J N Raina  (November 2000 Koshur Samachar)

The on-again, off-again nature of erratic talks with fissiparous elements, still at a rudimentary stage, to resolve the tangled Kashmir issue is bound to go haywire. It is quite frightening to fill the deep gorge before the real solution of the problem as envisaged by a horde of separatists is in sight.

In actual terms, it will be a much-ado-about-nothing exercise. Talks for what? Talk to whom?  With underground or overground elements?  And what are their bona fides? Why talk at all under duress and succumb to global pressure when the 11-year-old proxy war has entered a decisive phase. It is time to rethink. The table to be used for canvassing will be too wide from Kashmir to Kandahar to diffuse the situation. There will be many inter mediators and interlocutors, some known and others unknown. This is yet another ploy to internationalize the issue.

There is no need to indulge in useless exercise and show restraint at the behest of the United States, when Pakistan is virtually sitting on our chest, killing dozens of our jawans, often majors and colonels, and innocent civilians daily. It is mind boggling. When US President Bill Clincton visited the subcontinent, he had sternly warned and tongue-lashed Pakistan's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Gen. Parvaiz Musharraf, to stop aiding and abetting Kashmiri militants and to desist from violating the Line of Control (LoC). Did Pakistan show any restraint? Is that chant meant only for India ? On the contrary, Pakistan redoubled its determination to destabilize India.

Hizbul Call for Ceasefire.

It was Abdul Majid Dar, self-styled Deputy Chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, who had issued a call for ceasefire to his cadres from Srinagar. But within just 24 hours, he was subdued by his masters in Pakistan, where Hizbul headquarters are based. Pakistan directly or indirectly took strong exception to his unilateral call to ceasefire, after he saw the ground situation in the Valley, which has turned into a death trap. Dar's call was followed by a bloodbath in Pahalgam and elsewhere in Kashmir and in Jammu province. Over 100 people, including Amarnath pilgrims and labourers, were killed by the Fidayeen of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a dreaded militant force.

The Hizbul Mujahideen, a militant wing of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan, was forced to withdraw its ceasefire call on the plea that, unless Pakistan is involved in the discussions with India, there can be no lasting solution. But Pakistan is not interested in genuine talks.

Even if the incongruous and time-consuming talks receive the green signal from Pakistan, what shape will the discussions, which have been ruptured from ab initio, take. There seems little ground for the submergence of views. Can we clinch a deal? We should talk only with those who abjure violence, lay down arms and join the mainstream of national life. Warlike conditions cannot continue endlessly.

Pakistan has gained a foothold in Jammu and Kashmir through years of machinations, using militants and foreign mercenaries, to create mayhem. But, proxy war has suited its purpose. What it could not achieve on the battlefield, it has got through proxy. Using Afghans, it resorted to the brute method of ethnic cleansing in the Valley. It is now repeating the same recipe so brazenly in the Hindu-dominated region of the Jammu province.

Pak Call For Jihad

Prior to giving a quick nod to Hizbul Mujahideen and their mentor, the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), for initiating talks, sometimes within the Constitution and sometimes outside it, the Central leadership ought to have gauged the mind of Pakistan, which on its Independence Day openly declared military support to Kashmiri militants and mercenaries. It decided to continue the Jehad till Kashmir is liberated. Pakistan's main aim is to checkmate India. In fact, it was created for this purpose by the vested interests. Otherwise, the USA should have no hesitation in naming Pakistan a rogue state.

So far since 1990, Pakistan has been spending huge amounts on arming the militants. During this period, arms and ammunition recovered from the militants include 20,033 assault rifles, 1,092 machine-guns, 1,348 rocket-launchers, 2431 radio sets and 36,932 grenades. More than 5,000 mines, 3,360 improvised explosive devices and 22,630 kilograms of explosives were also recovered.

The perpetrators of Jehad have already announced that 2000 will be the crucial year for the culmination of their struggle to liberate Kashmir. This year is their deadline. The ceasefire offer was just a hoax to hoodwink India.

The common masses in Kashmir are tired of militancy. They are no longer lured by Azadi. It was on this plank that the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) had in 1988-89 galvanized Kashmiris to launch the liberation struggle. The Front created chaotic conditions by militant acts during 1990-1993 till the organization was almost eliminated by Pakistan's ISI which guides the proxy war in the state. Later, the ISI gave boost to Hizbul, which seeks the total merger of Kashmir with Pakistan.

A local Kashmiri journalist, Bashir Manzer, who was in Mumbai recently, told a national daily and other journalists separately that a common Kashmiri knows nothing about Article 370 or the autonomy package. They are only interested in total peace and employment. They are afraid of a situation which was created in Afghanistan, where 20 years of prolonged war and terrorist activities have destroyed that land, and where ordinary people are sick, hungry, jobless and in misery.

Peace A Prerequisite

Manzer believes that "restoration of peace is a prerequisite and discussions could be held with militants which could lead them somewhere between Azadi and complete merger with India". Naturally, it is tantamount to the belief that the people are no more interested in Pakistan, which has been reduced to size because of its hegemonistic policies. He says that it is a misconception that most Kashmiris want a merger with Pakistan. They realise that the plight of the people in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) is much worse. Kashmiris are also well aware that independence is not a practical solution.

"Though, by and large, our hearts yearn for independent Kashmir, we know that this is not practical. Pakistan would gobble us up in a minute and turn Kashmir into a Chhota Afghanistan", he has said. These sentiments of Manzer are shared by a majority of people, barring the Jamaat-e-Islami adherents.

According to another local journalist, Qasim Sajjad, the concept which had created Pakistan is now a thing of the past. That country has not framed any constitution for the past 40 years and the new generation is unaware of Islamic values.

The Hurriyat, a conglomeration of 24 secessionist groups, will under no circumstances accept a solution which does not guarantee Kashmir's merger with Pakistan. At best, Azadi. Obviously, this position will not be acceptable to India, the stalemate will continue and the Valley will remain a death trap.

The Hizbul is strongly opposed to the rehabilitation of the Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley. The Jamaat-e-Islami does not want the forcibly exiled community to return to their original abode, after remaining in wandering for 11 long years. Whenever such attempts were made by the authorities in the past, several members of the community were brutally attacked and killed. The Hizbul has now openly threatened to use force and foil the implementation of the State government's so-called Rs 26-crore action plan for the return and rehabilitation of 58,000 migrant families. There are also over 50,000 Muslim migrant families, who are supposed to have fled from the Valley along with the Pandits, to be rehabilitated.

Fight to Finish

India's first concern should be to fight militancy to the finish ruthlessly. This should be the main principle to rope in rough and lawless fellows. India needs to talk tough and fight tough. It should talk from its position of strength. The Indians cannot tolerate army generals being blown to pieces in land­mine blasts. The Indian Government's inconsistency has paid the nation heavily. One would ask what happened to earlier accords signed between India and Pakistan at Tashkent, Simla and lately in Lahore.

On the domestic front, what happened to the Sheikh Abdullah-Indira Gandhi Accord of 1975. Had that historic agreement been implemented faithfully, the demand for greater autonomy would not have been raised after 25 years of the signing it. Accords are not signed after every decade. One day the National Conference manifesto might include the state's merger with China. Will it be acceptable to India?

Kashmir's total merger with India is the only viable alternative to soothe ruffled feelings. Pakistan's persistent attempts to engineer secession of Kashmir will never materialize.

(Himself a journalist, the author is the resident of Sat Milap Saibaba Complex, Ciba Road, Goregaon East, Mumbai.)

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Courtesy:  J N Raina and November 2000 Koshur Samachar