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Kashmir uncertainties

The divorce may have been put off for a while but almost nobody expects the marriage of convenience of the Congress and the People's Democratic Party in Jammu & Kashmir to survive until the next Assembly election, which is due in October 2008. The question of demilitarisation of the State is supposedly at the heart of the dispute. What is clear is that no issue of principle is involved in the PDP's insistence on the withdrawal of the Army from J&K; it is simply a question of perceived political interest. The 2002 election produced a comprehensively hung 87-member Assembly: the National Conference picked up 28.24 per cent of the vote and 28 seats; the Congress 24.24 per cent and 20 seats; the PDP 9.28 per cent and 16 seats; and the smaller parties and independents the residual share of votes and seats. In the Kashmir Valley, the National Conference took 34.90 per cent of the votes and the PDP 25.80 per cent compared with the Congress's 14.80 per cent. For the PDP, the electoral anxieties revolve around the possibility of the secessionist All Parties Hurriyat Conference deciding to contest the 2008 election in the event of a peace deal. If the APHC takes over the extreme Islamist support base, and the National Conference holds its own in the Valley, the PDP will be left with little or no base. The electoral stakes for both the Congress and the BJP (which was trounced in 2002) are higher in the Jammu and Ladakh regions. Against such a complex background, `demilitarisation' has turned into a convenient political tool for the PDP to exert pressure on its partner in government.

As this newspaper argued in an editorial on March 10, demilitarisation of J & K is a good idea that needs to be implemented in phases, with caution. The Manmohan Singh government has gone about the job soundly enough, understanding that a huge Army presence is unpopular in the Valley, that terrorism is best fought by well-trained and well-equipped police forces but also that the police and CRPF might not be able to hold the ground if the Army were suddenly withdrawn. Concern for the life and welfare of ordinary Kashmiris as well as considerations of security and national interest dictate that there can be no question of giving in to the PDP's demand for total withdrawal here and now. The Central government will need to factor in such things as extremism and secessionism in the Valley, the growth of Islamist forces in Pakistan, and that country's failure to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure, before taking any big and irreversible steps in the process of demilitarisation. Politically, the Congress is likely to find a revitalised National Conference a far better bet than the likes of the PDP.

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