'Govt. ready for bold steps in Kashmir'

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, DEC. 6. Authoritative sources within the Vajpayee establishment insist that the Government is ``prepared to take bold steps'' and if need be is ``ready to explore unexplored avenues to restore normality in Jammu and Kashmir''. It is also certain that barring some ``spectacular disaster'', the current ``ceasefire'' would remain operative even after Ramadhan.

There is no basic objection to a dialogue with the All-Party Hurriyat Conference. But the expectation, according to these sources, is that the APHC should position itself as a voice of Kashmiri people rather than as a mediator between India and Pakistan or as Islamabad's proxy.

At the same time, there are indications that some kind of informal but indirect contact has been established between the Vajpayee Government and the Hurriyat leaders camping here. ``The situation is poised for substantive talks,'' one informal interlocutor said.

In these informal contacts, the Hurriyat leaders and their interlocutors are trying to understand the constraints of realities in Srinagar, Delhi and Islamabad. Almost every relevant political player is awaiting the return from Islamabad of the senior Hurriyat leader, Mr. Abdul Gani Lone, who went there to attend his son's wedding. During his stay, Mr. Lone met the military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. He is now deemed best equipped to decipher for the Hurriyat leadership the latest Pakistani preferences in the context of Mr. Vajpayee's Ramadhan ceasefire.

Earlier indications suggested that Mr. Lone would be back by the middle of the week, but the APHC secretariat does not have definite information on his travel plans. Meanwhile, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq is scheduled to go back to Srinagar by Friday. The APHC chairman, Prof. Abdul Gani Lone, and Mr. Yaseen Malik are likely to be here till next week.

However, the informal interlocutors on the Indian side are mindful of the constraints faced by the Hurriyat leaders. The APHC needs a kind of post-ceasefire response from New Delhi, which would enable them to prevail upon militant groups to give peace a chance. To that extent the APHC leadership has not been much enthused by the ``harsh'' tone in the statement of the Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday. APHC watchers believe the harsh tone would enable Syed Geelani, the hard-line pro- Pakistan voice, to claw his way back into the centre of decision- making within the organisation.

Nonetheless the official expectation is that the APHC also needs to take a hard decision as to whether it wants to play a pro- active role in the peace process by positioning itself as the voice of the Kashmiri people or whether it is content to be seen as Pakistan's puppet. Pakistan has consistently remained suspicious of ``Kashmiri'' sentiments and would be wary of any dialogue between the Government and ``Kashmiris''. Consequently, should the Hurriyat leaders or a section of them enter into talks with India alone, they would be doing so at considerable risk to themselves.

The official calculation is that the APHC would not be able to ignore for long the pro-peace popular upsurge in the Valley. The Vajpayee regime is prepared to go to any length to sustain and consolidate this pro-peace upsurge.

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