From the editpage of The Hindu, Monday, June 25, 2001

Healing in Kashmir?

by Rajmohan Gandhi

"Each time I hear footsteps coming towards me, I imagine someone bringing news of peace." In this and similar sentences, Kashmiris conveyed their thirst for peace to four of us visiting their Vale as individuals Syeda Hameed of Delhi, Sushobha Barve of Mumbai, my wife Usha Gandhi and I, all associated with the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation (CDR). (Regrettably, our visit was limited to the Valley.)

If today Kashmirs villagers read in approaching footsteps the possibility of peace rather than the arrival of men with guns (militants, extortioners or security forces), that is cause for some tiny thankfulness. But while a craving for peace, allied to a slender hope, was perhaps the most noticeable message the Valley gave us, we also ran into expressions of scepticism such as "Kashmirs history is a story of broken promises" or "Our hopes have been crushed so often that we no longer waste our energy in hoping".

To me the slender hope of the Kashmiri public seemed linked to the following factors: the announcement of the Indo-Pak summit; Prime Minister Vajpayees word to General Musharraf that Kashmir could be a subject in the discussions; the recent if halted cease-fires and seeming recent reductions in violence; and pronouncements from New Delhi that India was prepared for a dialogue with Kashmirs political or militant groups on anything linked to peace (including, presumably, the concept of azadi), and that Mr K.C. Pant had been named to conduct the dialogue on New Delhis behalf.

On the other hand, some of the Hurriyat leaders we met (all most hospitable and friendly) were still harbouring a grievance over New Delhis refusal to let them send a delegation of their choice to Pakistan, and another grievance over the circumstances surrounding the K.C. Pant initiative, to which they have not yet made a positive response. But was it reasonable on Hurriyats part to want to pick the person(s) from New Delhi they would talk to? Putting this question to them, I pointed out that Hurriyat or anyone claiming to represent the Kashmiri people would sooner or later have to deal with the Government of India as a whole, and that separating Messrs Vajpayee, Advani, Jaswant Singh, and K.C. Pant from one another might not be a helpful exercise.

The wounded are the first to want healing, we were told in Kashmir, and J. & K. has received more than its share of the subcontinents wounds. Interest in talks that might address these wounds was joined however by a demand that J. & K. be represented as a third party at a future India-Pak summit, if not at the one scheduled at Agra.

Who can represent J. & K. was a question we put to almost everyone we met, and one that seldom elicited a clear answer. The question is of course relevant also for any future talks between New Delhi and Kashmir. Despite its undoubted popularity at present in the valley, Hurriyat, itself an umbrella grouping of potentially conflicting political groups, cannot claim to speak for all of J. & K. Apart from the fact that much of Jammu and Ladakh disapproves of Hurriyat, J. & K. also implies its Pak-administered portions, including Muzaffarabad, Mirpur, Gilgit and Baltistan.

Nor can a claim of representing Kashmir be made by J. & K.s conflicting legal authorities, some owing allegiance to New Delhi and others to Islamabad, and none showing evidence of reflecting popular wishes. Unless some existing groups demonstrate wider support, representation for J. & K. at a subcontinental summit or at talks with New Delhi would require several chairs for the territorys varied geographical, political and religious units.

We met pro-azadi political leaders, a member of the Srinagar government, human rights lawyers, businessmen, former judges, professors, journalists, doctors, educators, environmental activists, persons caring for orphans and widows, and students. We listened to numerous stories of excesses and of injuries to body and spirit, and to some tales of courage and compassion. Several pro-azadi Kashmiris insisted that the departure of large numbers of Pandits had diminished their lives; we met some Pandits and Sikhs continuing to live in the Valley who said they felt reasonably secure; and from the Hurriyat side there was an admission that members of Indian security forces also faced hardships.

Mercifully, the Kashmir economy seems on the whole to have survived the insurgency and counter-insurgency of recent years.

I had two valuable interactions at the still-beautiful Chinar-rich campus of the University of Kashmir. Students and faculty gave me a history of New Delhis sins, highlighting Indias refusal, despite solemn commitments, to consult Kashmiris on their future, Sheikh Abdullahs 1953 arrest, the thousands of deaths, the chain of rigged elections, and the unwillingness of the Indian government today to admit that J. & K. was disputed territory.

In my remarks on the campus I admitted that the Union government had not carried out its commitment to consult the people of J. & K., but I pointed out that any Indian government or Prime Minister was bound by Parliament, that Parliament was influenced by the Indian people, and that it was only through dialogue that Kashmiris could influence the minds of the Indian people. Guns had proved counter-productive.

Agreeing with the students that coercion was a key issue, I said that I was opposed to coercion whether it occurred in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Kashmir. I wanted the freedom of thought, belief and allegiance, and the freedom to educate myself, to travel, to acquire skills, to give these opportunities to my loved ones, to make a beautiful world around me, and I wanted everyone including the students of Kashmir to have these freedoms and opportunities.

I was happy for the truths of God to be described around me, I added, but I wanted to be free to decide my way to God. There could be no compulsion in religion. Were we, were they, against coercion or only against some kinds of it, against coercion from some directions or against coercion from all sources? I do not know what impact these words made but at least we listened to one another.

The visit confirms my belief that no solution or formula will work in Kashmir that does not respect the Kashmiri struggle over the decades, a struggle that has invited beatings, imprisonment, torture and worse

Some of Kashmir's wounds are internal (e.g. the divide within the Sheikh Abdullah family) and some are old but well-remembered (e.g. the 1953 arrest, approved by Nehru, of Sheikh Abdullah, and Sheikh Abdullah's failure in the 1970s to obtain the consent of the people before taking a new oath of office). Political and personal enmities appear to last in Kashmir's climate. We asked some of the Valley's potential leaders if they had a strategy to preserve their unity. The deepest wounds, of course, are the ones received by the thousands who have lost fathers or husbands or sons.

The present scene in Kashmir, with its streets filled with sandbags and pointed guns and a residents daily life filled with searches, is unnatural. It is unnatural also for the security forces, who must forsake families, homes and normal life. Yet there will be no solution, and no return of naturalness, without an Indo-Pak reconciliation. India will not recall the bulk of its Valley-based security forces if it expects militants to continue crossing the line of control. If a reconciliation is feasible, perhaps India and Pakistan can offer 'the substance of independence' (the phrase used by C. R. Das in 1924-5, in the context of India's struggle against the British) to the parts of J. & K. under their respective control without yielding sovereignty.

Some stern minds in India and Pakistan can with equanimity contemplate a conversion of Kashmir into a site of permanent destruction where blood flows unceasingly and a heavenly environment is devastated. Others less strong and more affected by pity for the place and the people want healing and also genuine self-government in Kashmir. Some of these others also cherish a vision of a future Kashmir serving the world as a site for conflict resolution and for environmental protection. But if their pity and vision are more than transient emotions, they will strive to mobilize the peoples of India and Pakistan for a historic reconciliation that would include a Kashmir settlement.