India and seek talks only under its ambit.”

Five events have softened the Hurriyat separatists’ approach — albeit temporarily.

One, Modi’s commanding win in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. It gives him untrammelled power over the direction of the government’s policy on J&K for the next five years.   

Two, the appointment of Amit Shah as Home Minister. Shah has publicly vowed to revoke Articles 370 and 35A from the Constitution, severely diluting the state’s autonomy.

Three, the transformed security situation on the ground after the Balakot air-strike. The Hurriyat’s paymaster, Pakistan, is reeling as the Indian army hunts down Pakistan-funded terrorists in the Valley and silences Pakistani artillery on the Line of Control (LoC).

Four, relentless pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Islamabad to end terror financing. The Hurriyat is the prime conduit for distributing funds to terrorists in the Valley. The FATF’s move will cripple it.

Five, cases filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against Hurriyat leaders and J&K politicians. These cover a range of crimes — terror funding, corruption and theft of public money, placing the entire separatist ecosystem in the Valley in the dock.

With Assembly elections due in a matter of months and the end of Governor’s rule imminent, the Modi government too has an incentive to break the deadlock in J&K before a new state government takes charge for a six-year term.

India’s Kashmir policy got off to the worst possible start.

After the state had acceded to the Indian Union in October 1947, India lost the opportunity to bury the issue before it became intractable. Instead of pushing Pakistani troops out of the entire state during the 1947-48 conflict, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ceased hostilities — and referred the issue to the United Nations in 1948.

Pakistan repaid that favour over the past 71 years by unleashing wars and proxy terror attacks that continue to take a daily toll of lives of Indian soldiers and civilians in the Valley.

Successive governments haven’t done much better than Nehru. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi frittered away the advantage of India’s crushing victory in the Bangladesh war by returning 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of War (POWs) in return for the 1972 Shimla agreement — an agreement that the duplicitous Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto flouted before the ink on it had dried.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee too fared no better. President Pervez Musharraf flattered him with platitudes of Kashmiriyat while plotting terror attacks on the Indian Parliament and Akshardham Temple. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proved equally easy prey for the Old Delhi-born Musharraf — the Pakistani dictator proposed open, porous borders in Kashmir in a grand solution that would put the “core issue” between the two countries to rest for good.

Manmohan Singh and his advisors almost fell for the trick — but providence saved India.

Musharraf was removed from office by Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry before the open, porous border plan could be implemented.

Had it been, Pakistan would have achieved in the Kashmir Valley what four wars and three decades of proxy terrorism have not.

While he was beguiling Manmohan Singh, Musharraf was planning the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai with the Pakistani army’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The attack took place in November 2008 after Musharraf was removed from office. But the planning had begun at least two years earlier in 2006 on Musharraf’s watch with the hand-picked David Coleman Headley recceing the city.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proved no exception in the long line of Indian leaders who have given Pakistan the benefit of the doubt and offered peace. Modi extended an olive branch to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif — and got Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Uri in return.

Modi’s Pakistan policy in his first term wavered. Inviting an ISI team to Pathankot was akin to asking Dawood Ibrahim to help investigate the March 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts that killed 257 people.

It was only after the Pulwama massacre in February 2019 that Modi — at the very end of his first term — put into action what he had pledged during his 2014 Prime Ministerial campaign — to let the guns do the talking.

It is too early to say how Modi will craft his Pakistan and J&K policy in his second term — but the signs are propitious. By giving Ajit Doval, who strategised the Balakot strike, a second term as National Security Advisor (NSA) and elevating him to cabinet rank, Modi has sent a clear message to Pakistan: it isn’t business as usual.

The appointment of Amit Shah as Home Minister is another sign that Modi will not be taken in by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s insincere peace overtures.

And yet, the Kashmir Valley seethes with violence directed from Rawalpindi.

Over 120 Jaish, Lashkar and Hizbul terrorists have been killed by Indian security forces in the first six months of 2019. But there has been an unacceptably large number of casualties as well among Indian soldiers and civilians during the same period.

A coherent policy on J&K remains elusive. The usual shibboleths are being tossed around: de-radicalising Kashmiri youth, winning hearts and minds and encouraging economic development.

The real issue though must be faced squarely — the rise of radical Islam in the Valley.

India is not majoritarian. J&K is. Therein lies the problem and within it, too, lies the Constitutional solution.

Also read: Talk About What? India should not waste a second with the Hurriyat, Pakistan's poisonous spent force