The Good News
From Islamabad
By Radha Kumar
09 March, 2005
The News International
After
a depressing lull in the India-Pakistan talks, during which the two
governments appeared to be stuck on niggling technical details, Foreign
Ministers Singh and Kasuri have given us an enormous breakthrough. The
agreements they announced at Islamabad on February 15 and 16 - to
start the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service on April 7, and the Khokrapur-Munabao
rail link in October - are key confidence building measures for India
and Pakistan as well as for Kashmiris, Sindhis and Rajasthanis, who
have already started to celebrate.
Like Mehbooba Mufti,
I hope that the next routes to be reopened will be between divided Jammu
and Kargil-Skardu. The benefits that these routes can bring to local
residents on either side are enormous, both tangible and intangible;
as are the political dividends that would flow to Indian and Pakistani
leaders for having made a long held Kashmir wish their priority.
A number of misgivings
over the decision have been voiced in India, some very petty, like the
BJP's complaint that the Indian government should have insisted on travel
by passport rather than a permit. Such a position would have violated
the Indian government's claim, reiterated by parliament during the BJP's
tenure, to the whole of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir; a
claim that is also made by Pakistan. More important, it would have detracted
from the spirit of the service, which was to free humanitarian interests
from legal and territorial disputes, or rather not to let the latter
impinge on the former.
The more serious
concern that many Indians have voiced is security, both for the bus
service and about the potential for its misuse. Yet the likelihood that
the bus service will actually improve the security situation is much
greater than the likelihood of its misuse. An increasing number of countries
- and groups of countries, such as the European Union and the Organization
of African States - are beginning to find that soft borders can help
reduce violence and pave the way for lasting peace. For a start, the
more official crossing points there are, the less the unofficial crossing
points will be, curbing the black economies that generally develop in
conflict-ridden areas to the benefit of armed and criminal groups, as
both India and Pakistan have learnt to their cost.
This of course means
that there will be spoilers. The groups that benefit from Jammu and
Kashmir's isolation have already threatened to disrupt the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad
bus service. Worse still, they have begun to assassinate the civic representatives
elected in recent municipal polls in Jammu and Kashmir. Ten elected
representatives have already been killed; this has led to an equal number
resigning in panic, and publishing "apologies" to the militant
groups for having stood for election.
In India, the perception
is that the Pakistani government and civil society could have done more
to push for an end to political assassinations in Jammu and Kashmir.
Unequivocal opposition to these acts is still, unaccountably, missing
at the public level. More distressingly, so is back channel opposition.
There is a belief in New Delhi that in the past, when word went out
from the Pakistani agencies to militant groups to halt their attacks,
it was broadly effective, and that the agencies' influence is still
fairly strong. It is reported that earlier this year, instructions to
militant groups to concentrate their attacks on Indian security forces
and stop civilian attacks were obeyed in the valley, though less so
in the border regions of Jammu. In other words, the thinking is that
if the Pakistani government were to put out the word that these killings
must stop, they would give genuine relief to the people of Jammu and
Kashmir.
True, the Hurriyat
Conference has also not spoken out against the killings. On the contrary,
their call for a poll boycott played into militant hands. Abdul Ghani
Lone and Maulvi Mushtaq both lost their lives to elements seeking to
keep the Hurriyat under their control -- the former had courageously
gone public on the need for an end to the violence and the withdrawal
of "guest mujahedeen". In fact, the Hurriyat, or at least
the majority of the Hurriyat now that Mr. Geelani has split from them,
have sought an honourable exit for the militant groups for some years
now.
It may be reading
too much into the recent agreements to say that they indicate a new
willingness in Pakistan to end support for the violence in Jammu and
Kashmir. Until recently, the general feeling in Pakistani political
circles was that their government had gone a long way in curbing militant
movement across the Line of Control, and India would have to open talks
on Kashmir for any further steps to be taken. Now it looks as if the
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road agreement signals a new, albeit tacit, policy
by the two governments: to let "people-to-people" measures
make their own impact on reducing the violence. The Azad Kashmir police
have said they will ensure security for passengers; this should put
some curbs on the comforts that militant groups have enjoyed there.
On the Indian side
of the Line of Control, the bus service will cut through the isolation
that the militant groups have flourished on. Indeed when Vajpayee proposed
the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service in 2000, the militant groups saw
it as a "ploy" to free Uri from their control, as it then
was. Uri hasn't been under militant control for some years, but the
bus will allow the residents of Azad Kashmir to see how deep the longing
is for an end to the violence in Jammu and Kashmir.
The impact of the
bus service on the political situation on both sides of the Line of
Control could be even more considerable, especially if the Jammu and
Kargil-Skardu routes are opened. No one can tell what will emerge as
the dominant Kashmiri voice once the many communities and cultures of
Jammu and Kashmir begin commingling again; or whether there will be
one dominant voice instead of the many that presently exist . Much depends
on how officials on either side deal with the travel permits. If they
are restrictive, which would be a likely and natural response given
the hostility that has persisted between them, then the political situation
will be only slightly changed, and not for the better. Political activists
on both sides - especially the trouble spots of the valley, Gilgit and
Baltistan - will have a new grievance against India and Pakistan if
they are denied the access that divided families or tourists might have.
But if the two governments
are liberal in their grant of permits, which means that they would have
to increase traffic as fast as they can, the political impact could
be huge. At first sight, the implications could be worrying, especially
for those Indians who fear the valley is lost to them, and to the far
fewer Pakistanis who fear Baltistan, and maybe Gilgit, are lost to them.
A second look, however, shows the far greater probability that Kashmiris
will discover once again the respect for difference which had
traditionally helped them live together; a development that can only
benefit both India and Pakistan.
Imaginatively, one
of the side benefits least commented on is a vision that Kashmiris on
the Indian side of the Line of Control have long held as for the role
their region could play, as a place where Indians and Pakistanis could
put the hostilities of partition behind them. As of April 7, Kashmir
will be the only part of India and Pakistan that the two countries'
nationals can visit without passports and visas. Who could have expected
this when relations between the two governments seemed to be sliding
into acrimony? Strange indeed are the ways of our leaders - wondrous
strange, and in this case, wondrously pleasing.
The writer is a
visiting professor at Jamia Millia University, Delhi, and author of
the forthcoming Making Peace With Partition, Penguin India