By M.D Gilkar It is generally believed that the talks between the neighbouring countries of India and Pakistan at different levels are not likely to lead to any logical conclusion.
According to well-meaning political pundits while discussing the knotty problem of Kashmir some issues have cropped up which can hardly be solved at the level of bureaucratic elite of the two countries.
These issues call for a political will and determination from the senior political leadership of the two countries.
At the start of these negotiations it was expected by all and sundry that there will be smooth sailing in tacklinjg difficult issues also which generated a lot of euphoria in the two countries.
Presumably, the package included the visit of the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Pakistan.
But unfortunately the Prime Minister could not embark upon his much hyped visit to Pakistan.
This visit would have enabled Dr Singh to assess things for himself and then give direction to those engaged with the task of devising ways and means for the Indo-Pak comraderie which would have helped a great deal to usher in an era of peace and progress in the subcontinent.
Presumably the political turmoil in Pakistan as a result of the sacking of Chief Justice of that country by the President Gen: Musharraf has digressed his attention and that of his establishment from the issues related to Indo-Pak peace process.
Despite the fact the peace process being at the top of the agenda of the Pak leadership the political instabililty in that country brought it down to back burner.
As is evident the situation there continues to be a murky.
One cannot visualise how much time it will take to get the decks cleared so that the Indo-Pak composite dialogue is resumed with greater vigour and determination.
In the given scenario one cannot expect that the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh will pay visit to Pakistan immediately.
At the State level the political groups who earlier participated in the Round Table Conference on different occasions appear disarrayed lacking cohesion in their approach to pursue the agenda of peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue.
The separatist groups have not indicated about their willingness to meet the Indian Prime Minister.
No formal invitations have been dished out to them so far.
Another important development engaging their attention is the holding of elections to the state Assembly announced by the State Chief Minister, G.N Azad, recently.
While the mainstream parties have announced their electioneering campaigns and are addressing rallies at important towns and villages in the Valley, the separatist groups have yet to decide about their participation in these elections.
However, the senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, declared that his party will not participate in these elections.
According to him it is a futile exercise and is not going to ease the situation.
According to Geelani the only solution to Kashmir issue is to implement the UN resolutions on the subject.
In the meantime the mainstream party of consequence headed by the former Chief Minister of the state, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, has raised the issue of demilitarisation of civil areas of the state with greater vehemence to which the Prime Minister stands committed.
His party is also demanding the repeal of AFSPA-Armed Forces Special Power Act.
The senior hierarchy of the PDP headed by the party president, Mehbooba Mufti appears agitated over the sinister silence of the Indian leadership on the subject.
Mehbooba Mufti, is reported to have written a letter to Prime Minister on the subject to which she has not received any replay so far.
The party also stands irked by the U-turn by the Union Defence Minister, AK Antony who disclosed to a local news agency during his recent visit to the Valley that the army is deployed in J&K and the northeast to be there to fight insurgency till the situation improves.
Obviously this has placed the PDP in a 'catch-22' situation.
According to its President, PDP's demand for troop reduction is reflected in the implementation of the Prime Minister's 2004 and subsequent pledges in this regard.
She added that "we are confident that the country will take note of the emerging situation and initiate the much desired confidence building measure process through troop-withdrawal." Ironically another coalition partner of the state government, the Congress headed by Chief Minisgter Azad does not regard the present time ripe for troop reduction.
There is no denying the fact that in the recent past rights violations of a serious nature have taken place in the countryside which necessiated the Union Home Minister, S.R Patil to conduct a whirlwind tour of the valley.
At the moment the Chief Minister is awfully busy with the development programme undertaken by him for which he has expressed his deep sense of gratitude to the Government of Manmohan Singh for the much needed financial assistance.
However, he has succeeded in pursuading New Delhi to simplify the procedures for dishing out financial assistance to the state.
At this point of time one cannot expect much from the State Chief Minister to pursue the important items of his political agenda viz, peace process and peaceful resolution of the knotty issue of Kashmir.
However, one hopes that since the leadership in both the countries of India and Pak have realised the need for softening of borders which would provide a lot of relief to the people of the state also.
It is hoped that this will receive precedence as soon as the situation in Pakistan stablilises.
Spurt in Human Rights violations- We are back to square one Bashir Assad Events can overtake policymaking, and reduce policy options to automatic compliance with unfavorable circumstances.
Something like that has already happened in Kashmir.
Worse, in the absence of an open and frank debate on Kashmir, decision-making will remain hostage to raw public emotion, which secrecy and delusional military theories have fostered.
While revealing the broader contours of this perception-real and substantive-one has to admit that nowhere is this more the case than in South Asia, where democracy has both taken root and sometimes proven elusive.
It is a region of remarkable social, economic and technological transformations, yet it is the only place in the world where there has been no shift in perception which is predominantly deterrent to friendly relationship based on the principal of co-existence and mutual trust to usher in an era of prosperity and progress.
Back home, like all other disputes, the complex Kashmir dispute is the product of conflicting policy pursuits and clashing interests.
The passage of time has added new dimensions to the original issue, shifting the focus from the real issue to escalatory processes and contributory factors deemed somewhat insignificant in the early phases of the dispute.
"Brinkmanship begets brinkmanship" is the only ex-pression that could be attributed to such a vulnerable situation in the Sub-continent with Kashmiri people becoming fodder for confrontation that sometimes blows out of proportions.
This is what the spurt in human rights violations in Kashmir suggests.
Once again there is a gush in human rights violations in J&K and so the sense of insecurity among the common masses.
One could easily asses the situation by simply noticing the frame of mind of security personnel deployed anywhere in the valley.
For last two months or so there is a change in mindset of security personnel -aggressive and inimical, everywhere you see security forces harassing people and even resorting to unnecessary questioning and eve teasing of women folk.
Admittedly, over the years good sense had prevailed on security forces deployed in the state and were used to develop a little bit human relationship with the local people but for last couple of months the situation has taken a U-turn.
Incidents of rape and molestation are on ever time high.
Unfortunate incidents like Bandipora, Kupwara, Kangan and Chatroo Kishtwar are repeated very frequently in the country side which go un-noticed.
Let us forget about what is happening in the remote areas, you just observe the implementation of AFSPA while boarding a Bus from Kupwara to Srinagar and then from Srinagar to Qazigund.
It is not the frisking that disturbs you but it is the behavior of deployed personnel towards the women moving on road side to their pastures and fields for daily work.
Whistling, screeching and laughing at them and at many times engaging them unnecessarily in exchange of words knowing that most among them or uneducated and could not understand what you say and what do you mean.
The abuse of power by the state has various dimensions and certain novel ways of abuse of power has been determined such as illegal detention, adoption of third degree torture in interrogation centers and police stations, custodial deaths, custodial disappearances, custodial rapes, ill treatment of prisoners etc The unconstitutional Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 as amended in 1972, Disturbed Area Act and such other repressive laws have given discretion to security officials for unwarranted arrests, search operations round the clock, destruction of property and collateral damages, empowering firings, thereby leading to human rights abuses, which may sometime result in death, merely based on a relatively junior officers opinion.
This process goes on unabated since 1990 but the point which needs to be brought into focus right now is; why there is a sudden spurt in rights violations when the political forces are dragging their feet while claiming that normalcy has been on its way to Srinagar.
Leaving aside their respective stand on troops reduction and revocation of AFSPA all the political parties by and large declare the situation better than ever before, then how is it that perception of security forces towards the Kashmiri people for last few months has drastically changed.
I just want to expose the broader contours built during the course of time essentially responsible for major scale violations in the state.
What I want to convey is that the initiatives taken at the political level have no significance unless there is change in perception for cessation of hostilities and the laws in practice are either revoked or at least given a human touch.
See, democracy is considered a good society in itself, but it is also "a means through which different groups can attain their ends." While the importance of political democracy has been emphasized in theoretical discussions, empirical evidence for this thesis nevertheless is insufficient.
The relative neglect of the human impact of democracy is all the more perplexing.
As Seymour Lipset (1981: 439) noted, political democracy constitutes "a guarantee that the products of the society will not accumulate in the hands of a few power-holders, and that men may develop and bring up their children without fear of persecution." While drawing a comparison between political democracy and what we have in Kashmir, one can justifiably name it as oligarchic democracy where in political establishment resorts to all kinds of inhuman and undemocratic measures to prove its point.
Whether it is inflated balloon of infiltration, or fake encounters in Kupwara and Chatroo, or arrest of innocent people under PSA all suggest that Government in the state is very much interested in maintaining status-quo.
On the other hand Government of India slowed down the dialogue process with Pakistan on Kashmir making internal crises in Pakistan responsible for its sluggish pace.
This is what Investors do during crises at Mumby Stock Exchange.
Anyway, militants, soldiers, politicians and bureaucrats have developed vested interest in status-quo and they are doing every thing to further the perplex situation in the state.
Let me quote Vibhuti Narayan Rai who says that no violence can continue beyond 48 hours unless there are political/bureaucratic elements, which are providing shelter, encouragement and umbrella to the perpetrators of violence.
What happened to the slogan of Zero tolerance of rights violations, assurances of not harassing the Kashmiri people out side the state, upholding cherished values of Kashmiryat so on and so forth.
Does it implies to what they say does not mean and what they mean does not say.This brings us to the fundamental question about the sanctity of political institutions.
So long as the institutions of governance are above self centered motivations, all communities repose faith in them.
The rules of the political game are well known and everybody knows his limits.
But political motivations by definition has the potential to destroy this fabric.
This very phenomenon caused serious problems in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the foreseeable future, this trend is unlikely to change, if the present is any pointer.
The covert license given from 1989 to the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiris, the increasing graft in an already bankrupt state economy, the growing frustration of the unemployed youth, the absence of visible economic development, the step-motherly treatment to the people of Kashmir, and the vested interest developed by the permanent and political bureaucracy and the separatists in status-quo all this combined to create turmoil.
As B.G Verghese notes reconciliation and peace process with regard to Jammu and Kashmir must address three critical concerns and do this concurrently, not sequentially.
First, India must undertake an internal dialogue and healing process.
Where is that internal dialogue who talks to whom? This question disturbs an average Kashmiri mind when it sees India making more and more people irrelevant without any substantial progress.
If at all it (Indian Government) talks to any body, it is definitely followed by fake encounters attempts to rape and molestation, gruesome incidents of innocent killings aimed at sabotaging the whole gamut.
This suggests that there is "democracy defi-cit" in Kashmir and the people suffer at the hands of democrats notwithstanding the fact the insurgents and counter-insurgents have crumbled the state and raised it to the rubble for their ends.
A symbol of identity in Pakistan, a badge of honour in India.
Kashmir has suffered the misfortune of being transformed into a battleground of ideas - a nasty conflict with manifestly brutal implications on the ground.
When it comes to the dialogue process India seems tacitly to determine pre-emptively the outcome of the dialogue.
In this context it can be said with a certain degree of authenticity that there is lack of political will and seriousness to address the issue of rights violations in Kashmir not to speak of the resolution process.
So we are back to square one.
*(The author can be reached at 9419035585 and mailed at bashirassad@rediffmail.com).
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