What should we do now in Kashmir? One faces this question wherever one goes, whatever the occasion. Kashmir has gripped the nation’s mind and psyche as nothing else has since partition.
My answer is: First make sure that our political leaders do not throw away Kashmir. Only then can the rest follow. Implicit in this answer is the apprehension that the political leaders may do just that. Indeed, I believe the time has come to make the implicit explicit. Yes, I am fearful that the political leadership, such as it is, is launched on a course which can lead to such a denouement.
VP Singh may be fulfilling the ‘obligations’ of his office of Prime Minister and the requirements of parliamentary debates when he issues one ‘stern’ warning after another to Pakistan. But Islamabad has evolved a comprehensive approach which effectively nullifies these warnings. Its soldiers will not cross the border; no, it will not allow even civilians to try to do so any more; it will also not concentrate its forces on the border; it does not need to.
It has, over the years, developed channels whereby it can send arms and money to the terrorists in the valley and receive recruits from there for training. All that it has to do now is to keep these channels open and cheer, from a safe distance, the terrorists and their cohorts as they carry on their jihad. VP Singh cannot possibly treat that as a grave enough provocation to implement his ‘stern’ warnings.
Indeed, Islamabad has already decided to treat these ‘warnings’ with contempt. It is difficult to put another interpretation on Benazir Bhutto’s decision to go public with her government’s support for the terrorists and announce the setting up of a Kashmir fund, with an initial official contribution of Rs 10 crore. The Indian people would wait for the government’s response to this provocation.
Honesty demands that VP Singh address a ‘stern warning’ first and above all to himself that he must not any more seek surreptitiously to abdicate his responsibilities as Prime Minister in respect of Kashmir (and Punjab which is not under discussion here) and pass them on to some vague entity called all-party conference and/or all-party committee with a minister for Kashmir thrown in.
I have long felt that VP Singh’s passion for high office is matched by his desire to escape the awesome responsibilities that must go with it and I have been confirmed in this view by his conduct as Prime Minister in respect of both Punjab and Kashmir. He has patently sought to transfer his responsibilities to others. But, as the saying goes, he is the best Prime Minister we have. So we have to address ourselves to him with some measure of hope, even if it is a case of “hope against hope”.
Lest some of his cohorts and apologists plead that he is well advised, indeed obliged, to seek the support of other parties because he heads a ‘minority’ government, let me say that this plea is as dangerous as it is untenable. It is dangerous because it at once casts doubt on the legitimacy of the government and enables it to avoid hard decisions which the situation calls for. It is s untenable because a government is a government is a government so long as it enjoys the confidence of the majority in the Lok Sabha. And pray, if VP Singh needs an all-party endorsement for his government’s actions in Kashmir (and Punjab), why not for the budget?
Then there is his opposite number, Rajiv Gandhi. If VP Singh is a past master in the art of evasion of responsibility, Rajiv Gandhi is not far behind even if he is not equally accomplished. Doubtless the situation in Kashmir began to take a particularly dangerous turn when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister and she compounded it by replacing Farooq Abdullah with GM Shah as the state chief minister.
But the revivalists and the secessionists acquired the teeth they are now baring when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister and the National Conference-Congress coalition installed by him was in power in Srinagar. The same Jagmohan was then Governor in the state and he not only took up the issue of the failure of the state government to act against the terrorists and the secessionists with Farooq but also reported the matter to New Delhi. Clearly, Rajiv Gandhi and his government turned a blind eye towards the gathering crisis in the valley.
Rajiv Gandhi is not at all embarrassed by his record and its exposure first in the form of the explosion in Kashmir and then by the publication of the texts of Jagmohan’s notes to the Government of India. Instead, he has sought to make it out that the Janata government is wholly to blame for the turmoil in the valley.
Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s stature may not entitle him to the office of Union Home Minister. But that does not entitle Rajiv Gandhi either to call into question his credentials as an Indian nationalist. Mufti and his colleagues committed a blunder when they agreed to release five terrorists in return for his daughter. But that can at worst be said to have served as a matchstick that set the inflammable material ablaze. It cannot be said to have produced the inflammable material. The material had piled up when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister and his present favourite Farooq was chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir.
On the analogy that VP Singh is the best Prime Minister we have, it can also be argued that Farooq is the best chief minister we could have had in Kashmir. I myself argued to that effect with Indira Gandhi first when Sheikh Abdullah was about to die and then when she decided to replace him with GM Shah, incidentally with the help of the very same Jagmohan, a help Jagmohan should not have rendered. Indeed, I would go even farther and agree that the country may need Farooq’s services in Kashmir again in future. But that stage can arrive only when the secessionists have been beaten and when possibly Pakistan has been humbled.
Meanwhile, Farooq can at best play only a very limited role, if any. It beats comprehension that so obvious a point should escape Rajiv Gandhi despite five years in the office of Prime Minister. Apparently he remains the political novice he was when he entered that office in 1984. Apparently, he has also not drawn any lesson from the tragedy of Punjab to which he has contributed in no small measure by his penchant for a quick fix. He tried a so-called political solution in Punjab prematurely, with results that are there for anyone to see, and he is hell-bent on a similar experiment in Kashmir.
I find Rajiv Gandhi’s attitude and statements on Kashmir utterly deplorable. But I regard it unnecessary to press the issue. For one thing, he has exposed himself thoroughly; for another, he is not in command. So we can leave him to his fantasies, provided, of course, we can ensure that the damage he can inflict on the country is limited. That calls for a more responsible attitude and behaviour on the part of VP Singh.
To put the issue in plain language, VP Singh has to recognise that as Prime Minister it is his responsibility, in consultation with his senior Cabinet colleagues (and others he chooses) and his alone to work out and implement a Kashmir policy and that it is unworthy of him as Prime Minister to seek shelter behind the ill-defined, elusive and dangerous concept of national consensus arrived at by the nine-man all-party committee which he has been wholly ill-advised to constitute.
Implicit in the very concept of parliamentary democracy is the proposition that the Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister, represents national consensus (Rousseau’s general will) so long as it is assured of a majority in the legislature. The proposition is, of course, annulled in certain situations, as in respect of the proclamation of emergency in 1975 in our case, or the deal with Hitler in 1937 over Sudetanland in Britain’s; but surely that has nothing to do with the level of parliamentary support. Chamberlain had not lost his majority in 1937 and Indira Gandhi’s in 1975 but they had lost their legitimacy.
As I view recent developments, was I am persuaded that VP Singh has been guilty of abdication of responsibility in respect of Kashmir (and Punjab), in the very act of convening an all-party conference. His refusal to retract from this approach even after the experience of that the ‘visit’ to Srinagar by the chosen representatives of the parties in question inclines me to believe that in respect of his capacity (or incapacity) to learn from experience, he is not very different from his former boss and patron. After all, it may not have been a mere accident that Rajiv Gandhi was enamoured of VP Singh and the latter mesmerised by him.
And no wonder the choice of the duo for the third musketeer has fallen on none other than the ‘giant killer’ George Fernandes. As a minister in the Morarji Desai government, he hijacked the country’s economic policy when he managed the expulsion of Coca Cola and the IBM. But that was the smaller of the giant killer’s enterprises.
He also negotiated a deal with Gaddafi, known best for his support for terrorism in different parts of the world ranging from the Philippines to Ireland, whereby India was to transfer nuclear technology to Libya; mercifully, Morarji Desai was able to scuttle the agreement. Appropriately, George Fernandes has not needed more than a brief visit to Srinagar and a stroll in its empty streets to be able to claim that he has already established contacts with some of those who can deliver the goodwill of the Kashmiri Muslims. This raises some very inconvenient questions as does Rajiv Gandhi’s sudden fondness for him.
There can be little doubt that the VP Singh government has mishandled Kashmir badly from the very start. If the choice of Jagmohan for Governor was the right one, the manner of making it was wrong. If VP Singh was to follow the ‘national consensus’ approach, he should, at the very least, have consulted his CPM, CPI and BJP allies; apparently he did not consult the CPM and CPI; or else they would not have criticised the appointment subsequently and provided a handle to Rajiv Gandhi who is obviously still oblivious of the dimensions of the trouble in the valley.
Implicit in the decision to appoint Jagmohan Governor of J&K was the decision to remove Farooq from the office of chief minister. There is evidence to show that VP Singh refused to recognise this implication. Farooq obliged him by resigning without loss of time. But instead of taking advantage of the resignation and dissolving the assembly, the government made moves which helped interested parties, especially the Congress and the National Conference, to spread rumours in Srinagar that Farooq would soon be back as chief minister and Jagmohan would be removed.
In the circumstances, Jagmohan faced a choice between dissolving the assembly and allowing such authority as he possessed to wither away. He should have taken, as he did, the first option, but in consultation with New Delhi. His legal right to dissolve the legislature under the state constitution was not pertinent, as it had not been earlier. Jagmohan’s action, as well as VP Singh’s more or less public dissociation from it, speak of lack of detailed discussions between the government and him, either at the time of his appointment, or subsequently. Perhaps VP Singh has been too busy directing investigations into Bofors and HDW payoffs.
Once the magnitude of problem had become evident, the Prime Minister should have set up a committee of the home, defence and foreign secretaries, and others with experience of dealing with Kashmir such as the IB director. Such a committee could have interacted with the Governor on a day-to-day basis and kept the government fully informed. Instead VP Singh first opted for the all-party approach.
What has followed is recent history which need not be rehearsed, except to say that it has allowed Rajiv Gandhi full scope to put on public display his immaturity and innate inability to identify himself with the anguish of the Indian people. Surely, that has not been VP Singh’s objective. On the contrary, it is indisputable that the Prime Minister has followed the course of action recommended by the opposition leader. Indeed, it appears that Rajiv Gandhi indicated his preference for George Fernandes as minister for Kashmir before VP Singh.
As the government has dillydallied, with the backing of all major opposition parties, the terrorists have already achieved more than one-half of their first objective. They have driven out, at a rough guess, one-half of the Hindus from the valley and they have terrorised all Kashmiri Muslims; the remaining Hindus would have been pushed out in coming weeks.
The Kashmiri Hindus are, of course, not the primary concern of either the government or the opposition (with the exception of the BJP). At least I have not seen – at the time of writing (March 15) – any expression of concern over the plight of the helpless Kashmiri pandits by either the government, or the left, or the Congress, or those intellectuals and libertarians who are quick to issue statements on similar occasions. And I for one am not at all surprised that representatives of political parties, who spent a day in a five-star hotel in Srinagar in search of possible Kashmiri interlocutors, did not regard it necessary to visit Jammu and talk to representatives of the people and Kashmiri refugees there.
The rest of India is large enough and, despite the character and nature of its dominant political class, generous enough to look after 1,25,000 pandits from Kashmir. But even the self-styled secularists should note that the character of the valley will have been transformed disastrously if the pandits are not enabled to go back to their ancestral homes and, indeed, that the concept of Kashmir being an integral part of India will have lost a good deal of its meaning in such an eventuality. The Kashmiri Hindus are not expendable.
The issue in Kashmir is being confused. The issue is not whether we should look for a political solution; we have to. The issue is whether it is practical to do so right now. The answer has to be firmly in the negative. Only the soft-headed can believe that we can negotiate with the secessionists when they believe that they are on the road to victory unless, of course, we are negotiating surrender. The search for a political solution can begin only after the secessionists have been beaten – in their own assessment.
I might add that we cannot have a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan either for an additional reason. Islamabad cannot, in my view, wish either to absorb Kashmir (the Sindhis and the Baluchis are headache enough), or help it become independent because that would stimulate similar movements in Sind, Baluchistan and the NWFP, especially in the context of the erosion of the Durand Line and the presence of around three million Afghans there. Pakistan’s objective, as in Punjab, is to continue to bleed India. This approach can change but not in the near future.
Sunday Mail, 18 March 1990