Negotiating Kashmir

By Navnita Chadha Behera

THE PRIME Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's invitation to Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf to ``walk the high road to peace'' reflected the vision of a statesman and an astute leadership, which realised that the Government's unilateral ceasefire, alone, would not silence the guns booming in the Kashmir Valley. In launching a peace initiative by putting Kargil behind, Mr. Vajpayee's Government gained a high moral ground. Between Gen. Musharraf's one-point agenda of establishing the centrality of the Kashmir issue and Mr. Vajpayee's attempts to broadbase the dialogue, however, the task of fine-tuning the negotiating strategy especially on Kashmir seems to have taken a backseat.

The first important principle of India's negotiating strategy should be to re-define and change the terms of reference of the Kashmir issue. Pakistan tends to equate the Kashmir dispute with the Valley and the Valley with Kashmiri Muslims. The Kashmir issue is, thus, presented as a matter of the Indian Government's denial of the Kashmiri Muslims' right of self-determination. The Indian Government must use the summit to reject this trajectory of thinking and question its logic. Two things should be done to set the record straight.

First, New Delhi needs to drive home the plurality of the State of Jammu & Kashmir (on the Indian side), which, besides the Kashmiri Muslims-in-majority, has diverse communities such as Gujjars, Bakkarwals, Kashmiri Pandits, Dogras and Ladakhi Buddhists for whom the right of self- determination has little appeal. It is important to sensitise Pakistan as well as the larger international community to the multi-faceted character of the Kashmir conflict because to usher in peace - a meaningful and comprehensive peace - the Indian Government must not only take into account the political demands of Kashmiri Muslims, waging a violent militant movement in the Valley, but also that of the other communities which have remained on the margins of power within the State.

Second, New Delhi needs to bring Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas (erstwhile Gilgit and Baltistan), under Pakistan's control, firmly on the negotiating agenda. Azad Kashmir is azad only in nomenclature. Its status has never been defined in normal international legal terms by the Azad Kashmir or Pakistan Governments or the United Nations. The UNCIP resolutions stated that Azad Kashmir is not a sovereign state; nor a province of Pakistan but rather a ``local authority'' with responsibility over the area consigned to it under the Ceasefire Agreement. Since then, Pakistan has maintained an iron-clad control over the constitutional, political, economic and social affairs of this area. An ex-President of Azad Kashmir described the situation as ``government of Azad Kashmir, by the Pakistanis, for Pakistan''. Northern Areas is another constitutional enigma as the only area in Pakistan whose status is not specified in the Constitution. While Kashmir is mentioned as a disputed territory, the Northern Areas is not even mentioned in the relevant schedule. Nor does it have an autonomous or constitutional status of its own. While Gen. Musharraf wants seeks New Delhi to formally accept the disputed status of Kashmir, Mr. Vajpayee's team, in return, must get the General to accept the multi-faceted character of the conflict.

This brings attention to the second oft-repeated mantra that there are three parties to the conflict - India, Pakistan and Kashmiris. Correction. The third party is not Kashmiris (read Kashmiri Muslims) alone but all the communities living in the erstwhile Dogra State of Jammu and Kashmir (as specified in the much maligned/championed UN resolutions). The task for Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf is to identify all the stakeholders in the peace process and, as a further step, devise an institutionalised mechanism to solicit their opinion and hold a public dialogue in their respective constituencies to take their voices into account. Preserving the diversity and plurality of Jammu and Kashmir must be the effective watchword in this exercise. The idea of dividing the State along a communal fault- line needs to be buried once and for all.

In this regard, while New Delhi is absolutely correct in denying the All Party Hurriyat Conference the right to become the sole representative of Kashmiris, it has done little to expose the fallacy of this claim. How can an organisation, it may be asked, which does not have a single member representing the political interests and aspirations of nearly half the population of Jammu and Kashmir (on the Indian side), leave aside the Northern Areas, which has demonstrated little control over the jehadi forces, and whose popular credentials and legitimacy remain to be tested in the electoral arena, claim to become the sole spokesman of the people of Jammu and Kashmir and demand an exclusive right to be invited to the negotiating table to decide Kashmir's future. No doubt, the APHC represents an alternative line of thinking and must be involved in the peace process but by no means has it earned the status of being the only such organisation. Mr. Bhatt and other APHC leaders must learn how to board a ``crowded train'' on a peace mission unless, of course, they wish to miss it altogether.

The furore over Gen. Musharraf's tea invitation to the APHC is truly, as the Ministry of External Affairs put it, a ``non- issue'', but the Government could have handled it differently. Gen. Musharraf, by sending the invitation despite the manifest reservations of the Indian Government and, at the same time, stating that the actual meeting will depend on the ``hosts'', has put the ball squarely in the Indian court. Mr. Vajpayee's Government need not bite the bait. Instead of appearing intransigent in the eyes of Pakistanis, Kashmiris and perhaps some sections of the international community by not allowing the APHC to attend the tea party, which would only add to its larger- than-life image, it should raise its political costs for pursuing that course.

As a tactical move, the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, along with Mr. K. C. Pant - as part of the ongoing pre-summit consultations with political parties - should invite all the leaders across the political spectrum in Jammu and Kashmir, for a meeting in Srinagar, a day prior to the summit. This would force the APHC to make a choice, a political choice between meeting India's Home Minister and the Centre's interlocutor for a dialogue or a photo opportunity with Gen. Musharraf. If the APHC still decides to go for the tea party, the message would not be lost on the ordinary Kashmiris. While the alienation against India has not lessened, the disillusionment with Pakistan also runs deep. Kashmiris realise that Pakistan has neither the muscle nor the inclination to risk a war with India to ``liberate'' them and ultimately they have to deal with India. The presence of ``jehadi forces'' is also strongly resented.

In fact, that's where the litmus test of the summit lies. How far is Gen. Musharraf willing and able to rein in the jehadi forces? The opinion remains divided. The real success of the summit will be if Mr. Vajpayee and Gen. Musharraf could agree upon a complete cessation of violence, from all sides, to facilitate the peace process. By doing so, they would also earn the goodwill of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, on both sides of the border.

Finally, the bilateral negotiating process on Kashmir needs to be disentangled from its historical and ideological baggage. It needs to be de-ideologised and delinked from the respective countries' nationalist discourse that ``Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir'' or that ``Kashmir is the crown-symbol of Indian secularism''. Five decades after an independent existence, the Pakistanis must evolve an identity that no longer hinges on the inclusion of Kashmir in Pakistan. Likewise, the secular tenets and beliefs of the Indian polity must not be held hostage to the political choices of the Kashmiris. If only the leadership in New Delhi and Islamabad ``let go'' of their iron grip over the respective territories of Jammu & Kashmir under their control, they might win back the loyalty and affection of the Kashmiris in a way that proves to be much more lasting than the forced compliance as it exists today on both sides of the border. The challenge, in the long run, lies in delinking the principle of self-determination from the territorial issue at stake and according political space to the people of Jammu & Kashmir for shaping their political future, without necessarily changing the borders.

(The writer is a scholar, specialising in the Kashmir issue.)

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