A real opportunity in Kashmir, let’s take it

After the recent two-day visit of the parliamentary team led by Union home minister Rajnath Singh to Kashmir, the Centre has a real opportunity to take specific steps to address political questions relating to the Valley. The criticism that Kashmiris make is valid — that a similar conversation after the 2010 troubles led to a flurry of activity. Meetings were held, plans drafted, and reports prepared. But nothing left the drawing boards in the end.

Such are the complications of this country that the minute the moment of emergency passes in one sphere, it crops up in half a dozen others, and all any government ends up doing is firefighting. This time the approach has to be seen as manifestly different. Kashmir is no ordinary issue. It is linked to our territorial integrity and the sustenance of our values as a pluralistic democracy.

If the government is found to be serious in taking a constructive approach, it will find many takers. The pro-Pakistan constituency in the Valley will find it is on shaky ground. Ordinary Kashmiris have no interest in teaming up with Pakistan or its followers in the name of a common faith. But they are cowed into submission as the Centre has been tardy in presenting the option of constructive politics that has the potential to fight the shadow of the gun.

The Hurriyat Conference’s top leaders have practically been led by the nose by pro-Pakistan patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who is the charismatic leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami cadres across the Valley although he was removed from the organisation several years ago. But when Mr Geelani and his cohorts spurned the efforts of some MPs to talk, in all likelihood taking the cue from Pakistan, with which India’s relations have lately hit a low, they acted contrary to the public mood and expectations, that favoured receiving positive assurances to be followed by action.

They are likely be the political losers in the end, specially at a time when street protests, particularly in rural areas, are being controlled by a hitherto unknown band of a younger crop of pro-Pakistan elements over whom the Hurriyat leadership may struggle to have even nominal control.

Such a conjuncture presents an opportunity for the Government of India to be seen to be doing something new and something different, and also presents an opportunity to outflank pro-Pakistan opinion in the Valley, which is small but energetic and innovative.

The Opposition MPs, who vainly tried to make contact with the Hurriyat leaders in an effort to hear all sections of public opinion in Kashmir, have helped to re-connect us with the ordinary people of the Kashmir Valley and forge an opportunity to try and do something constructive.