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Stranded in a place called impasse

Praveen Swami

Is the demilitarisation of Jammu and Kashmir a workable next-step in the dialogue process?

HASS BACCHA, as everyone in the small village of Gandipora used to call Ghulam Hassan Shah, used to sing for a living, entertaining people at weddings, political rallies, and public functions. On Wednesday night, Shah's friends found the folk musician's bullet-ridden body in a field outside the nearby village of Killam. Next to Shah's corpse was a note assigning reasons for his execution, signed by the local Lashkar-e-Taiba commander. "This is the fate," it read, "of all those who visit military camps and politicians." Before dawn, Manzoor Ahmad Malla and his brother Mohammad Yaseen Malla, had been shot through their knees as punishment for the same crime.

In recent weeks, a wide spectrum of political opinion in Jammu and Kashmir has been calling for moves towards demilitarisation in the State — a gesture, its advocates say, that would add life to the dialogue process and compel terrorist groups to come to the negotiating table. Driving such calls is the realisation that the dialogue process in Jammu and Kashmir has reached that bleak place all those who have participated in it know so well from past visits: impasse.

Confidence-building measures like trans-Line of Control services, for example, seem to have lost momentum. The last Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service attracted just four passengers from Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, even though it had been suspended for over a month due to landslides. On the political front, Islamist terror groups are yet to join the dialogue. And while both India and Pakistan support out-of-the-box solutions, neither side can seem to agree on exactly what these innovations might be.

All of this makes the case for a grand Indian gesture to propel the peace process attractive. Could limited demilitarisation be an idea whose time has come?

Answers to this question rest on several variables. Are terrorist groups tiring? Are organisations like the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen ready for a dialogue? Is there evidence that Pakistan is ready to strangle terrorism?

What evidence is available is not optimism-inducing. Contrary to political claims, surrenders of Pakistan-trained terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir have been declining, not increasing. While 151 terrorists surrendered in 2003, that number fell to 118 in 2004 and just 53 last year, despite the existence of a generous rehabilitation package. In the Kashmir valley, the decline was even more precipitate, from 91 in 2003 to just 19 last year.

Statistics on surrenders can be misleading. Many terrorists seeking to leave their organisations, or tanzeems, ask to be arrested, to protect their families from reprisal or charges of treachery. Here again, though, there is no evidence to show that large numbers of terrorists are seeking to desert their tanzeems. In 2003, 233 Pakistan-trained terrorists were arrested by Indian forces, a figure that fell to 194 in 2004. Last year, the number fell even further, to 189.

Interestingly, however, over half of all arrests of Pakistan-trained terrorists last year took place along the LoC, a marked departure from the past. Ninety-one terrorists were detained on the LoC, the highest figure since 1995. In 2003, by way of contrast, just three Pakistan-trained terrorists were arrested on the LoC, while eight were apprehended in 2004. Given that troops on the LoC are quick to open fire on infiltrators, it is likely at least some of these arrests were in fact surrenders in disguise.

Official data also provide interesting insight into terrorist transgressions of the LoC. For the first time since 1990, not a single terrorist was shot dead while attempting to cross the LoC into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, a clear sign that fewer numbers of new recruits are being despatched for training. However, an upsurge in infiltration was evident. Where 90 terrorists, in 43 discreet groups, were killed while attempting to cross the LoC in 2004, these figures rose to 165 and 72 last year.

Figures like these suggest that at least some of the ethnic Kashmiri cadre who have spent years in camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are indeed interested in returning home. However, the data at once make clear that there is no large-scale desire to surrender arms amongst those operating within the State, possibly a consequence of the large-scale earnings from extortion within Kashmir. Nor do the infiltration figures support claims that Pakistan is ready to shut the gates that allow terrorists to join the jihad.

For its part, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen seems to have ruled out the prospect of a demilitarisation-enabled ceasefire preceding its entry into the dialogue process. In a recent interview, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's supreme commander, Mohammad Yusuf Shah, asserted that "in Afghanistan, Vietnam and other conflict areas war and dialogue have run side by side." Soon after, Hizb spokesperson Saleem Hashmi issued a statement asserting that the "peace process is useless, futile and a waste of time."

Opportunities and risks

Leaving aside the question of whether Vietnam or Afghanistan constitute useful models for the negotiated settlement of conflicts, one thing is clear: the soldiers of the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir will not come to the table stripped of their instruments of leverage.

Is it still worth taking the risk of demilitarising some parts of the State? History is not comforting. Between December 2000 and April 2001, Indian forces terminated offensive operations against terrorist groups in the hope of bringing the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen to the dialogue table. The consequences? A record 289 civilians were killed by terrorists during these months, up from 241 in the same months of 1999-2000. While security force casualties fell from 189 to 156, the decline in terrorist fatalities was much sharper — from 294 to 183.

In political terms, the ceasefire demonstrated that pro-peace elements in the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen could not control levels of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. Organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, who then as now had no interest in joining in a dialogue from which they would gain nothing, demonstrated that in alliance with powerful ground-level commanders of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, they could undo moves towards peace. Pro-dialogue secessionist politicians proved unable to contain the jihadi assault.

Is demilitarisation, then, an unworkable goal?

No. As the dialogue process proceeds, Indian forces on counter-terrorist tasks will have to be pulled back to their normal duties. However, as thing stand, the Jammu and Kashmir Police simply do not have the resources to secure the entire State. Well over half of its 64,000 men are committed to administrative or static guard duties, and while the force has the services of another 12,000-odd Special Police Officers, this volunteer militia has neither the training nor equipment for regular ground-holding duties.

Politicians, including some of the most ardent supporters of the demilitarisation proposals, understand this well. There are profound ironies to figures who themselves insist on protection by central forces demanding that such cover be withdrawn for those they represent. Although India has already pulled back troops from all major urban centres, further withdrawal from already under-protected rural areas holds out the risks of a sharp increase in violence against civilians, particularly those hostile to Islamists.

What could, then, be the next steps ahead? Peace building, it seems clear, needs to shift direction. "We recently had the opportunity to visit relatives from whom we had been separated for 35 years," says the Vice-Chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology, Siddiq Wahid. "We hugged and wept with joy — and an hour later found we had nothing to talk about. What we need are institutions, not just nostalgia; institutions that will give people the foundations they need for a dialogue about the future."

What these institutions could be needs no great imagination. India and Pakistan could collaborate on water and power projects on both sides of Jammu and Kashmir, and allow their citizens to initiate trade relationships across the LoC. Universities could be encouraged to admit students from either side of the LoC, as the Islamic University is hoping to do, or indeed the agreed borders of India and Pakistan. Ideas like these are not glamorous, but could constitute bite-sized measures towards building an abiding peace.

At a recent conference in Karachi, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq observed that "all traditional slogans" had lost their relevance in Jammu and Kashmir. Nothing but an "all-inclusive dispensation," in which the religious and cultural rights of each of the State's regions was respected along with those of the peoples of India and Pakistan, would prove workable. He was right. It is quite obvious, though, that a consensus that meets these criteria is more than one step away.

In the meanwhile, if Pakistan's establishment is indeed serious about peace, it could start by acting against the jihadi groups that operate from its soil — the root cause of the killing in Jammu and Kashmir, if not the conflict. Whether the Pakistan Army is willing to abandon its hatred-driven campaign, though, is unclear. Last week, official pamphlets dropped over South Waziristan, for example, claimed Taliban terrorists there were "fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Jews and Hindus against the state of Pakistan."

Peace might be closer now in Jammu and Kashmir than ever before, but as Hass Baccha's sad death reminds us, it is still a place where it is dangerous even just to sing.

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