KASHMIR

A dead end on the road to peace?

They were hunting for traitors on the buses that rounded the bend into north Kashmir’s Sopore: a gaggle of young men, most barely into their teens, their faces covered with intifada-chic scarves, their hands clutching stones and rods. Less than one in hundred residents of Sopore, the heartland of Kashmir’s Islamist movement, had voted on May 7. In nearby towns and villages, though, a majority had chosen to defy the secessionist boycott — and the young radicals in Sopore were delivering vengeance. Hundreds who had ink-marks on their fingers were stripped naked and beaten, their humiliation recorded on cell phone cameras.

Nasir Ganai was travelling from Kupwara to Srinagar that day, when the men were rounding on a young, burkha-wearing woman sitting near him. “You want to marry an Indian soldier do you?” she was asked, after her finger was examined. Then other words followed, each cruder than the last.

Last week’s elections to north Kashmir’s Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency illustrated that the end of the murderous war in the street has given way not to peace, but a grim impasse. Though ever-greater numbers of people are embracing electoral democracy, rage against it is also rising — led by a fast-growing cohort of semi-educated but prospectless urban youth, economically disenfranchised and politically marginalised.

South Kashmir’s Tral or Shopian, Srinagar’s old city Shahr-e-Khas, the decaying cores of Sopore and Baramulla — all of which saw near-zero voter turnout — are seeing the triumph of a new anti-politics of rage.

Kashmir’s youth Islamism

“Long live Pakistan,” chanted the young men who demolished Srinagar madam Sabina Bulla’s home in the summer of 2006, as “we want freedom.” Ever since 2002, as Pakistani support to jihadists was choked-off under pressure from the United States, levels of violence had fallen. Political secessionists had begun engaging in dialogue with India, and democratic parties had begun to extend their influence and patronage networks. Ms. Bulla’s town was alleged in the media to have been the centre of a prostitution racket involving top politicians. Kashmir’s Islamists saw the house of sin as a metaphor for Indian democracy.

Following the rape and murder of a teenager in 2007, Islamist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani claimed that “hundreds of thousands of non-state subjects had been pushed into Kashmir under a long-term plan to crush the Kashmiris.” Then, in 2008, Islamists mobilised against a career counsellor who, they claimed, had been despatched to Srinagar schools to seduce students into a career of vice. In Anantnag, a schoolteacher was attacked after a mobile phone video of his students dancing to pop music on a holiday surfaced.

Late in the summer of 2008, the movement exploded after the State government granted temporary land use rights for facilitating the annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath shrine in south Kashmir. Mr. Geelani claimed this was a conspiracy to settle Hindus in the region. “I caution my nation,” he warned, “that if we don’t wake up in time, India and its stooges will succeed and we will be displaced.” Large-scale violence broke out in Kashmir — and in Hindu-majority Jammu.

Finally, in 2010, street violence exploded across large swathes of Kashmir, with young protestors taking on the State in frontal confrontation. More than 100 young people were shot dead by police, following pitched battles. Force pushed back the new Islamist mobilisation — but, as the recent elections make clear, did not break its back.

In some important ways, this new Islamism marked a break from the jihadism of the 1990s. For Islamists like Mr. Geelani, Kashmir’s secessionism from India was an existential struggle for the protection of Islam, not a battle for territorial freedom. In a 1998 book, he argued that for Muslims to live among Hindus was as difficult as “for a fish to stay alive in a desert.” Thus, India and Kashmir were locked in irreducible opposition — a transformation in the political views of a man who served several terms as a legislator.

Mr. Geelani’s views were, however, increasingly out of step with those of the political organisation he had served for decades, the Jammu and Kashmir Jamaat-e-Islami. In 1997, the then-Jamaat chief G.M. Bhat called for an end to the “gun culture.” Three years later, dissident Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Abdul Majid Dar declared a unilateral ceasefire. Though the ceasefire fell apart, the Jamaat itself continued to marginalise Mr. Geelani. In May 2003, Jamaat moderates led by Bhat’s successor, Syed Nasir Ahmad Kashani, retired Geelani as their political representative. Finally, in January 2004, the Jamaat’s Majlis-e-Shoora, or central consultative council, went public with a commitment to a “democratic and constitutional struggle”— legitimising this by drawing on the party’s constitution.

Mr. Geelani became dependent on Islamists outside the Jamaat fold. Figures like Massrat Alam Bhat and Asiya Andrabi, leaders of the post-2006 protests, emerged as his inheritors. Most were ideologically linked to the global jihadist movement in ways Mr. Geelani was not — and spoke to a new constituency.

The failure of politics

It isn’t hard to see what this constituency is. From 2004, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government pumped in ever-greater funds into Kashmir, hoping to revive the insurgency-destroyed economy. The state-of-the-art new railway lines, roads, power infrastructure and hotels gave birth to an ever-richer contractor class, often closely enmeshed with the National Conference or the new People’s Democratic Party. They did little, though, to create jobs and opportunity for the rapidly-growing youth population — other than fuel their rage.

The problem was worst in Kashmir’s decaying inner cities, where traditional artisanal trades have been in decline for generations. Tens of thousands of middle-class Kashmiri students are pursuing opportunities to study outside the State, but multiples of that number have no access to either education or capital that would allow them to capitalise on new-economy opportunities.

New Islamists politicians are just one of multiple currents reaching into the rage. Among them, there are neo-conservative religious movements like the Tablighi Jamaat, the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis, and traditionalist ones like the Karavan-e-Islami.

Indeed, legislators in areas like Sopore, Tral or Baramulla have perverse incentives to not engage with this constituency: elected by tiny numbers of loyal voters who defy secessionist boycott calls, greater political engagement would mean greater political competition.

The sad truth is that Kashmir’s Islamists are the only political force offering disenfranchised youth a transformative language. Like Indian politics generally, modernist impulses were extinguished in Kashmir soon after independence. It is inconceivable today that any major party might emulate Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah’s radical programme of economic redistribution, or his wife, Begum Akbar Jehan radical call for women to cast off their veil.

Electoral democracy in Kashmir has succeeded in engendering institutions and processes, but not a political culture — the system of ideas through which people relate to each other and to the world around them. Kashmir’s political life desperately needs to learn a new language.

Claiming the four-step formula

As elections got under way in April this year, voters heard from an unusual source in the country, Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who wrote an open letter in The Hindu (“Comment” page, April 8, 2014). “You must ask your leaders to develop a political consensus to resolve the issue,” was his appeal, that ended with “Let finding a solution to the Kashmir issue become a goal of all the parties to it.”

In the weeks preceding his letter, the Hurriyat leader had been vocal about his disappointment with the “Manmohan decade,” saying that in contrast to the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had done more to reach out to the Kashmiri people, and for a resolution. Others have been equally critical of the UPA’s efforts saying that despite all the outreach to Pakistan, the UPA has been unable to get key action from Islamabad, in spite of violence in the Kashmir Valley coming down to low levels; 2013 was the most violent year at the Line of Control since the ceasefire of 2003.

Contours of the formula

It is significant that Dr. Singh’s administration has now chosen to refute the allegations on its Kashmir record in a speech delivered this week at the Kashmir University by the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, Satinder Lambah. “Dr. Singh,” he said, “has consistently advocated a solution that does not seek to redraw the border or amend the Constitution, but one that makes the boundary irrelevant, enables commerce, communication, contacts and development of the Kashmiri people on both sides and that ends the cycle of violence.”

Mr. Lambah spoke in his “personal capacity,” but the vision he outlined for a solution are clearly recognisable as the contours of the Manmohan-Musharraf four-step formula.

The points he highlighted are: it is important that military forces on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) are kept to the minimum, especially in populated areas; it is imperative that the people of Jammu and Kashmir on either side of the LoC should be able to move freely from one side to the other; it is important to ensure self-governance for internal management in all areas on the same basis on both sides of the LoC, and Jammu and Kashmir can, with the active encouragement of the governments of India and Pakistan, work out a cooperative and consultative mechanism to maximise the gains of cooperation in solving problems of social and economic development of the region.” It should be possible to do so to enable it to look into socio-economic issues like tourism, travel, pilgrimages to shrines, trade, health, education and culture (From Mr. Lambah’s “Discussion between India and Pakistan on Jammu and Kashmir — A Historical Perspective” delivered at the Institute of Kashmir Studies, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, May 13, 2014).

Above all, he said, “After three wars and long periods of disagreements, it is essential that any agreement must ensure that the Line of Control is like a border between any two normal states. There can be no redrawal of borders.” While this might be the most lucid explanation of the solution that the two leaders had spoken of, many rounds of negotiation and years of implementation still remain in order to effect anything that resembles a “final settlement.” But it would be a mistake to assume that no progress has been made so far.

Without doubt, Dr. Singh got a big push from the previous NDA regime, and the LoC ceasefire effected by Mr. Vajpayee. Mr. Vajpayee also made significant strides in talks with all sides, including the separatist Hurriyat leaders. In fact, his government even took the extreme step of talking to terror groups based in the Valley, through the aborted dialogue between the Home Secretary and Hizbul Mujahideen commanders.

On his part, Dr. Singh kept up the talks through “roundtables,” in Delhi and Srinagar, put in place a three-man team of interlocutors, and sent Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram to Srinagar to conduct talks with all stakeholders. Credit for the next step, of creative solutions, must go to Dr. Singh himself. Interestingly, the Kashmir formula used to be called the “Musharraf four-step,” but in the last few years, the ideas have been ascribed more to Dr. Singh than to Gen. Musharraf. In his book The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh, controversial for other reasons, former media adviser Sanjaya Baru seems to set the record straight. “[Singh] was quite prepared to sell this as a ‘Musharraf’ formula rather than a ‘Manmohan-Musharraf’ formula ... He believed at the time that it would be tougher for Musharraf to sell the peace formula in Pakistan than for him to get the majority opinion on his side.”

Building on the results

Regardless of who took the credit, the four-step formula was soon visible on the ground.

While troop levels at the LoC have not come down, skirmishes, terror attacks and infiltration levels have dropped in the past decade. Army troops are seldom seen in Kashmir’s towns as they once were. Even during the stone-pelting protests in 2009-2010, the Army was enlisted no more than once — for a flag-march on the outskirts of Srinagar. The strength of the Central Reserve Police Force has also been reduced to nearly half in the State, with many bunkers being removed.

In terms of interconnectivity between the two Kashmirs, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service in 2005 and the opening up of trade routes will undoubtedly be Dr. Singh’s most visible contribution to the process. In his book, Mr. Baru describes how Dr. Singh was adamant about inaugurating the bus service. When terrorists attacked the tourism reception centre where the bus was to be flagged off a day before the launch, advisers including the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Intelligence Bureau Director advocated that he cancel the trip. Yet, Dr. Singh and the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi went to Srinagar. Nine years later, while the cross-LoC route needs much more, both in terms of infrastructure and a greater facilitation of visas, its durability is undoubtedly its biggest success.

Local governance in the two Kashmirs is for the moment left to the legislatures, and India has seen the conduct of several general elections, State elections and municipal and panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir in the past decade. In Pakistan, legislative elections were held in 2011, and general elections in 2008 and 2013. In fact, Pakistan’s virtual acceptance of the LoC as a more permanent “Line of Peace” is best reflected in its decision to reorganise parts of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and give Gilgit-Baltistan provincial status for governance.

Finally, the proposal to jointly manage sectors such as the environment and tourism is an idea whose time is yet to come, but remains doable. So long as there is peace at the LoC, and a free flow of traffic between the two Kashmirs, there is no reason why the governments of both States cannot coordinate things on such issues.

Setbacks of relevance

However, the ground reality has also involved many setbacks. Every terror attack from Pakistan and killing on the LoC hardens positions in India. Gen. Musharraf has long gone from a position of influence and subsequent governments haven’t yet moved to own the Kashmir formula.

In India, the government has failed to engage the separatists of the Hurriyat in taking steps toward the mainstream. Despite many promises, including one in Parliament, Dr. Singh failed to repeal the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, even from areas where the Army doesn’t operate. There has been little movement in justice for the families of 120 young men killed during stone-pelting protests in 2010, and in other allegations of human rights excesses. While it is creditable that no protester in the past five years has picked up more than a stone, the anger in the Valley is palpable, and the sense of alienation heightened after the decision by the government to hang the conspirator in the Parliament attack case, Afzal Guru, without notice to his family or agreeing to return his body. Finally, the return of Kashmiri Pandits, ousted from their homes a quarter of a century ago, remains an unfulfilled promise.

In an interview to CNN-IBN in 2009, Dr. Singh admitted that he should have moved faster on the Kashmir resolution with Pakistan. “We had come very close to a non-border, non-territorial solution, and I regret that we didn’t go ahead with it due to certain events at the time.”

Five years later, it is a regret he must continue to live with, even as his administration seeks to set the record straight on just how much was achieved in his tenure. But his ideas will remain the template for the new Prime Minister, to claim, in order to show the vision and the heart required to imagine an end to the subcontinent’s most costly dispute.

Douse the sparks on Article 370

In the week since Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in, a succession of controversies have threatened to overshadow his core agenda of growth and governance reform. None, however, threatens to erupt into so great a conflagration as the bitter exchanges over Article 370 of India’s Constitution. Ever since Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Jitendra Singh, was reported to have said that the process of abrogating Article 370 had begun, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have been locked in aggressive polemical exchanges. Dr. Singh has clarified — correctly — that he only spoke of initiating a debate on abrogating Article 370, a commitment made in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election manifesto, rather than of the actual process of removing it from the Constitution. The rancour isn’t surprising, though: just as many Hindu nationalists oppose Article 370 as a barrier to the full integration of Jammu and Kashmir, many in the State see it as their only protection against existential threat. Fears of being swamped by a hostile majority remain a powerful motif in Kashmir politics — last erupting into large-scale street battles in 2008.

Little understood outside Jammu and Kashmir, Article 370 lies at the heart of the State’s constitutional relationship with India. It makes six special provisions, all emerging from the Instrument of Accession of Jammu and Kashmir. They include allowing the State its own Constitution, and limiting Parliament's authority to legislate for it. In 1954, with Sheikh Abdullah in prison, Syed Mir Qasim’s regime expanded Parliament’s powers, and extended the Constitution’s Fundamental Rights to the State. In the years since, other Constitution Orders have given the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the State, and extended to it the supervisory power of the Election Commission of India. In 2001, the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly passed a resolution seeking the restitution of the original, pristine Article 370; the BJP and some Congress leaders from the Hindu-majority Jammu province wanted it overturned altogether. The National Democratic Alliance flatly refused to discuss the Assembly’s demand. There is no doubt that there will have to be a debate on Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status at some point, especially if there is a final resolution of the India-Pakistan dispute over the State. The debate must be had in a calm frame of mind, though — and this is not the time to have it. Prime Minister Modi, who spoke in measured and open terms on the issue during the election campaign, would do well to douse the sparks his junior Minister has let fly, before a fire breaks out.

Pak prez: Let UN resolution decide K-issue

New Delhi TNN & AGENCIES





Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain on Monday said his country wants to resolve the Kashmir is sue in accord ance with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir and UN resolutions.“Kashmir issue should be resolved according to the UN resolutions and aspiration of the people of Kashmir,“ he said in his first address to Parliament.

Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif was criticized in local media for not having any substantive discussion on J&K during his visit to India last week for PM Narendra Modi's swearing-in.

Pakistan, however, has signalled that it wants to move ahead with the dialogue process in the form of talks between the two foreign secretaries. In fact, Pakistani high commissioner to India Abdul Basit is in Is lamabad to discuss the way forward in building ties.

Pakistani media has reported that he may soon propose a set of dates for talks between the foreign secretaries.

Hussain said Sharif 's visit to India was indicative of a desire to build peaceful relations with the neighbouring country . The president made his first speech to the joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament at the start of the second parliamentary year.

Report of the Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir

The central government appointed the J&K Interlocutors Group on October 13, 2010.  The Group submitted the Report to the Home Ministry earlier this year.  The Report was made public by the Home Ministry on May 24, 2012.

It may be noted that under Article 370 of the Constitution special status has been granted to the State of Jammu and Kashmir.  The power of the Parliament to legislate is restricted to defence, external affairs, communication and central elections.  However, the President may with the concurrence of the state government extend other central laws to the state.  Furthermore, in 1952, an agreement known as the Delhi Agreement was entered into between the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the central government.  The Agreement too provided that the state government shall have sovereignty on all subjects except for matters specified above.  However, since then some central laws relating to other subjects such as environment have been made applicable to the state.

This blog post divides the recommendation into two broad headings: political; and socio-economic.  It also looks at the roadmap proposed by the Group to achieve these recommendations.

Political recommendations:

• The Group recommended that a Constitutional Committee (CC) should be set up to review all the central Acts that have been extended to the state of Jammu and Kashmir since 1952.  The CC should come out with its findings within six months.  According to the Group, the CC should review whether, and to what extent, the application of central acts to the state has led to an erosion of the state’s special status.
• The word ‘Temporary’ in Article 370 should be replaced with ‘Special’ which has been used for certain states such as Assam, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh[1].
• Central laws shall only be made applicable to the state if they relate to the country’s security or a vital economic interest, especially in the areas of energy and water resources.
• Currently, the Governor is appointed by the President.  The Group recommended that the state government shall give three names for consideration for the position to the President.  However, the Governor shall finally be appointed by the President.
• Separate Regional Councils for Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh should be created and certain legislative, executive and financial powers should be devolved to them.  The subjects that could be transferred to the Regional Council include prison reforms, public health, roads and bridges and fisheries.

Cultural, Economic and Social Recommendations:

• There are 16 centrally sponsored schemes which are mostly funded by the centre.  However, most of the funds for these schemes have not been utilised properly.  The Group recommended that an effective system to monitor these schemes should be put in place.
• An expert committee to review the state’s financial needs should be constituted.
• The central government should tap the hydro-electricity potential of the state.  Till date only 15 per cent of the potential has been harnessed.  Additional hydro-electricity projects should be established for which the central government should meet the entire equity capital.
• Industrial establishments and other buildings occupied by the security officers should be vacated.
• Financial package of incentives on the pattern given to the North Eastern States should be given to the state.
• The hilly, remote areas should be declared as special development zones.
• The restrictions on the internet and mobile phones should be reviewed.

In order to fulfil these recommendations, the Interlocutor’s Group proposed the following roadmap:

• The ‘stone pelters’ and political prisoners against whom no serious charges have been framed should be released.
• There should an amendment and review of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990 and the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978.
• The state policy should provide for the return of Kashmiri Pandits.
• A judicial commission to supervise the identification of bodies buried in the unmarked graves should be established.

Modi government's rehabilitation plan gives hope to Kashmiri Pandits

The focus is back on the valley after Ramdev aide Ved Prakash Vaidik's remark pushing for an independent Kashmir. CNN-IBN spoke to a couple who returned to Kashmir following the Narendra Modi government's Rs 500 crore rehabilitation plan for Kashmiri Pandits.

The debate continues over Kashmiri Pandits' return to the valley and the question being asked is whether they should assimilate in their old neighbourhoods or they should live in proposed clusters or settlements. For the old couple, the only ones who have returned officially, the controversy is needless.

Grand Mufti Bashir-ud-Din said, "We welcome the return of the Kashmiri Pandits. We will be happy if they come but if their demand of a separate homeland is a conspiracy, we will oppose it strongly."

"I now appeal to my community to come back and assimilate in local population. Live in your localities and not in clusters," said a returnee Jawahar Khar.

The Khars and their five daughters had fled their native Anantnag in 1990 after terrorist threats. But the old couple returned in 2004 and re-built their house with government assistance. Since then, they have stayed put. "We have no fear, we are one. They are our brothers, kids, sisters. Pandits should go back to their old neighbourhoods," said Khar's wife.

Close to 3 lakh Pandits have migrated out of the Valley. Only 3,000 stayed back with many of them being government employees. They say successive governments failed to help the rehabilitation process.

"The rehabilitation is a total joke. We acted as a bridge between minority and majority community, got good support from the Muslim community, but no support from the state or central government. That is really a shame on the governments," said Ranjan Jyotshi, a government employee.

They also point out that the Rs 500 crore package for rehabilitation announced by the new government is not enough. "In the clusters, we need facilities of school for kids, decent accommodation and security. We cannot go to our native villages because Pandits have sold their properties long back, that will take time," said Roop Krishan Sapru, a government employee.

In the past 15 years or so, the successive governments in the state and Centre have failed to bring even a single family save for this 80-odd year old couple. Now with the Narendra Modi at the helm and whose party has the Pandit rehabilitation as a key point of manifesto, it remains to be seen whether the issue remains a talk or more than that.

A history of arrogance: getting it wrong in Kashmir again

The authorities in Kashmir rarely miss an opportunity to alienate the people of the Valley. In an appalling incident last week, the Jammu and Kashmir Police stopped a public lecture at a hotel by a noted historian, Mridu Rai. Ms Rai was due to deliver an annual lecture in the memory of Pandit Raghunath Vaishnavi, a political figure of the 1950s, but the police invoked Section 144, which prevents the assembly of people and blocked the event. According to the organisers, the police threatened to seal the hotel if the lecture was held within its premises. This is a shocking infringement of freedom of expression and assembly and it only confirms the belief of Kashmiris that the civil liberties that the rest of India takes for granted are not always extended to Jammu and Kashmir.

 The Valley has been relatively quiet in recent years but it is no measure of persisting disaffection with New Delhi, which these incidents can only worsen. The events of 2010 still loom large in Kashmir’s imagination. More than 120 youth were killed that summer when security forces fired on stone-throwing demonstrators. The previous UPA government recognised Kashmir to be a unique political problem that needed a “unique solution” but it neither initiated a political process to address the Valley’s aspirations nor addressed its everyday concerns. Far from the national glare, Kashmir lives on with its own set of peculiar but vivid indignities. More than 6,000 people were arrested after the 2010 protests. Regular forms of political expression are not usually on view. Student politics is discouraged, civil liberties activists are sent back from Srinagar airport while even moderate separatist leaders are prevented from taking out protest rallies. And now history lectures by accomplished historians are considered a threat.
The authorities must reflect whose interest these unsavoury tactics serve. All they do is tar India’s reputation and invite international ridicule and censure. Getting a police force to break up a history lecture is hardly consistent with plans to instil respect for democratic norms among State actors.  Kashmiris are liable to wonder what forms of agency they can be entitled to if they cannot even candidly discuss their past. The State would do well to remember that illiberal practices are habit-forming and ultimately counterproductive. Denying spaces for dissent damages a democracy inherently and it sows trouble for the future. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said recently that he wished “to win the hearts and minds of the people of J&K”. He must firmly indicate to the security establishment that this is no way to do so.