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Staying the course in Kashmir

For decades, Indian policy-making on Jammu and Kashmir has consisted of doing the same things again and again — and hoping they will somehow have a different outcome. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced in May 2006 that a Working Group would be created to discuss the constitutional future of the State, it was hailed as a historic attempt to try something new. Dr. Singh promised to allow the people of J &K to be the authors of their own history. He appealed to all politicians to use the mechanism "to make a material contribution to the problems that we have been discussing for many decades now and arrive at an understanding and a consensus on what needs to be done." Five months later, the Working Group has neither a convenor nor members. Meanwhile, New Delhi has reopened covert dialogue with the secessionist All Parties Hurriyat Conference and elements close to Islamist terror groups. Buffeted by the worst-ever wave of terrorist strikes in major Indian cities, policy-makers find the prospect of a deal with these elements more attractive than a protracted, highly complex, and often frustrating dialogue.

Three issues need to be considered in this context. First, past deals — from the Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah-Indira Gandhi accord of 1975 to the 2002 ceasefire with one Hizb-ul-Mujahideen faction — gave rise to `spoilers,' rival groups with interests in disrupting progress. The National Conference's recent decision to withdraw from the Prime Minister's dialogue process is a perfect demonstration of this phenomenon at work once again. A broad-based dialogue is integral to ensuring that a substantial spectrum of political opinion is locked into a peace process, thus marginalising the spoilers. Secondly, the United Progressive Alliance Government appears to have persuaded itself that the United States will compel Pakistan to go along with an APHC-India peace deal. Beset by internal crisis, President Pervez Musharraf has good reason to remain engaged with India, but not to undermine his domestic position by accepting anything resembling the status quo in Jammu and Kashmir. Thirdly, the Manmohan Singh Government has come to depend on the same pool of experts who shaped Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's well-meaning but unsuccessful efforts at deal-making. Bringing about a dialogue with the APHC and extremist groups is necessary, but New Delhi needs to ask itself if there is any reason to believe individuals with a record of failure will succeed this time around. These were the very considerations behind Dr. Singh's decision to put principles before personalities and set up the autonomy Working Group. Sadly, New Delhi seems close to walking away from the pitch before the first ball has been bowled.

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