KASHMIR: REWIND, REPLAY
Former Intelligence Bureau director Dineshwar Sharma’s appointment as Delhi’s point man to engage with all stakeholders in Kashmir has infused new expectancy in the air in the troubled Valley. The move, welcomed by most stakeholders, though with guarded scepticism by former chief minister Omar Abdullah and a few others, is perhaps the Narendra Modi government’s most significant overture on Kashmir in the past three-and-ahalf years. It signals a shift from singularly deploying muscular military and police solutions to, for the first time, willingness to talk without conditions.
“As a representative of the government of India, former director of IB, Dineshwar Sharma, will initiate a sustained interaction and dialogue to understand legitimate aspirations of people in Jammu and Kashmir,” Union home minister Rajnath Singh said on October 23 in Delhi, outlining Sharma’s role. He would have full freedom, Singh said, to engage in talks with anyone, including Hurriyat separatists and the Valley’s alienated youth.
Less than six months ago, he and the prime minister had spurned Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s pleas to honour the promise made by the BJP-PDP alliance in March 2015 and initiate a dialogue. Barring the brief hint of engagement in 2016, when some members of the Singh-led all-party delegation attempted to engage with the separatists, the Centre gave no indication that talks could be on the table.
On April 28, then attorney general Mukul Rohatgi stated in the Supreme Court that the Centre had “no plan to hold talks with separatists and those not loyal to India”. BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who co-authored the PDP-BJP
governance agenda, said: “Tackle militants and their sponsors with utmost toughness. Handle misguided youth coming onto the streets with stones in hand with deftness so that violence is put down, but care is taken to prevent loss of life.”
The first hint of a ‘climbdown’ came in the prime minister’s Independence Day speech in which he spoke of “embracing the people of Kashmir”. A month later, in Srinagar from September 9 to 12, Singh promised “a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem”. More recently, senior security officials, including J&K DGP S.P. Vaid, spearheading a successful campaign that has felled some 170 terrorists since January, spoke of the need for “political intervention” and “engagement with unemployed youth”. Senior J&K police officers say Delhi has made an overture when it is under no pressure to make conciliatory moves. “Initiating talks when stone-pelters ruled the streets and security forces were on the backfoot would have been counter-productive, encouraging Pakistan to stage strife in Kashmir,” says a police officer.
Also, perhaps by design, the dialogue offer comes at a time when Hurriyat separatists are under significant pressure from the National Investigation Agency’s terror funding probe that has several mid-rung leaders, including hardliner S.A.S. Geelani’s son-in-law Altaf Shah Fantoosh, in custody. Reports quoting sources within the Hurriyat indicate that Geelani and his ilk “are open to talks, but first want the government to spell out Dineshwar Sharma’s mandate”.
Kashmir observers say appointing an interlocutor does not inspire much hope, considering three earlier attempts—by ex-Union minister K.C. Pant (2001-2002), incumbent governor N.N. Vohra (2003-2008) and the UPA-appointed team of M.M. Ansari, Dileep Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar—achieved little. But, as an old Kashmir hand says, “In Kashmir, dialogue is not the means to an end. Dialogue is an end in itself. It conveys (to people) that someone’s listening to them.” Whether or not this resolves the Kashmir problem, it will certainly make things easier for the PDP. The adversarial alliance with the BJP and the failure to progress on the Agenda of the Alliance had alienated the party from its once unchallenged South Kashmir bastion. Just one week this month (October 16-22) saw eight attacks on party functionaries’ homes. The talks offer may revive Mehbooba’s credibility.
“In Kashmir, dialogue is not the means to an end, it’s an end in itself. It tells people someone is listening.”