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Making history is hard work

`Historic' is a word that has been devalued not a little by its indiscriminate use in the course of the détente process in Jammu and Kashmir. Yet the fact is the wheels of history are turning, however slowly. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference have now an agreed path for progress, no small gain. APHC leaders have promised to put forward a plan for step-by-step resolution of the conflict in J & K. New Delhi, in turn, will consider longstanding Hurriyat demands, including the release of prisoners held on terrorism charges and the reduction in counter-terrorism forces. Both sides seem to be aware that the task before them is enormous. Dr. Singh's commitment to reduce troops provided levels of violence and cross-border infiltration decline is a case in point. Indian military officials note that the limited pullback of troops in 2004 did not yield a reciprocal decline in jihadist violence; there is reluctance to repeat the exercise. The point, however, is that both parties seem to be serious. If the APHC understands that it needs to demonstrate its credibility, which is at a low point, New Delhi seems to have realised that standing still is not a viable political option. Both parties will have to work for bite-sized solutions to the several problems of the people of the State, not just the abstract entity called `the Kashmir problem'.

Making history is hard work, though, and some notes of caution are in order. First, the mechanics of New Delhi's negotiation process need finessing. The overall command of New Delhi's multiple mediators — the official interlocutor, N.N. Vohra, Congress politician Saifuddin Soz, and bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah — has been opaque, to say the least. Past experience has shown that dissonant signals sent out by free-floating envoys can cause no small amount of mistrust and confusion. Secondly, and more importantly, there is an urgent need to broad-base the dialogue: to initiate discussions with not just the APHC, but all major political forces in the State. Not to do so could end up subverting the legitimacy of the democratic process, revived at great cost in human life. Several politicians of eminence have called for such a widening of the dialogue, and it is time their voices were heard. Finally, the problem of jihadist violence, perpetrated by groups that appear to care little for public opinion, remains. How this is addressed depends on the course of India's engagement with Pakistan: indeed, as more than one scholar has noted, the conflict over Jammu and Kashmir is an encapsulation of the larger dispute between the two countries. For the people of the State — where, notwithstanding the decline in violence since 2002, at least five people die every day in terrorism-related incidents — the real test for the dialogue process will be its ability to move beyond being an idea, and start delivering peace on the ground.

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