Read ‘good news’ on the wall

With Karzai on his beside, Zardari has signaled that he may try to get concession over Kasmir issue in lieu of a greater war against ‘terror’ in Pakistan and Afghanistan
By Riyaz Masroor
Politicians in the subcontinent have always chosen to think in headlines and speak in slogans, though their remarks were at times the indicators of future change.
The fresh face in Pakistan’s Aiwan-e-Sadar, Asif Ali Khan Zardari, despite his stigmatic profile, appears to have resisted the temptation of speaking in a slogan – he might have thought of a headline – as he began his Presidency with the K-word.
Although his promise of ‘good news’ about Kashmir contrasts his previous remark in which he had preferred to freeze the vexed Kashmir dispute for future generations, he craftily put across the point that Kashmir craved for resolution. And, more importantly, he did this without pinching India.
For Kashmiris, in the given context, the message is more important than the messenger. And the messenger’s new role has to be understood to ascertain the underpinnings of current diplomatic engagements between New Delhi and Islamabad. The new indicator has not come from Zardari the PPP cochairman or Zardari the widower of slain former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutoo; the promise has come from Zardari the President of Pakistan.
Zardari personally may not like to rake up Kashmir in the Indo-Pak context yet his domestic political needs would not allow him to manifest his personal wish hence a climb down from his leave-for-the-future-generation remark. He needs a loud “attention diverter” before he goes whole hog against the gun wielding militants along Pakistan’s tribal West.
Three hints
There are three broader elements in Zardari’s investiture speech. For one, he has walked past the old traditions in which the new incumbent would accuse his predecessor and claim to protect Kashmir for Pakistan; he did not vow to reverse his predecessor Parvez Musharraf’s policy; he talked about consensus and taking into confidence all political parties in Pakistan. Secondly, unlike the previous tradition, by involving Kashmir committee into the process of negotiations, the new Pakistan president has made it clear that in the emerging scenario, involvement of Kahsmiris was all the more mandatory.
And thirdly, the presence of Afghanistan President Haamid Karzai is the strongest element. Seen together with Zardari’s good-news promise, Karzai’s presence in oath ceremony and later the joint press conference with Pakistan’s twelfth president reveals Pakistan’s future plan on Kashmir.
New Kashmir policy
Keen Kashmir watchers believe that Karzai’s presence at this important occasion was a clear message to India that Afghanistan may no longer remain a battle ground for Delhi and Islamabad. More importantly, raking up Kashmir while having Afghanistan president on his beside, Zardari may have tried to signal that he might be more willing than Musharraf to become America’s second fiddle in Kabul if some effective concessions in terms of Kashmir come his way.
Earlier, Afghanistan seemed tilting the power balance hugely in favor of India but Zardari – knowing fully well his stakes in Pakistan politics and the simmering adversarial surroundings – looks keen to have a blend of Kabul and Kashmir policies to seek concessions on either front.
Zardari’s posturing is certainly an attempt to remain in saddle but it has provided a golden chance to the stakeholders in Kashmir’s resolution process so that they find ways to appropriate Zardari’s compulsions into their own gain.
While New Delhi may do that with comforting ease because it has cultivated a strong rapport with PPP over the years, the actors of Kashmir conflict will have to adopt a cooperative and consultative mechanism amongst them to secure their respective stakes. Competing zeal to become exclusively relevant in any sort of break through will not only abort the process it would also push these actors toward unpopularity or may be a war of attrition.
It is for the first time that Pakistan’s reference to the “people of Kashmir” is not limited to Hurriyat Conference alone. It has expanded the terms of reference to National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party and some peripheral mainstream outfits as well, though India is yet to reach this level of accommodation and is still beating around the constitutional traditionalism.
No doubt that the moral isolation of Indian state in Kashmir is total but the ‘rebels’ in the words of Gramsci, the great twentieth century theoretician and philosopher, don’t just need to outfight their adversary but to ‘out administer’ him as well.
If Hurriyat leaders and nationalist mainstream choose to shun their exclusivist approach and narrow future outlook, India will have no choice but to recognize the collective Kashmiri viewpoint while dealing with Pakistan. This is probably what Pakistan’s elite bureaucracy likes to happen but that will not happen as long as the Kashmir politics remains divided between Azadi and non-Azadi ideologies. It is for anyone to guess whom the radicalization of separatist movement will favor in the emerging South Asian scenario.
Options for Kashmiris
South Asia is currently witnessing two interrelated scenarios, one in Afghanistan, another in Kashmir. In Afghanistan, the resistance forces are locked in a deadly war with the same US forces to which they owe their wherewithal. It is a well known fact that ‘Mujahideen’ in Kabul are fighting their erstwhile masters, Americans. Same is happening in Kashmir but conversely. Here the supporters of a particular armed movement are bent to eradicate it. The recent agitation over the Amarnath land row has, in fact, vindicated that Pakistan has been pusuring a policy of demilitarizing the Kashmir’s anti-India movement. It is because of this policy that the most volatile public mobilization in 80 years remained completely non violent.
In the given scenario Kashmiris need to move with reason and creative engagement. India does not look eager to compromise on status quo in Kashmir and Pakistan does not appear potent enough to change the status quo unilaterally. History has evidently proved this because a huge chronicle of India’s failures in Kashmir could never translate into Pakistan’s gain. If, realizing this emerging reality, Pakistan is trying to use its geo-strategic relevance to extract some concession over Kashmir; stakeholders in J&K need to strive for collective relevance in the whole process.
National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party may not be considered sacred entities with reference to the sacrifices and the sentiment. Had it been so, the most significant CBM, cross-LoC bus service would not sound like a whimper. It fizzled out because the PDP attempted to own it rather than persuading all politics shades to rally behind it.
But Zardari’s off hand remark should, therefore, serve like a useful jerk to a student who wants to keep awake during exams. Advocates of Kashmir need both the popular sanctity and the institutional strength to engage with two nuclear rivals of South Asia. One cannot do without the other. If National Conference or PDP feel that they can outsmart the separatists by bailing out New Delhi at this crucial moment, they are again tilling the barren soil. Similarly if the separatist forces believe that the recurrent public mobilization will help them write off the mainstream forces they better wake up. Both sides have enjoyed power when India and Pakistan chose to outfight each other. But both will become dispensable if the peace process converges on the economic integration of India and Pakistan. Isn’t it time to start homework?
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