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Making Wonderland real

"Why," said the Queen, in Alice in Wonderland, "sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." To residents of the house-of-horrors that Jammu and Kashmir has been reduced to, by 18 years of Islamist terrorism and sustained official ineptitude, the sentiment might be familiar. To people in the State, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's second round table conference might seem one more fantasy. Yet there is good reason to believe their cynicism might for once be misplaced. Dr. Singh's proposal for the creation of five working groups to discuss issues of contention — the structure of J&K's political relationship with the Union of India, the quality of governance, economic development, cross-Line of Control movement, and the mitigation of terrorism-related hardship — offers a mechanism for political actors to arrive at a shared vision of the future. When the working groups are set in motion, representatives of the State's diverse peoples will have an institutional apparatus by which a road map for democratic progress could be charted. Divided and fractious political parties will now have to sit down and agree on what to do with the ball that has been thrown into their court. Impossible? It might not be, although this is a big ask.

Prime Minister Singh and his policy advisers will have to exercise their imagination, especially to transfigure the structures of India's engagement with Pakistan on Kashmir. Islamabad's public pronouncements before the round table fuelled hope that it would not oppose the participation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. However, terrorist groups, notably the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, and the strategic hand behind them have ensured that the doves in the ranks of the secessionist coalition took flight on the eve of the event. New Delhi, which in deference to the APHC's wishes disinvited several figures who attended the first round table conference, ended up undermining the credibility of those who supported it during difficult times. As things stand, the Prime Minister will find it difficult to resume high-level dialogue with the APHC without alienating participants in the round table process even more. However, if the Hurriyat is to be brought on board, new means will have to be found to persuade Islamabad to deliver on its repeated promises to terminate the activities of terrorist groups operating from its soil. Another impossible objective? Perhaps — but failure is not an acceptable option. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's pursuit of peace with Pakistan inflicted not insignificant political costs on his political position and on his party. Should Dr. Singh fail, future governments will find it much more difficult to take the risks peacemaking invariably entails. Wonderland has to be made real if Jammu and Kashmir is to awaken from its nightmare-without-end — but the time to achieve that is finite.

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