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KASHMIR
IN FOCUS
Poetry,
imagery and renewed hopes
By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The contrast in the
style and content of the speeches could not have been
more marked. If during his previous visit to Kashmir
last May Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's speech
was patently belligerent, the tone and tenor of his
public address in Srinagar last week was conciliatory.
It was amid the spiraling tension between India
and Pakistan last May, when the world feared that the
two countries were on the verge of a nuclear war, that
Vajpayee visited Kashmir. During a tour of the front
lines in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, Vajpayee
in a speech to the Indian troops thundered, "Our goal
should be victory, because now the time has come for a
decisive fight, and in this war we will win ... We have
to fight our own war, we are ready for it, and we are
prepared for it."
In contrast, the main theme of
Vajpayee's public address last Friday was peace,
dialogue and reconciliation. In fact, he repeated the
need for dialogue more than a dozen times in his
12-minute speech. The government of India, he said, is
ready to solve all internal and external issues through
negotiations. Incidentally, Vajpayee's peace overture
comes at a time of heightened hostile rhetoric by
leaders in Indian and Pakistan.
Vajpayee made
his peace overtures at a mammoth public rally in
Srinagar's Sher-e-Kashmir stadium. The rally was a
historic one - it is the first time since the eruption
of the militancy that a prime minister has addressed a
public meeting. The last public meeting addressed by a
premier here was in 1987, when Rajiv Gandhi visited
Srinagar. Since the start of the militancy, Indian
leaders have only addressed the troops here, as did
Vajpayee last May.
About 20,000 Kashmiris
participated in the rally. While many among them are
said to be supporters of the ruling People's Democratic
Party (PDP) who were brought in from neighboring
districts, that so many people showed up despite a call
for a general strike by the Hurriyat Conference and the
Hizbul Mujahideen is significant. Srinagar's roads were
deserted and shops were shut. Yet thousands showed up
for the public meeting.
At the rally, Vajpayee
extended a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan and said he
was willing to try talks again with Islamabad. His
readiness to talk to Pakistan comes at a time when some
of his cabinet colleagues, including Foreign Minister
Yashwant Sinha and Defense Minister George Fernandes,
have been talking of preemptive strikes and making a
case for attacking Pakistan as Washington attacked Iraq.
Interacting later with the media, Vajpayee,
while insisting that Pakistan would have to stop support
to cross-border terrorism, said he was willing to talk
to Islamabad on any issue, including Jammu and Kashmir.
With regard to Kashmir, Vajpayee stressed that only
talks could resolve the problems. "Guns only kill
people, not hunger," he said.
While the positive
tenor of his speeches could, as some analysts point out,
mark the start of a new initiative vis-a-vis Pakistan
and a new era in Delhi's relations with Kashmir, the
experience of several false starts over the past few
years would call for cautious optimism. Some Kashmiri
analysts have said the visit resulted in nothing
substantial and that Vajpayee used poetry and rhetoric
in his speeches to sway the people.
In the
run-up to the two-day visit, there were expectations
that the prime minister would make substantial gestures.
After all, this was his first visit to the state since
it went to the polls last September-October to elect a
new assembly. There were expectations that he would
announce a generous economic package. Some Kashmiris
were hoping for a ceasefire. Others hoped that with the
prime minister would give a boost to the current peace
initiative by welcoming the moderate separatists, who
had stayed out of the poll process, to participate in
the dialogue process.
No economic package was
announced. However, the prime minister did address a key
concern of the Kashmiri people by announcing a package
to deal with the unemployment problem in the state. A
comprehensive plan to create at least 100,000 employment
and self-employment opportunities in the next two years
is on the anvil. A special task force comprising
representatives of the central and state governments,
industry, banks and financial institutions is to be set
up. Implementation of the plan will begin by August 15,
the prime minister promised.
During his visit,
Vajpayee laid the foundation stone for a new airport
terminal at Srinagar. He said Srinagar airport would
soon be upgraded to an international airport. He also
laid the foundation for the North-South corridor that
links Kashmir, India's northernmost state, with
Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip. A railway bridge and
computerized railway reservation center were also
inaugurated.
With regard to the peace initiative,
while he did not specifically mention the Hurriyat
Conference, the prime minister clarified that the
government was willing to engage with anyone who wanted
to talk with it. Vajpayee came out in strong support of
the chief minister's "healing touch" policy but
clarified that this policy would not apply to the
militants.
Vajpayee's peace overtures to
Pakistan have been welcomed by several political parties
in the country, including the Congress (the PDP's
partner in the coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir
and the Bharatiya Janata Party's main rival nationally).
The US State Department, too, has welcomed the
initiative. Incidentally, around the time Vajpayee was
smoking the peace pipe at the public rally, Richard Haas
of the State Department admitted that the United States
had not succeeded in getting Pakistan to stop
infiltration of terrorists into India.
The
Pakistani government's immediate response to Vajpayee's
offer was positive. However, the Pakistani media were
more skeptical. In an editorial headlined "A suspect
offer", the Pakistan daily The Nation said, "If India's
attitude to Pakistan ever since partition 55 years ago
is anything to go by, Vajpayee's offer is nothing but a
subterfuge."
Vajpayee's statement that N N Vohra,
the central government's interlocutor, would invite
leaders of various organizations for talks and that all
are welcome to join the dialogue has raised hope in the
state. The statement evoked a positive response even
from the Hurriyat Conference, which generally rejects
any initiative from Delhi. Hurriyat chairman Abdul Gani
Bhat, a hawk in the umbrella organization of separatist
groups, grudgingly admitted that "there is a change in
the mindset as well as the style of the prime minister
with regard to the resolution of the conflict."
However, it appears from statements this week
that the separatists will not engage in talks with
Vohra. Hurriyat leaders and Shabbir Shah, leader of the
Democratic Freedom Party, want the process to begin with
talks between them and Vajpayee first. Shabbir Shah had
engaged in several rounds of talks with K C Pant, a
former interlocutor. He feels that there is no point in
talking to Vohra.
Will Vajpayee's initiative
lead to some change in the Valley? A lot depends on the
infiltration this summer. If that increases, as is
feared, the peace initiative will prove to be another
false start. What response Vohra receives from moderate
separatists this week will determine to a significant
extent whether the political initiative will prove
rewarding. In the longer run, the fact that the
Hurriyat, marginalized by its boycott of the elections,
is desperate to maneuver its way out of the corner
augurs well. But whether it will relent and talk to
Delhi will depend on how the militants react. And that,
of course, will depend on how Islamabad wants them to
act.
If nothing else, Vajpayee's peace overture,
peppered as it was with poetry and imagery, should
provide the average violence-weary Kashmiri with some
hope to survive on.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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