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Slogans and substance

Like the magician Houdini, the Congress-People's Democratic Party alliance government in Jammu and Kashmir has once again escaped from what appeared to be certain death. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's promise to set up an expert committee to review troop deployment has allowed the PDP to back away from its threat to leave the alliance unless a commitment was made to `demilitarise' the State. Pragmatism appears to have forced PDP leader and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to inch away from the precipice. Fortunately, most of the smaller partners of the alliance government threw their weight behind Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, leaving the PDP isolated. Moreover, the prospect that the Congress would remain in power with National Conference support persuaded PDP strategists that they had nothing to gain from pulling out of the alliance now. There is naturally uncertainty about how long the truce will last. While there is little doubt that a sustainable peace in J&K will involve pulling the Army out of areas where terrorist violence has declined, demilitarisation is a profoundly complex issue. Nobody expects the committee's deliberations to yield instant results; the best-case scenario is for the exercise to become a focal point for the much-needed dialogue on how the lives of Jammu and Kashmir's people can be made safer and freer.

The crisis on the demilitarisation issue is a symptom of a larger malaise. Ever since the Congress chose to exercise its option to rule for three of the alliance government's six years in office, crisis has followed crisis with dispiriting regularity. Demilitarisation is just the latest in a series of contentious issues. The course of the peace process, human rights abuses, power-sharing arrangements, and even the transfers and postings of officials have all precipitated confrontations between the partners. Neither the Congress nor the PDP has demonstrated the intellectual resources and the political sagacity needed to give real meaning to their political positions. Slogans like `self-rule,' `zero-tolerance of human rights violations,' and indeed `demilitarisation' are signboards along the road to peace — but of value only if the road actually exists. There are few signs that either of the coalition partners has a coherent agenda for the political consensus-building and institutional reforms needed to give these ideas substance. Prime Minister Singh has demonstrated a new willingness to put the past behind him and move ahead towards an internal settlement of J&K. The challenge before him is to rescue the peace process from its traditional role of serving as a pretext for opportunistic politics.

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