What is in 5 Cs?

Prof. A N Sadhu
Rajnath Singh, the Country’s Home Minister, paid a routine visit to the State of Jammu and Kashmir early this month to assess the security arrangements in the state and visit its borders with Pakistan to interact with people living there who have been facing the brunt of repeated ceasefire violations by the neighbouring country. This is the part of his job as Home Minister more so in relation to the areas witnessing militant activities for more than two decades now. Politicians, to fine tune such visits,coin some expressions to give a sense of satisfaction to the people they interacted with and keep them busy to make critical analysis of what transpired during such visits. The Home Minister did exactly the same. There is nothing new in what he said except that it was a repetition of what his Prime Minister had said at the Redfort on the Independence day.
No Government would like to solve its problems by the use of brute force, more so, in a democratic set up. There are established systems of administration to address to the concerns of the masses and bring about an appropriate resolution of the problems faced by the people. The rational thinking, flexibility and spirit of accommodation are basic to such resolutions. Viewing such mechanisms in an objective manner, it would become clear that much talked about 5 Cs are inherent to these exercises. Compassion than aggression is the key to successful resolution of peoples concerns and it is inbuilt in Development Administration model as against the colonial model. Communication is an important tool on both the sides and there perhaps has been a lot done on this score. Interlocutors, Track-II exercises, parliamentary delegations, voluntary organisations and so on. If there still are communication gaps, it should speak volumes, not required to be analysed here. In a similar manner there has been quite a bit done on confidence building measures, be it through building of physical infrastructure social infrastructure or overall development of the region. Coexistence has been hall mark of the state’s culture and consistency in maintaining this response matrix has never been lost during the last 70 years. Then what is new in it except refreshing the memories. 5 Cs have been talked all these 70 years and its repetition by the H.M looked like teaching the first lesson to the freshers admitted to a new class with syllabus not having been revised over this long span of time.
India has done well in explaining the dangers of rising terrorism across the world with its feeding channels spread over different parts of Pakistan, and impressing upon the world community to join hands to eliminate it before it threatens to take alarming proportions. That the world understands it and supports Indian assertion in different international fora including Brics and so on does not in itself solve the internal problems and border troubles of our country. If terrorism is exported to India by our neighbouring country, it is with full back up of the regular army of that country. While as the rest of the world has to fight terrorism. India has to fight an enemy army as well. Those who believe that Kashmir has relatively remained calm  this year and tend to draw inferences that trouble has reduced may not be right. There might not have been visible turbulence but there has been restlessness as in the previous years. The everyday shoot outs have not stopped. The loss of precious lives and property continues. Peace still eludes.
These visits apart from being routine, are also well intentioned exercises to explore ways and means of restoring order in the valley so that peace returns and normal developmental activities are carried out smoothly. Many a times my friends tend to read too much in these initiatives. During the last over two decades, quite a few things have happened which have seriously vitiated the atmosphere and strenuous efforts are warranted to correct the distortions. The very narrative of Kashmir issue has changed and several things surfaced during this period have put a reasonable resolution in jeopardy. Controversies are unending and rational thinking takes a back seat. Even when there is consistency in the stand taken by all the stake holders that K-issue must be solved, there is visible inconsistency in the statements relating the issue and its resolution. J&K is an integral part of India and it can’t be disputed, legally or constitutionally. Articles 35A and 370 may not be very relevant after the passage of 70 years nor would their scrapping be making any significant difference in the prevailing scenario and therefore raising these issues may not be warranted. If there are established systems to handle such sensitive matters, the people should leave these things to the institutional jurisprudence for final disposal. The world is changing fast and no part of the world howsoever small or large, can afford to invest longer periods of time in disputes and controversies than in building strong institutions for social and economic development. Rigidities do not yield any resolutions, there has to be flexibility within reasonable limits to arrive at agreeable arrangements by a give and take spirit. The complex and long standing issues need statesmanship than political manoeuvrability. The honest and objective handling alone can lead to agreements and not the stretching of issues to greater complexities. Let there be a civil society initiative from within the state backed by the administration wherein representation is given to all stake holders to sit together and talk in an environment of openness and hammer out a resolution on rational basis. There is no problem to which a solution is not available. K.Problem cannot be an exception.Let us look forward.
Armed groups and disruptive unarmed groups do not solve the problem; on the contrary, civil society initiatives do contribute to bring back peace and harmony to the trouble-torn territories. History is replete with such examples. Well meaning social activism will yield the desired results. The three regions inspite of lingual, cultural and physiographic divergencies have strong linkages and inter dependence and should benefit by a mutual understanding towards restoring order in the trouble torn state. 5 Cs have always been there; what we need is the 6th “C”- Civil society initiative to arrive at an acceptable resolution. Radicalism of any Variant will only do the damage.
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