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The tortuous road to Kashmir

Rasheeda Bhagat

WITH the All Party Hurriyat Conference showing no urgency to respond to the Government's invitation to come to the negotiation table for talks, the Kashmir stalemate continues.

Ten days after the Planning Commission's Deputy Chairman, Mr K. C. Pant, named the chief negotiating authority by the Centre, extended an invitation to the Hurriyat, the 23-party umbrella organisation is moving from one closed-door meeting to another. Bu t a decision is yet to come on whether it would participate in the talks. The latest information from the Hurriyat camp is that it is likely to take a decision at its seven-member executive committee meeting to be held on Thursday.

Mr Pant has invited a host of people -- the J&K Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, MPs, MLAs and MLCs from the state of J&K, two groups from Kargil and one from Ladakh. He has already held one round of discussion with the former Chief Minister of Kashmi r, Syed Mir Qasim.

He has also said that while the dialogue was not open to Pakistan-based militant groups, Kashmiri militant outfits, on the Indian side of the border, would not be excluded. But if some kind of a road map for a peaceful settlement to the Kashmir imbroglio is to be sketched, the most important component would be the Hurriyat.

There is little doubt that the Hurriyat is still smarting under what it feels has been a backtracking on the promise of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, that its leaders would be allowed to go over to Pakistan for a dialogue with the Musharra f regime. With the Government refusing to give a passport to such hardline pro-Pakistan Kashmiri leaders as Syed Shah Geelani, the Hurriyat leaders had decided against visiting Pakistan if all of them were not given valid travel documents.

A couple of months later, New Delhi has now decided to set up yet another initiative under the leadership of Mr Pant. Though Mr Pant is a Kashmiri, there are several elements in the Hurriyat who believe he has neither the stature, the competence nor the power to explore a lasting solution to the thorny Kashmiri problem.

Another issue that has upset them is that the Hurriyat has been put on the same plank with all and sundry invited to the talks. As the former Hurriyat chairman, Mr Abdul Gani Lone, said in a telephonic interview to Business Line on April 24: ``We are cle arly unhappy about the fact that duniya bhar ke logon ko unhone bulaya hai (the whole world has been invited for talks)... Dr Farooq Abdullah has been invited, the Hurriyat has been called, the renegades and the taxi drivers of Kashmir... all these have been invited. We do not know who else is going to be invited by Mr Pant next.''

Charging the Government with continuing its beimani ka silsila (dishonest designs) and with weaving ``its web of deceit'', Mr Lone said: ``We are also going to be very cautious and we will not get caught in any new web they are spinning.''

Asked why the Hurriyat was taking so long to decide about participating in the peace talks, he said: ``We will have to see if these talks will have any meaning. We will also have to see who is holding the talks. The Government has named the Deputy Chairm an of the Planning Commission. Now we have to see whether he has the stature and the powers. We have also have to ask: Is he the best and the most competent person for this task? Let us not forget that earlier a person of the stature of Mr Swaran Singh h ad been named as an interlocutor.''

Reiterating the Hurriyat's stated position, its former chairman said that it was forced to think that the Government was not sincere in solving the Kashmir problem, ``because of the people they have chosen to invite for this dialogue. Take a conflict lik e this anywhere in the world. When an attempt is made to resolve it, whom do you talk to? Do you talk to people who are fighting with you or do you talk to people who are already on your side? ''

``What is the sense in inviting people who are already on your side,'' he asked, in an apparent reference to the inclusion of Dr Farooq Abdullah and his team in the invitees' list. Mr Lone added that the Hurriyat would have to ask and answer all these qu estions before it decided to accept or reject Mr Pant's invitation. ``Do not forget we will have to face the Kashmiri people here. They will ask us that the Government of India.. no less than the Prime Minister himself... had promised you that you could go to Pakistan to hold a dialogue. What happened to that? So we will have to be careful.''

It is obvious from Mr Lone's answers that the mood in the Hurriyat right now is grouchy. And Mr Lone is considered one of the moderates in this group, where pro-Pakistan voices have been, and continue to be, raised.

As for the Centre's latest initiative, if the Hurriyat decides at its Thursday meeting not to participate in the talks, the whole initiative will come a cropper. If this does, indeed, happen, the Government will have none else to blame except the saffron ites within its fold.

Whatever Mr Geelani's political leanings and however deep an admirer of Pakistan, one question begs an honest answer. So what if Mr Geelani had, indeed, gone to Pakistan and said he wanted Kashmir to become an integral part of Pakistan? New Delhi would h ave only given him the freedom to talk, and not the freedom to trade Kashmir over to Pakistan.

Just because one or two pro-Pakistani leaders speak from the Pakistani soil of Kashmiris' allegiance to Islamabad, does Kashmir have to be handed over to Pakistan? Can a Geelani barter away the sovereignty of India? Certainly not. But foolishly, we keep missing opportunities to unmask such paper tigers.

The crux of the issue is to recognise that we have a problem in Kashmir. Not an ordinary one, but a gigantic problem that is bleeding us in more ways than one. Kashmiri insurgency, fuelled by Pakistan, is certainly coming in the way of India marching for ward with the speed it can and claiming its rightful place in the league of nations.

If we are to even give the impression of being serious in addressing this issue, there will have to be sincerity, seriousness, consistency and, above all, generosity. If we are not prepared to give more than what we can take, all in the interest of peace and prosperity, let us not waste time in coming out with half-baked initiatives that will ultimately not take us anywhere.

Mr Lone does have a point when he says that if the Hurriyat cannot trust the Prime Minister of India, what reason does it have to trust a Pant?

(Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)