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Introduction: Hurriyat, the torch-bearer
of affiliation with Pakistan, has lost ground heavily and has declined
to a weak position, with virtually no influence in the Valley.
If one were in Srinagar or anywhere in the Kashmir Valley in the late 1980s or early 1990s, one would find that nearly everybody had fallen foul of India, whatever the reasons, and had turned a votary of Pakistan. That, for most Pakistanis, confirmed the simple, or simplistic, logic that Muslims would always vote for Muslims, and hence, the demand for a plebiscite, which had been relatively dormant for many years, witnessed a strong revival. Most Pakistanis robustly hoped and most Indians secretly feared that in the event of a plebiscite, the whole of Kashmir might go to Pakistan.
But the reality does not always follow a simplistic logic; many latent factors intervene. As the border between India and Pakistan was for a long time a soft border, Kashmiris from India kept going to the Pakistan-held Kashmir and saw for themselves an amazing phenomenon which, in course of time, was to turn their minds away from Pakistan. They saw again and again that India had been investing a good deal in Kashmir, though not enough, and that this had raised the economic levels perceptively. But they also noticed clearly that Pakistan had not made it its business to invest in its side of Kashmir (and the Northern areas) and hence, the levels of living there were awfully depressing. The visiting Kashmiris also observed that while the state under India’s control had a rough-and-ready democracy, Pakistan was in the grip of dictatorship.
The conclusions were too obvious to be put aside and were a continuous talking point among the people of the Valley — that Pakistan was not the place to hanker for, that their own home was the place to be preferred by far. Opinions thus took a somersault and for the Kashmiris of Srinagar and the Valley, as well as the people of Jammu and Ladakh, there remained no question of opting for Pakistan. The most positive proof of this new-found aversion to a link with Pakistan is that there are no migrations of Kashmiris from the Valley to Pakistan-held Kashmir. Consequently, Hurriyat, the torch-bearer of affiliation with Pakistan, has lost ground heavily and has declined to a weak position, with virtually no influence in the Valley.
I have closely examined this turnaround of Indian Kashmiri opinion and was able to tell the Hurriyat leaders, in particular Syed Ali Shah Gilani, Abdul Ghani Lone and Abdul Ghani Bhatt, that in the numerous dialogues we had with all sorts of leaders in the Valley, we found that the Hurriyat was in a minority of one, that their idea of linkage with Pakistan had melted away. I have also noted that the alternative idea of an independent Kashmiri state, which had many followers on the Pakistani side, had virtually no takers on the Indian side. In the 35 or so individual or group interviews, which some colleagues and I once had in five days, and another 27 interviews which we had on another occasion over three days, with all shades of opinion, we found not a single respondent advocating or even initiating a reference to an independent Kashmir. It was clear that the Kashmiris on the Indian side had, for good reasons, reconciled themselves to an Indian linkage and had discarded the other options. And the most glaring expression to this reconciliation was the two state assembly elections in which the Indian Kashmiris had participated with more than a 50 per cent turn-out on each occasion. Of course, the declared and undeclared linkage with India was conditional upon the Central Government removing the various grudges and grumbles which they had.
These grudges can be summed up as: (a) Why doesn’t the Government of India promote autonomy for the state? (b) Why aren’t counter-guarantees given by the Central government to the hydro-electric projects which would benefit other parts of India as well as Kashmir? (c) Why is the size of the Indian Army in Kashmir not reduced substantially? (d) Why are the numerous bunkers in towns and cities not removed to soothe public opinion? (e) Why do the Indian Army and para-military forces continue to be as insensitive, brutal and arrogant even after the installation of a democratic and popular government as they were when terrorism and foreign incursions into Kashmir were the order of the day? (f) Why can’t the more than 1,50,000 unemployed people in the Valley be employed partly within the Valley and largely in public enterprises and other avenues in the rest of the country, in the manner of the Tamils, the Biharis, the Maharashtrians etc.?
The Central government and, perhaps, the state government have been awfully slow in recognising this change of opinion and its tremendous importance for the future of Kashmir. Central governments have been missing great opportunities of winning over the Kashmiris in the Valley who seemed ready to be won over. If the reasonable demands of the Indian Kashmiris were met, as they should have been met long ago, the scene in Kashmir would have been totally different. It can still be different, if these are conceded.
Moreover, if the people in Pakistan and, in particular, in Pakistan-held Kashmir, came to know clearly that the Kashmiris of the Valley are strongly in favour of staying put and remaining linked with India and are not going to favour a link with Pakistan or with such outfits as the Lashkar-e-Toiba, then with what hope would they be agitating for a plebiscite?
Furthermore, when they come to realise, as they might already have, that the idea of a plebiscite has taken a serious knock after the Pakistani incursion into Indian Kashmir and that the line of control (LoC) has acquired a new sanctity in American and international political circles, better sense would dawn on both sides. In fact, it is conceivable now that the world opinion, hugely supporting India on its stance on the Kargil issue and accepting the sanctity of the LoC, might even bring a resolution in the United Nations one of these days, asking Pakistan and India to agree to a conversion of the LoC into an international border for the sake of world peace in which India and Pakistan are agents — thus making redundant the 1948 resolutions about plebiscite which, in any case, have lost their edge.
The worst that has happened recently is that the Government of India, totally misjudging the Kashmir situation, has unnecessarily begun to raise the stature of the Hurriyat to a level which it no longer commands. It is heartening that the prime minister is now going to be in direct touch with the chief executive of Pakistan. While the issue of Kashmir may not be resolved at one go, various other improvements in the relations between the two countries cannot be ruled out — with a decline in the relative importance of the Kashmir question.
(The writer is former chairman of
the Finance Commission.)
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