Realities and thoughts look forward, not the past

By Mufti Mohammad Sayeed

It is personally a pleasure and in-tellectually a privilege to be in-vited to speak at this scholarly summit organised by the Hindustan Times. I will not even try to pretend to give you an expansive view of the dynamics of global peace as was done by Professor Francis Fukuyama here a couple of days of back.

Given my current position and may I say my pre-occupation, I will much rather take you through a much smaller slice of the world history - small but very intense and very troubled - one that has engaged mightier minds and greater leaders: the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

Let me start by saying that any attempt to place the Kashmir issue into water-tight compartments - Islamic militancy, cross-border terrorism, secessionist insurgency, ethno-national demand — does less good and more damage to the variety of factors and the sheer complexity of elements, and their radical hybridity that have caused the problem in Kashmir. There is no gainsaying that it is a highly volatile and extremely contentious matter for which there are no, indeed cannot be, any easy answers.

Road maps prejudge the issue; readymade solutions make the problem a distorted image of what it actually is and models make a mockery of the specificity of the issue. All that one can hope to discuss at a forum like this is to look for a framework for a solution. A context in which the issue can be placed and the contours of solution worked out.

Prior to doing so, it might help if we quickly run through the major strands of thought in the resolution paradigm. First, and perhaps, the oldest are the "internationalists" who look towards the United Nations for a settlement. I believe that it is time that we look beyond it.

Sometimes, those who are aggrieved, use the international community as an object of appeal for more than human rights. But the fact of the matter is that there is no international community. It had some type of structure as long as the United Nations was an organization, which exerted a certain pressure on the policies and situation of governments. With the United Nations having been marginalised, there is no centre where a long-term view can be taken and a platform of principle constructed. If we do this, it is akin to assuming the position of litigant before a court, which does not exist.

The second most popular strand of thought comes from the "status quoists". They want to convert the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir into an international border. Given that it is the Line of conflict, to recommend that the problem should be resolved on the basis of the Line of Control, can at best be a part of the solution not the solution, if done on a stand-alone basis. Internal dimension of the problem cannot be wished away.

The oft-repeated demand for autonomy, which has its origins in the early 50s, is itself a compromise solution. Even though it recognises, the ethno-nationalism of Kashmiris, the implied political position is that ethnicity need not engender nationhood. That is why independence is not the pursued goal of autonomist viewpoint. Instead, the issue was whether Kashmir should join Pakistan or India.

The political movement of the mainstream parties was not to pursue the process of nationality-formation to the point where political structures were sought to be made congruent with nationality by creating an independent entity. This came to the fore in 1975. The view thereafter was that even if Kashmiris are a nation it doesn’t axiomatically follow that they are entitled to a nation-state. Hence the desire to create an "enclave of autonomy within India".

While most political analysts subscribing to the autonomist viewpoint do recognise the ethno-nationalism of the Kashmiris — Kashmiriyat — they differ from the advocates of independence insofar as the latter go further and make an ethno-territorial demand.

Further, the basis of this form of autonomy as practiced in the early 1950s was flawed as it sought to create an enclave of federalism within a unitary system and combine the advantages of a loose federation with those of a centralised system without impairing its functioning. But now these situations have changed with the regional parties gaining in prominence and the centre being ruled by a coalition of political parties. Even though it is the same Constitution, the spirit is far more federal today and the autonomy issue may not suffer from the same ills as it did earlier.

But then there are down-the-line issues. How can one conceive of political autonomy without a fiscal autonomy? Political autonomy derives its substance and sustainability from economic independence. The most serious problem with the pre-1953 position is that there will be no financial or fiscal links between the Union of India and the state of J&K.

In the current dispensation it will be difficult for the state government even to pay its wage-bill, let alone finance its development. This is not a reflection of the unviability of the state economy but a commentary on how over the years, successive regimes - at the Centre and the State - collided and worked in tandem to make a vibrant economy completely dependent on central resource transfers. In its present form, this demand shows a complete stagnation of ideas and lack of foresight.

The real danger in this case is that the autonomist viewpoint, can be very easily diluted which then goes to compromise the basic principle of ethno-nationalism. The entire effort to create an autonomous unit in recognition of the historically inherited ethno-nationalism can with the stroke of pen be firmly condemned to the byzantine labyrinth of Indian federal issues. Indeed, in the fifties, even the position of the head of government - Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir — was not institutionalised and hence could be subverted without much effort.

The moot point is not to look for solutions in the past; but to find them in the future. A return to the past may not be possible; indeed it may not even be desirable. The world has undergone a change and we have to be a part of that changed system. The past offers no hope.

It is very important to recognise that we are living through a period where definitions of cultures, societies, sovereignty, nationality themselves are changing very rapidly and radically. All these issues have gone through a large number of transformations and sometimes dramatic shifts.

Along with the end of the political bi-polarity, an equally important set of factors has been the pressures and opportunities of globalisation. Technological innovations in communications and transportation, and in particular the movement of capital across borders, have circumvented or eroded traditional state sovereignty not only in the conduct of international finance and trade, but increasingly in their own domestic affairs. This is a crucial fact that will have to be borne in mind for any future dispensation that we might conceive for Jammu and Kashmir.

The vacuum left behind after the Cold War, coupled with the vagaries of globalisation, has created serious external strains on the traditional nation-state apparatus, particularly in the developing world. Many developing states that were already weakened or failing due to a variety of internal factors, will be under greater pressure now. All this will lead to newer and more relevant definitions of sovereignty.

Indeed, I think that the seeds of a solution lie in using the logic of this change that is spearheaded by globalisation to evolve a framework for new political dispensation in Jammu and Kashmir, which will resolve the issue on a long-term basis. In this context, our first move has to be to look for and create a much larger common economic space in the sub-continent and beyond. We can, for instance, look for a SAARC economic space where we can have a free movement of factors of production like labour and capital; have greater market relations and indeed, have a single currency, a consistent and congruous monetary and fiscal policy, and uniform trade policy.

Today the dominant analytic in the global order is economic power and economic interests override all other kinds of interest. With binding and self propelling economic interests, political disputes will automatically become less intense, frozen positions will get surely thawed, and all economic relations will bring us to being just one step away from political resolutions.

Fortunately, we are thinking along these lines at a time when in the Islamic world, there is an extraordinarily energetic debate taking place from Morocco to Indonesia as to what Islam is, what it can be interpreted as, and where it might be going. This is routinely overlooked in the West, where a traditional Orientalism maintains its hegemony and overrides the dynamic of cultures and the diversity of what is within them. All this will have a bearing on how the masses in Kashmir react to a solution; how they see the road ahead and how actively they further it. It is no longer correct to say that globally Islam is in the grip of a wave of unyielding fundamentalism: this is very far from the truth. There are serious movements of self-assessments taking place within Islam.

Finally, I think it is of utmost importance to recognise the inter-generation dimension of the problem. We are now well into the third generation of the problem. The first generation, which was involved in the freedom movement, did not accept a division of Kashmir on the basis of religion but the divide across secular lines - Hindus versus Muslims — did become a part of the mental makeup.

The second generation witnessed the 1965 war between India and Pakistan and the East Pakistan crisis in 1971, responded differently mentally and a majority of them developed animosity, mistrust and suspicion towards each other. Using nationalistic perspectives, this generation was not prepared to maintain friendly relations with each other.

As historical memories recede, the third generation, which belongs to the age group of 30s or slightly more, is not emotionally swayed as the earlier generations. The third generation did not witness any large-scale war between India and Pakistan. Emotional detachment helped them to rise above psychological barriers and be more forward-looking and future oriented.

As Stephen Cohen puts it, "A Third Generation is now emerging…the third generation does not have a sense of responsibility for the gloomy history. Their competence and their interest in the things that matter-above all a fresh approach to economic issues, plus the collapse of many institutions dominated by a generation in the past-will bring them to power sooner rather than later. More than any other development in the region, this new group of regional leaders will make it possible for a change to occur.

A generational shift in the politics of Kashmir is near completion now. It is a process that is well and truly entrenched. Look around and you will find that every major political group in the wide spectrum of the state has its leader who is in his/her 40s or even less. Moulvi Umar Farooq, Sajjad and Bilal Lone, Omar Abdullah, Yasin Malik and Shabbir Shah and of course, the leader of my party, Mehbooba Mufti.

To see such a confluence of young blood and brains across all shades of the political spectrum is rare indeed. Not many places in the world can claim to have its top political leadership in their late twenties and early thirties. I can’t think of any place especially in the age obsessed politics of the subcontinent, which even comes anywhere close. That of all the places in the world, this should happen in Kashmir — the oldest and the most intractable problem in the world - not only augurs well but makes the static state of affairs not only interestingly significant but also pregnant with possibilities. A breakthrough is more than a mere possibility when the excess baggage of the past is not a hindrance.

Will the new generation bring about the minimization of the ethnic, class, regional, and ideological distinctions that have - independently and collectively - a major bearing on the core of the Kashmir issue? Or will it heighten these tensions? While a view of the broad political culture appears to have been passed from one generation to the next, will the most salient issues shift along with a change in the agents of politicisation? One hopes not. However, what one does hope that there is a complete break from the past in the manner in which the issue is conceptualised, the politics conducted, and the conviction communicated. For what my generation has done is to let the issue fester. We are guilty and shall be deemed so in the court of history unless we act and act fast.

Sure, there will be an attitudinal change: the young populations the world over is increasingly connected to international culture through new means of mass communication; slow economic development and limited political opportunities threaten governmental legitimacy all over the globe; moves toward democratization are taking place at many levels.

To understand these disparate and inter-connected dynamics and initiate action what the new leadership, irrespective of their political affiliations and goals, needs to do is to combine comparative politics and political economy with the emerging international political order and strategic analysis.

What have we achieved? First, we have shown that political fundamentalism was the face of frustration; frustration because of the lack of dialogue. It was not the norm, but the exception to the historically known mental make up of kashmiris.

In the first year of governance, we did not focus our attention so much on changing the political systems, but we tried to change the structures in which political, civil and economic life is conducted. Our attention went to the major responsibilities of state which is provision of public goods and provide (at a minimum) the infrastructure to allow for economic activity.

This is a part of the overall resolution strategy of mine, because I do believe that complex political emergencies are not only to be found in the issues around which conflicts are politicised, such as ethnicity or regional identity, but also in the prior trend towards a failure of governance. In fact, it is often this prior failure of governance that is the causal factor in the politicisation of ethnic identity issues. So we have tried to focus on these, less glamorous issues of conflict resolution, in the first year.

It must be recognised that it is for the first time in the troubled history of our state, the state government is not in an adversarial role while talks are being conducted with the separatist groups. Indeed, we are the facilitators and see this as a major achievement of our one-year in power.

We believe that we have met our first objective: of being a means for effective articulation of political, social and economic aspirations of Kashmiris. The illegitimate symbiotic relationship with the State, its repressive arms and the civil bureaucracy, which had imparted a strand of authoritarianism to the governance in J&K, has been substantially broken and it is this that has allowed us to pursue a meaningful non-violent agenda.

Second, we have stopped the marginalisation of moderates in the political spectrum of Kashmir. It cannot be denied that this has to a large extent, been possible because of a change in the attitudes and policies of the Government of India. The grim visage of a central authority determined to use coercion over an increasingly alienated people was the source of this marginalisation. This has decisively undergone a change for the better.

We are now at the threshold of the third step. Empowering the legitimate democratic institutions of the state to the extent that they are not played around with anymore by anyone. For instance, if the current or future legislatures of the State that have been democratically elected make recommendations that are within the purview of the Constitution of the State and the Country, it is obligatory on part of the Centre to treat it with more respect than has been done in the past.

This is not required not only as a generic principle to be followed with all sub-national government but more for the specific reasons of Jammu and Kashmir which is a sui generis case in itself because of the circumstances of its accession, its own ethno-national composition, and its distinct position in the Indian federal set up. If this not done, it will tell the kashmiris that there are no "redressal mechanism" available to them from within the system.

In the past, this feeling has gone on to strengthen what all the extremists have been saying and what has been the raison d’etre of militancy. And in the process strikes at the root of moderate political viewpoint. Thus Aazadi became a more attractive alternative and option once the forum for internal redressal were made ineffective.

Nothing shows the change in this attitude more clearly than the recent state election. Instead of bringing in the Kashmir issue, raking up the dead and buried, raising the ante on Pakistan, the entire campaign was quite the contrary. We warmed up to Pakistan, we focussed on progress not on parochialism and discussed development and initiated dialogue. Nothing can be more heartening than that. As we sit here in the middle of a Delhi winter, I smell a spring in the political climate of the sub-continent. The blossoms are not far. And as you all know, the blossoms in Kashmir are the best in the world!!

(Speech delivered by him at 2-day seminar on Peace Dividend - Progress for India and South Asia at New Delhi on December 12, 2003).

PERISCOPE ON PAKISTAN
Crunch time for Musharraf

President-General-CEO-etc Per-vez Musharraf is fast reaching a point when he will be forced to throw his parliamentary baby out with the bathwater. His jehadi bulwark – the Muttahida Majlis Amal – which he created to demonstrate his democratic credentials is set to shoot off at a tangent which could plunge Pakistan back into the abyss of uncamouflaged military dictatorship.

Commenting on MMA’s one-month ultimatum on the Legal Framework Order (LFO) on which Musharraf has based the legitimacy of his regime, DAWN says editorially: "A government opposition confrontation with the possible paralysis of the administration is the last thing Pakistan needs at this time when its transition back to democracy is stuck at the starting point.

"Talk of a government-opposition confrontation in the streets is once again in the air. On November 17, the Mutahadda Majlis Amal gave the government a one-month ultimatum, asking it to present before the National Assembly the constitutional formula agreed upon between the two sides. If the government failed to do so, the MMA would hit the streets and start its agitation from December 18.

"The focus of the agitation will obviously be the person of President Musharraf. As they put it at their Press conference, it would be a ‘remove-Musharraf campaign’ which would not be directed against the Army but would aim at relieving the Army of its ‘additional duties’. The meaning is unmistakable.

"Whether the MMA would be able to make a success of its threat is open to speculation. Maybe it succeeds. After all, it has plenty of street power not only in the NWFP and Balochistan but also in southern Sindh and some pockets in Punjab. This way it can create and sustain conditions of chaos and succeed in paralysing the present semi-civilian set-up. But it must ask itself whether this would advance the cause of democracy and not lead to a fresh bout of direct military rule."

DAWN adds: "The Legal Framework Order is an obnoxious package. It has no constitutional validity. Those who drafted it had no mandate from the people to tamper with the Constitution, As it stands, it is intended to safeguard not the people’s rights and interests or to put Pakistan on the road to progress and prosperity but to preserve an oligarchic dispensation.

"The MMA is unlikely to resort to agitation if it is reasonably sure that the government is serious about a compromise. Instead, Prime Minister Zafrullah Khan Jamali’s remarks that the opposition was ‘welcome’ to launch agitation was needlessly provocative. It signalled a hardening of the government’s attitude. If, therefore, the MMA launches the threatened agitation the government would have none but itself to blame for it.

"The government has to realise that the concessions must come from its side. The opposition has nothing to offer towards an end to the year-long political stalemate.

"The government must yield on Clause 58-2(b) and it must agree to scrap the NSC. At best, as Turkey has done recently, the NSC can become an advisory body and not a statutory one. As for the issue of President Musharraf donning two hats, he should announce a date by which he would discard his uniform."

DAILY TIMES cautions: "Rarely has an independent popular agitation against a military-backed government met with any success. An effort on the part of the PML (N) to break the support of the Army came to grief and will doubtless serve as a lesson to the MMA.

"The Alliance for Democracy (ARD), the home of the mainstream PPPP and PML(N), has been greatly upset by the MMA’s decision to postpone their plan to start agitation against the Jamali government. The PPPP’s Makhdoom Amin Fahim has called on the JUI’s Maulana Fazlur Rahman and protested the postponement till December 18 of the big push to get rid of the house that General Musharraf has built. Mr Fahim says that he and the other ARD leaders might be compelled to consider the possibility of launching their campaign without the MMA. The MMA has not done well by the ARD parties despite the fact that the latter’s secular leaders did join their rhetoric with that of the clergy to show solidarity in Parliament.

"The religious leaders may have sharpened their statements against the government but they would prefer a last-minute patch-up on the LFO if that is possible. As a result, the way the MMA has behaved doesn’t enhance the nimbus behind its leaders’ heads. It has been growling its threats ever since the first meeting with the government over the LFO broke, down but it has ended up suffering internal rifts instead of forcing the government to back down on General Musharrafs insistence on holding dual office. People first saw the religious alliance nearly splitting over distribution of political power in the NWFP, then saw factions haggling over wriggle-room within the MMA."

NATION maintains: "It is unclear whether the negatives have been factored into the LFO ultimatum. Also unclear now is the future of Pakistan’s democracy which, as even General Musharraf concedes, cannot countenance military over lordship.

"In a shocking development, the military leadership is reported to have decided to reduce the LFO negotiations to a take-it or leave-it offer to the MMA This thunderbolt coincides with the expiry of the two-day time-out taken by the Jamali government from the MMA to discuss the sticking points with General Musharraf. Thereafter, Mr Jamali was hopeful of giving good news to the nation. The military ultimatum, if indeed final, seems unlikely to be what he had in mind. It is certainly not the good news expected by the nation.

"With MMA unlikely to accept the LFO and the PPP (P) and PML(N) having already rejected it completely, the constitutional deadlock is, thus, back to square one. What form the opposition reaction would take should unfold in time. What is already clear is the mortal blow delivered to the tattered credibility of the Jamali-led ‘democratic’ contraption. It has turned out, as its critics have said all along, to be too beholden to its military mentors to be flexible on the critical issues of presidential uniform and elections. The MMA’s refusal to bend any further on these "irritants’ seems to have driven to the drastic decision by the brass.

NATION surmises: "The fateful decision is, thus, being seen as a prelude to greater pressure on the opposition legislators to break rank in sufficient numbers to allow the ruling coalition to rubber-stamp the LFO with a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Even if this shady enterprise succeeds, it will neither carry any moral authority nor impart any political legitimacy to its beneficiaries. Even General Musharraf will lose political stature and moral authority as an unselected President-in-uniform.

"On the other hand the polarisation it will cause in the national polity can only carry dangerous repercussions in the future. More immediately, it would focus more intense and critical attention on the military’s role in Pakistan’s murky power game. There is already much blame-throwing by an increasing number of its critics, with pointation to the fatal fallout of past military misadventures.

(ADNI Bureau)