Now, it is the Hurriyat's call

By Harish Khare

IT IS one of those delicious absurdities of modern India that very many people are relieved that starting with his Independence Day speech the Prime Minister has put in a few competent speaking appearances. The sense of relief is rather bewildering, considering the fact that Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee happens to be one of the finest orators of recent years. Nonetheless, a preoccupation with frills and style has overshadowed the import of perhaps the most significant sentence spoken by Mr. Vajpayee in his Red Fort speech. The Prime Minister simply observed: ``we shall ensure free and fair elections'' in Jammu and Kashmir, next year.

That sentence was not spoken unthinkingly. The very necessity of the Prime Minister having to utter that sentence and the logic inherent in the formulation are a welcome departure from the conventional diagnoses that are made about the `Kashmir problem'. While the rest of the country has probably not noted the significance of this assurance by a Prime Minister from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the ruling National Conference leaders have made it be known that they have understood its meaning and they are not amused. Understandably so.

Will this assurance be enough to make the `separatist' camp want to test its much-asserted and much-vaunted claim to being the `sole representative' of the people of Kashmir, if not of Jammu and Ladakh? In the days to come, the democratic voices within India will have to find ways and means as well as the self- assurance to bring in scrutiny, transparency and supervision of a kind that can make next year's elections in Kashmir a credible and honest trial of contested ideas about the future of the scarred Valley. This is a task that the rest of the country will have to attend, if nothing else just to preserve its own sense of democratic equanimity.

What about the obligations, if any, on the part of the `separatist' camp? The easiest option for the All-Party Hurriyat Conference and others would be to reiterate unacceptable and unnecessary pre- conditions such as international supervision before they test their mettle in the electoral arena. In fact, the real test for the Hurriyat leaders in the next few months will be political. Do these leaders have the finesse, tactics and imagination to convert the Assembly elections into an opportunity to bring relief and dignity to the people of Kashmir? Do these leaders have it in them to out-manoeuvre that wonderfully wily Chief Minister who lives on Guptakar Road? Unfortunately, on current reckoning, the chances of the APHC summoning the courage of its conviction are rather remote.

Perhaps the script for the runup to the elections can even be predicted. Dr. Farooq Abdullah or his ebullient son or some other National Conference leader would make provocative statement about the `illegibility' of the APHC; the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, would then offer some `assurance' that would put the Hurriyat's back up; the irredentists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani would demand that the `executive' should meet and declare a `boycott' of the elections; the Hurriyat leaders would have the satisfaction of not selling away their `izzat' but the National Conference would romp home, with some assistance from those helpful chaps in khaki; and, then the Kashmir Valley would live miserably ever after with encounters, hartals, and massacres. The human rights industry would be kept busy for the next six years, while the ISI strategists would continue to be in business.

Sooner than later, the Hurriyat and other `separatist' leaders will have to make up their mind whether they want to continue wallowing in their cultivated victimhood or they wish to discharge their obligation to the people of Kashmir by exploring the path of reconciliation. The two most attractive options are no longer open to the `separatist' leaders. First, the Hurriyat crowd in particular must have by now understood the utter futility of the Pakistani-instigated jehad and its localised expressions; the Indian security forces are not going to get tired and the Pakistani Army is not going to march across the Line of Control to `liberate' Kashmir. This much should be obvious to even to the most romantic of the `separatists'. Also, what is euphemistically called the `international community' is not going to `deliver' Kashmir to the Hurriyat leaders, even if Professor Abdul Gani Bhat gets appointed President Bush's National Security Advisor. Nor can the Hurriyat leaders be under the illusion that this or that Indian `agency' is going to anoint one of them as the Wazir-i- Azam of Kashmir.

The Hurriyat leaders are, however, not a bunch of naive romantics; they can understand the realities `on the ground' just as well as anyone else. The question, then, becomes whether these leaders feel they have the liberty to break out of their own orthodoxy and their version of the past. This will require considerable courage. After all, the APHC was set up under Pakistani inspiration to ensure that all the scattered `anti- India' voices enhanced their bargaining clout by coming together on one platform; this conglomerate has had its historic moment, but that moment has passed. The time has now come for it to reshape itself or dissolve itself if the Hurriyat leaders want to remain true to the organisation's original raison d'etre - securing and safeguarding the abiding and immutable interests of the people of Kashmir.

Those among the Hurriyat leaders who have the common sense and the wisdom to understand that neither jehadi violence nor international `intervention' is a workable option now need to exorcise themselves of their separatist gods. The likes of Syed Geelani can go to their graves continuing to harp on the number of martyrs' graves; it is too late in the day for these irredentists to explore the potential for reconciliation. Just as it was a historic necessity for all the disparate `separatist' groups and individuals to come together, it is now imperative for the younger and the moderate Hurriyat leaders to think positively on how they can use and manipulate the Indian democratic arrangement to secure ethnic space and cultural autonomy for the people of Kashmir.

It is all very easy (and perhaps the safest way) for the moderate Hurriyat leaders to demonise the Indian electoral system, to castigate Dr. Farooq Abdullah and his trigger-happy police force, to cast Mr. Advani in the role of a super-hawk out to derail any reconciliation; each one of these excuses may have a grain of truth but cumulatively voiced these add up to a chickening out on the part of the Hurriyat leaders. The moderate Hurriyat leaders, who are free to extricate themselves from the tentacles of their Pakistani puppeteers, have an obligation to explore the possibility of political and constitutional safeguards that would `settle' the `Kashmir problem' on a note of dignity for the people of Kashmir.

For too long, the leaders of Kashmir, from Sheikh Abdullah downward, have conducted themselves as if all that they have to do is to keep on importuning New Delhi to do this or that for them and Kashmir, without any commensurate obligation on the part of those comfortably ensconced in Srinagar. These leaders have engaged in these quasi-blackmail tactics because Islamabad was always ready to oblige, in kind and cash. This utterly selfish attitude has brought prosperity to the leaders and misery to the people of Kashmir. A decade of bloodshed has turned this elaborate comedy among the crooks on both sides of the separatist divide into a macabre tragedy for the youth of Kashmir. The moderate leaders have to exhibit sufficient trust and faith in the efficacy of democratic process and powers of persuasion to help democratic India to come to their aid. The moderates, if there are any, have to stand up and be counted.

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