Why blame just BJP for J&K's political turmoil?
Is Pakistan willing to abandon its position on Kashmir?
Several recent developments on the Kashmir front have again underlined our difficulties in managing the situation there.
The BJP-PDP coalition has finally collapsed, with the Governor’s rule imposed. The Ramzan ceasefire will not be extended and anti-terror operations will resume with vigour. The DGMOs of India and Pakistan had agreed to observe the 2003 ceasefire on the LoC in “letter and spirit”, but that agreement too is being breached.
Political steps
The government had appointed a special interlocutor for Kashmir for identifying possible political steps to ease the situation in J&K after extensive local consultations.
Cases against stone-pelters were withdrawn en masse for a fresh start, without arresting the dynamics of violence.
With the BJP-PDP coalition and the internal and external ceasefires falling apart, the interlocutors’ work has effectively come to naught.
The latest egregious acts of killing a serving soldier and a prominent mediaperson show that terrorists with cross-border links are determined to prevent normalisation and retain the capacity to thwart any positive initiative by the government.
Lessons need to be re-learnt from these latest developments, especially by those prone to criticise the government for its failures in Kashmir, though past experience points against this.
Over 70 years, we have seen ups and downs in J&K without being able to distil a national consensus from the experience gained on how best to resolve the Kashmir issue.
The lines of criticism remain drawn. Delhi is blamed for constantly pulling the strings in Kashmir, of political complacency when violence is brought under relative control, of reneging on granting maximum autonomy to Kashmir, of forsaking “insaniyat” as a credo.
Support for a dialogue with Hurriyat persists, despite its known separatist agenda and Pakistani links. Many blame our mishandling of the J&K situation for providing Pakistan scope for perpetuating its mischief.
Army generals have ruled out publicly a military solution to the Kashmir problem and say that ultimately the “hearts and minds” of the people have to be won.
Some believe more employment opportunities for the Kashmiri youth will wean them away from violence. The withdrawal of AFSPA is considered necessary by others to quell disaffection.
Many consider a dialogue with Pakistan indispensable for resolving the Kashmir problem. The policy of linking the resumption of dialogue with an end to Pakistani-sponsored terrorism is therefore considered futile.
On recent developments, many argue that forming a BJP-PDP coalition government was inherently a mistake, disregarding the fact that the BJP swept the polls in Jammu and the PDP in the Valley, which meant that if a representative government had to be formed, no other choice was available.
In democracies this is not the first time that parties from different ends of the political spectrum, despite being adversaries in polls, come together to form a government to end a political deadlock when no clear winners emerge.
We saw it in Germany, and at home we have seen it recently in Karnataka. Why then consider the decision in J&K so politically inappropriate?
Growing turbulence
If the idea was to defuse the growing turbulence in J&K by reaching a working understanding with quasi-separatist elements that have crystallised around the PDP, why blame the BJP alone for failure and not the PDP for making inadequate grassroots effort amongst its supporters? The collapsing ceasefire with Pakistan should cause strong advocates of its restoration to introspect about their assumptions.
If hitting Pakistan hard on the border will not change Pakistan’s behaviour, then, by that logic, why fight back on any front in view of Pakistan’s unchanged hostility towards India over seven decades now.
Let the critics propose as yet unthought of strategies that they alone have worked out which will change Pakistan’s entrenched conduct towards India. Why are civilian and military casualties on the LoC less acceptable than similar casualties away from the border, in towns, villages and military installations inside Kashmir?
Why not have a permanent ceasefire inside J&K too, no matter what the terrorist groups do there as they will not give up their ideological commitment to jihad?
Radical Islam
More so as Kashmir is being increasingly infected by radical Islam which is uncompromising in nature. Even some mainstream Kashmiri leaders dismiss the salience of government’s economic packages for Kashmir because they see “azadi” and not the economy as the core issue.
Frustrated by our inability to pacify Kashmir, some are advocating a direct dialogue with the Pakistani military that controls Pakistan’s India policy.
This is a false option.
What concessions are we willing to make to the Pakistani military to bring it on board that we are not ready to make to the civilian government?
If the Pakistani military is prepared to make peace with India, they can, in fact, encourage the constitutional civilian authorities to negotiate normalisation of relations with India.
But is Pakistan willing to abandon its position on Kashmir?
Army chief Bajwa has opportunistically launched peace salvos before the FATF meeting, aimed also at manipulating soft-on-Pakistan lobbies in India, even as Pakistan engineers a political attack on India through UNHRC’s Jordanian chief oriented towards Islamic causes.
Excessive self-blame, downplaying Islamism in Kashmir to avoid being accused of right wing communalism, playing Opposition politics and receptivity of some circles to diplomatic dog-whistles from Pakistan are some elements that debilitate our handling of the Kashmir issue.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)