Men, Matters and Memories
Hurriyat-Advani talks to ‘clear’ cobwebs

By M L Kotru

Between the Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishen Ad-vani and the Kashmir Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed the two some has have again exposed the leadership's capacity- in New Delhi and in Srinagar- to make a confusing situation even more confusing, New Delhi says it is willing to talk with Kashmiri separatists read Hurriyat Conference- and designates the Deputy Prime Minister to set the ball rolling. Mufti welcomes the move with open arms and does not forget to pat his own back for New Delhi's concurrence to talks with Hurriyat. The talks with the separatists would inevitably lead to light at the end of the tunnel. So the Kashmir Chief Minister believes. But then he does not see the talks reflecting, as he assures, his Government's readiness to make room for an alternative arrangement. No, the talks do not presuppose the PDP Government making way for another combination like in the manner of Syed Mir Qasim vacating the Chief Minister's seat to enable Sheikh Abdullah's return after the Parthasathy-Mirza Beg Delhi accord was signed.

The Mufti, though, need not have worried on that score. For Advani was quick enough to knock the bottom out of the proposed dialogue with Hurriyat and other separatists. Mind you, it was not as if Advani would engage himself in unending deliberations with the separatists. He was to kick-start the talks and let N N Vohra or possibly someone else carry the talks further. Like it is being done with the Naga separatists.

At the raising day of the Indo Tibetan police force Advani made it amply clear that his proposed talks with the Hurriyat were intended to clear mental cobwebs. As Advani saw the talks, these were not going to be a prelude to a tripartite dialogue between India, Pakistan and the separatists as the sole representatives of the Kashmiris. Everything would have to be done within the four walls of the existing Union. Which is another way of saying that he did not contemplate any tinkering with the Constitutional position. Yes, may be a concession here and another there would be considered if it satisfied the separatist aspirations within the Union. Nothing more, nothing less.

That is the end of the latest proposal by New Delhi for talks with the Hurriyat. The latter, the faction headed by Maulvi Abbas Ansari, were perhaps a bit too quick to accept the offer as something they had been asking for direct talks with the political leadership rather than with some designated emissary. Advani was yet to announce his conditional approach to the talks with the Hurriyat when it went into session to give a formal response. And it was a measured one, dictated by the all too obvious fissures within the Hurriyat ranks. It would, the Ansari faction said some 48 hours after the proposal was made, give a considered response only after the Id, a month from now.

Pakistan had in the meantime alerted its man Syed Ali Shah Geelani not to let the Hurriyat Conference be trapped in the Indian net and to Geelani's everlasting credit, he did the Pakistani bidding as strongly as is his wont on such occasions. The Advani rider only made the Ansari faction and the Chief Minister look slightly embarrassed. For someone who has put much store by his insistent demand for a comprehensive dialogue with the separatists the Chief Minister tried to gloss over the Advani riders. He has continued to plug the line that only a dialogue will lead towards a resolution of the Kashmir tangle.

It's nobody's case that a dialogue is not necessary to resolve disputes. Such a dialogue in that case would have to be between India and Pakistan. Such talks would for one thing make it unnecessary for New Delhi to talk with the likes of Ali Shah Geelani whose choice in any case is well known. For the rest, the talks must be within the context of Kashmir having legally acceded to India and changes in the working of the relationship, if any, can be and must be considered within that limitation.

Where Mufti Sayeed errs is in his unwillingness to take Pakistani obstreperousness into consideration when he talks of a dialogue with all Kashmiris including the separatists. Prime Minister Vajpayee, even after allowing for his burning desire to be remembered for having resolved the 56-year-old Kashmir tangle, can go only thus far and no further in realising his vision. His successive peace initiatives have been pooh poohed by the military junta ruling Pakistan. The 12 point overture made by him some days back is being dismissed by Pakistan as nothing more than a rehash of what Pakistan has been suggesting for months. If that is really the case how come Islamabad has yet to embrance any of the proposals. New Delhi went to the extent of adopting one of Mufti Sayeed's pet themes-opening up of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road. Indeed it is one of the proposals made by New Delhi. Yet the Pakistani spokespersons have not uttered a word about it.

The Kashmir Chief Minister who has just completed one year in office should for the present let the Pakistanis and the pro-Pakistani stew in their own juices and instead concentrate on implementing more of his schemes affording the long suffering people of the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir genuine relief. The Chief Minister has for the most part been on the right track in implementing socio-economic policies which will in the long run benefit the people. For someone who has only recently returned to State politics it is quite understandable that some of his moves should be seen as overenthusiastic but then you have to understand that the Chief Minister has only two more years of his three - year term to go to see his vision in place. Under the existing arrangement with his coalition partner, Congress, the two must share the six year term of the State Chief Minister.

As someone who wishes the Mufti well my advice to him would be to concentrate on implementing development and poverty alleviation programmes. He is fortunate in that the Vajpayee Government has never tried to obstruct his economic and social programmes. He has the kind of access to funds which few Kashmir Chief Ministers have ever had. The hydel potential of the State continues to be amazingly high and its exploitation at an abysmal low. There is no reason why the State cannot be self sufficient to meet its power requirements. One does not necessarily have to go in for giant projects. There are examples of small hydel projects having transformed the lives of entire populations. The obsession with the big and the grand may not at all be necessary in the Jammu and Kashmir context. Small, the PDP-led Government may yet realise, can be beautiful. The Chief Minister would in this context do well to remember that his pet obsession-tourism accounts for just 13 per cent of te State's economy and that figure includes purchase of handicrafts etc made by the tourists during their stay in the State. During his second year in office one hopes Mufti will try to broaden the smile on Kashmiri faces. They need it in Kashmir as much as in Ladakh and Jammu and the migrant camps dotting Jammu and even Delhi.

Yours Randomly,
Kyon ka jawab kyon dega?............

Dr. R. L. Bhat

Mohatir Mohamad of Ma-laysia is probably the old-est ruler in this part of the world. And he is no titular head. He is not an army man gotten too wise. He is also not of the chosen family or a blessed lineage. He, in fact, is a democrat, who rule his country and people under principles not neatly ordained prescriptions. A few years back he actually disbanded his deputy for pandering to the Muslim fundamentalism in Malaysia. In the end Anwar Ibrahim was convicted of misdemeanor of a sort that is loathed the most by the Islamic law though it is not so uncommon in there. But Malaysia is not an Islamic country either. Its membership of OIC stems from being the country having near 60% Muslim population. Why India that is Bharat, which harbors the second largest Muslim population in the world, cannot be a member is probably the first of whys that would never be answered. Another is why Mohatir Mohamad of Federation of Malaysia should be exclusively a Muslim partisan as the recent OIC summit that he hosted proved to the hilt.

There the modernist Mohatir declared that all the world is ruled by the Jews who get other countries to do their dirty work and that is the reason for the world be so bad a place to live in. That world, lead by America promptly denounced the Mohatir thesis-that was a perfect catch-22 situation for these 'Zionist-controlled' countries; if they kept mum that would have proved Mohatir right and if they rejected his thesis…well, it was what a Jew-controlled world would do and did! While rejecting the Mohatir thesis the world press called his fulminations 'a delicate balancing act' the democratic ruler of a modernist country has to do to keep the majority Muslims happy. That, indeed, is what the New York Times correspondent called the Mohatir speech. Of course, nobody asked why a forward looking leader, in a near developed country, whose power and popularity come from his elitist vision, has to balance backwards. After the Jew- baiting Mohatir went on to chastise the Muslim world for its backwardness and orthodoxy. He castigated mullahs for keeping Muslims backward and exhorted Muslims to turn to science and technology, knowledge and information, modernism and progress.

Yet he himself robustly turned back after all progress and science to do the standard 'balancing act'. He accordingly found nothing wrong with the reeking untruth of another Muslim friend Musharaf. One does not know if Mohatir agrees with many Muslims in and around Pakistan who show equal hate for Zionism and Hinduism and effortlessly club India with Israel and USA. One does not know if he disagrees with them. One, however, knows that the OIC, for the umpteenth time, took no stock of the Indian stand on Kashmir, saw neither the democracy here nor the overtures for peace and toed the Pak line as if it were an article of faith. Why, may one ask? More importantly, would anyone answer that? Of course, it may be said that most of the people here do not want the answers. They indeed appear to be ready with all 'answers' for the other side. Like the 'delicate balancing act' of New York Times, we have people around who know all about 'the constraints' of Musharaf that force him to take a hard line. They also 'know' that people in Pakistan are all for peace and brotherhood. So why does Musharaf take the hard-line? Who is it directed at? Why do coup-masters, usurpers, politicians get popular there through baiting India and toeing hard fundamentalist lines?

And why do they come here, these jehadis, for a crusade that has been shown, again and again, to have been 'causeless' in the secular sense of the word? Last month security forces paraded a captured terrorist in Delhi who told all about how the Pak agencies and army brainwashed innocent youth with tales of atrocities against Muslims in India particularly Kashmir and sent them over to keep jihadi fires akindle.

That recruit, who superintended the terrorist activities in Doda, had been in the state for two years, had seen the freedom Muslims enjoy here with his own eyes and kept on fighting for the 'cause'. He had actually seen the free and fair election and had worked to thwart it. Of course, he never saw the patent atrocities on fellow Muslims back in Karachi, the thwarting of his own Saraiki identity by the Punjabi elite in Pakistan, or the total lack of freedom under a military dictator. Did he ever look for any of these, want to see any of these? For that matter few of the knowing, seeing Muslims of Pakistan saw the atrocities Taliban government heaped upon Afghans, the discriminations they piled on women, the backwardness they promoted all around. People who do not presume to know everything about Islam and Muslims have asked: how many of the Indian Muslims saw all that. And, why not?

Again no answers may be expected. There indeed are no answers for most of the things that relate to Muslims, Muslim identity and Muslim quest here, there and many other places too. It is not that other people are free from such elements and proclivities but they do not shy from whys.

The dark tendencies are universal, running across regions, religions, creeds, ideologies… all. At one time it was blasphemy to question the Communists' Bible , the happenings in communist countries, the doings of a Stalin, a Mao. But those whys are to be asked; have to be answered. Else the world is doomed to go backwards: into the darkness and away from light!