Kashmir - more questions than answers

Columnist SULTAN AHMED  reviews the KASHMIR situation in the light of present events.

Suddenly there are major moves in Kashmir, or they are preliminary moves preparatory to a decision for ending the 50 year old running sore in the sub-continent.

Right now there are more questions than answers in this area or there is more speculation than a clear vision of the shape of things to come to settle the unfinished agenda of the historic partition of South Asia in 1947. And it may take some weeks or more for the position to crystalise, if crystalise at all it does within the foreseeable future.

The reason for the uncertainty or perplexity is there are too many players in the game and sub-players. What matters is not only the role of India and Pakistan, and the US which is keen to promote a settlement in the sub-continent but also the numerous guerrilla groups in Kashmir who are said to number 2,500 to 3,000.

Such moves started some weeks ago when India began releasing the leaders of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference from prisons. That was done preparatory to India entering into talks with them. But the talks really never came to pass as India was adamant that any solution should be within the framework of the Indian Constitution.

The more decisive move came on June 24 when the Hizbul Mujahideen announced a unilaterally ceasefire in Kashmir prior to entering into negotiations with India. Indian military commanders, thereafter, announced a ceasefire in respect of the Hizbul Mujahideen whose forces are said to number almost half of Mujahideen elements in Kashmir. And they are primarily of Kashmiris origin and without their support other Mujahideen forces could not be very effective.

India wants the Hizb leaders to surface and come forward for negotiations with Indian leaders; but as a first step the Indian commanders and HIZB leaders have established contact with each other to settle the details for formalising the cease-fire.

Pakistan on its part has taken the stand it is for the Kashmir leadership to decide the future course of action, and by that it means the All Parties Hurriyet Conference, the umbrella organization of the Mujahideen groups fighting for the liberation of Kashmir.

The fact is the new moves for a negotiated settlement in Kashmir has not come too early or too prematurely. They have come 11 long years after the rebellion for the liberation of Kashmir took a militant turn and after 70,000 lives have been sacrificed according to the Kashmiri leaders, and 30,000 according to Indian figures. Along with that some of the most terrible crimes have been committed by the Indian forces, a large number of women and children, too, have been killed and many thousands of homes destroyed by India as retaliatory steps, and thousands of women have been raped. The economy of the state is in shambles and there is widespread unemployment. And the earnings from tourism have hit the rock bottom.

The Kashmiri leaders also realise India has been able to win over the sympathy or support of the US and of many Western countries in its confrontation with Pakistan. And President Clinton is personally interested in settling the Kashmir dispute if he can, or anyway bringing peace between India and Pakistan. The considerable number of Western tourists captured and killed in Kashmir, including a German last month, has also alienated the West from the Mujahideen's militant struggle. There is a qualitative change in the approach of the West to the freedom struggle in Kashmir from that of positive sympathy and marginal support earlier.

Who is behind the new moves in Kashmir? Is the US the prime mover? Was the visit of the Jamaat-i-Islami Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad to the US a part of this jigsaw puzzle? Is Pakistan a secret party to such moves, and did it approve of the ceasefire offer, as Qazi Hussain Ahmad asserts?

The fact is that while the Hurriyet Conference does not approve Hizb's ceasefire offer, it did not condemn it strongly. It regarded the offer premature or untimely and said a good deal of homework should have preceded that. But the former president of Azad Kashmir and leader of the Kashmir Muslim Conference Sardar Qayyum has approved the Hizb's decision.

If the Kashmir leaders and India are to enter into serious negotiations two issues are very important. Should a settlement be negotiated within the framework of the Indian Constitution? And should the talks be bi-partite — between India and the Kashmir leaders or should they be tripartite, that is inclusive of Pakistan as Farooq Abdullah too wants?

As far as India is concerned it wants the settlement to come within the framework of the Indian constitution. There was some relief when Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not make mention of the Indian constitution the second time he welcomed the Hizb's cease-fire offer but his principal secretary and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra has since then clarified the talks will be within the framework of the Indian constitution.

When it comes to the tripartite talks, India at this stage prefers negotiating with the Kashmir leaders, and Pakistan on its part may not be able to object to that strongly as it maintains it is for the Kashmir leadership to decide its future.

Recent developments in India show that a Kashmir settlement outside the Indian Constitution is out of question for it. In an effort to steal a part of the thunder from the Mujahideen the chief minister of occupied Kashmir Farooq Abdullah got the Srinagar Assembly pass a resolution for greater autonomy for Kashmir. But instead of the Lok Sabha or the Indian Cabinet giving serious thought to the demand the cabinet rejected that outright and thereby snubbed Farooq Abdullah badly.

Tavleen Singh writing in 'India Today' under the headline "Clueless in Kashmir" asks: "If Delhi can discuss Azadi with Hurriyet, why not autonomy with Farooq?" If the BJP- led coalition in India cannot give less to Farooq Abdullah how will it give far more to the Hurriyet Conference leaders?

In reply to the Indian contention that if it gives more autonomy to Kashmir other states in India would also demand the same, Farooq Abdullah says "Unlike Jammu and Kashmir, other states don't have Article 370 in the Indian Constitution. They don't have their own Constitution and flag."

Farooq Abdullah is not the only chief minister who is calling for greater autonomy for the states. Others are doing likewise. A former Indian finance minister, the Harvard-educated P. Chidambaram says "Kashmir is not a piece of mere real estate. It deserves and needs more autonomy."

The BJP-led nervous nellies in New Delhi are afraid of increasing the autonomy of the states despite the fact the amorphous coalition government with 14 to 18 parties are not able to take good decisions quick or take such decisions at all. Chidambaram says: "States deserve and need more autonomy. The Central government is simply too big, too interfering and too inefficient."

The autonomy that Farooq Abdullah wants is no more than Article 370 of the Indian Constitution had originally provided for. It has since then been whittled down again and again. And in practice it is hardly existent with over 500,000 Indian troops and brigades of Indian bureaucrats, policemen and intelligence officers running the show in Kashmir.

India is acting on three fronts globally now. It is expanding its economic cooperation with other countries in a significant manner, particularly in respect of information technology. It is developing its military might in a big way and acquiring the latest sophisticated weapons. It has also launched a diplomatic offensive with real vigour by using its outreaching foreign minister Jaswant Singh. He made 21 foreign trips in 18 months and had 10 meetings with the US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott. And Singh says: "The US for the first time in the past 50 years is seriously engaged with India", improving India's relations with the US in a big way.

In the same period India has received 27 presidents, vice-presidents or crown princes and 30 foreign ministers as state guests, apart from many transit VVIP passengers. And that has been happening at a time when Pakistan is rather more or less isolated because of its military rule and other international objections. And the Indian prime minister is now scheduled to visit Washington for an extended tour of the US in October in return for the five-day tour of India by Bill Clinton.

Even if earnest negotiations begin for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute a settlement would not come soon. Like previous negotiations on Kashmir this, too, will be protracted and the details will take a great deal of time. India will play for time while the Mujahideen and Pakistan would press for an early settlement.

The immediate objective would be de-heating the Kashmir issue or reducing the tension there and in the relations between India and Pakistan. Various suggestions have been put forward for the final settlement of Kashmir with the plebiscite as the ultimate objective. Such solutions range from UN trusteeship in Kashmir for ten years and a plebiscite, thereafter, a condominium there for ten years with India and Pakistan as the supervisory powers, greater autonomy for the entire Kashmir for 10 years or more and then a plebiscite and finally division of Kashmir on a religious basis with predominantly Hindu Jammu going to India, the valley coming to Pakistan and north western permanently Buddhist area staying out of Pakistan. Then there is, of course, the Third Option of an independent Kashmir with possibly the predominantly non-Muslim areas out of it.

During this interregnum the world and India will expect greater economic cooperation between the neighbours and larger cultural exchanges and greater people-to-people contact.

Such options are possible only if India agreed to a mutually acceptable solution instead of maintaining that Kashmir is an integral part of India, and India’s sovereignty cannot be compromised in any manner, otherwise it would spell the disintegration of India.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has to do everything possible to make itself attractive to the people of Kashmir to join in. It has to strive to become economically prosperous, socially just and a truly democratic state. Otherwise the Kashmiris may not find Pakistan truly exciting. Religion alone is not enough an adhesive. Bangladesh shows that. Hence we have to focus on making Pakistan a strong, prosperous and just state. That was how Hawaii and Alaska joined the rich US. We have to move along the same way to attract the Kashmiris.