Overtaken by events

THE VISIT OF the Government of India designated `negotiator', Mr. K. C. Pant, to Jammu and Kashmir last week has, predictably, proved to be a diffused exercise that has been overtaken by events. True to the mandate that ordained a dialogue with people drawn from ``all walks of life'', he has indeed interacted with practically everyone and every group which had cared to meet him and had something to say on the hows and wherefores of ``restoring peace''. At best, the week- long exploratory voyage must have served as a `window of opportunity' for Mr. Pant himself to get an insight into the perceptions and aspirations of the various sections of the population in different regions. However, much of what he had heard during his interaction with mainstream political parties, civic bodies, pressure groups and outfits representing religious or regional interests is by no means new or profound. For instance, the suggestion for a trifurcation of the State and the sectarian demand for Ladakh being carved out as a Union Territory have been floating around for a long time now. Nor is it a revelation that the State in general and some regions in particular are crying for economic development. It is also common knowledge that this crass negligence of basic developmental needs and the resultant pervasive joblessness contributed not a little to the alienation of the people and, by extension, to the growth of militancy in the State. Given this context, yet another fact-finding exercise of the type Mr. Pant carried out does appear redundant.

As for the ticklish and more problematic issue of engaging the separatist groups, Mr. Pant's `Mission Kashmir' could not make any headway, for obvious reasons. If the very format and conceptualisation of the so-called dialogue initiative suffered from serious flaws (notably, blurred perspective), the Vajpayee regime's abrupt change of tack - as reflected in the termination of the six-month-old unilateral ceasefire and in the Prime Minister's snap decision to invite Pakistan's Chief Executive for talks - sent confusing signals about the Centre's strategy. The impending Vajpayee-Musharraf summit inevitably shifted the focus away from the internal dialogue track pursued by Mr. Pant - even if the latter was not rendered totally irrelevant - while the separatist outfits that have been rooting for a direct involvement of Pakistan in any effort at unravelling the Kashmir imbroglio became much more wary of doing business with the official interlocutor; this is quite understandable. The only exception was Mr. Shabir Shah, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, and even he insisted on terming his meeting with Mr. Pant `informal'. If Mr. Vajpayee's `summit' initiative made a positive impact on the likes of Mr. Shabir Shah and Mr. G.M. Shah (Awami National Conference), quite a few statements by some high ranking colleagues of the Prime Minister striking a tough posture had the effect of putting them off completely and introducing a jarring note in their interaction with Mr. Pant, much to the latter's embarrassment.

For its part, the All Party Hurriyat Conference - the separatist umbrella outfit that is sharply divided between the pro- independence and pro-Pakistan factions - found itself caught in a cleft stick, so to say, in the wake of the summit call which it perceived as the Vajpayee regime's counter to its persistent demand for a visit to Pakistan to work for `peace'. In fact, the Centre's recent strategic moves on the Kashmir front lend themselves to a strong suspicion of the Hurriyat factor having figured as an important determinant. After his visit, Mr. Pant too has asserted that the ground situation in the State did ``not at all'' reflect the Hurriyat's claim to the ``sole representative'' status. Maybe, its claim is exaggerated, and the role of elected representatives is not to be minimised in a democratic polity, but the Hurriyat does represent a segment of opinion that cannot be ignored.

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