Former union minister Arun Shourie (Express Archive)
If you were asked to point to one hopeful feature in the Kashmir situation, what would you single out?
As the Vietnam War demonstrated, one must never go by figures alone: remember those body-counts, those charts that (US Secretary of Defense Robert) McNamara used to display? He had his staff keep an eye on, literally, one hundred variables. By tabulating them and analysing them, he was able to argue again and again that the Americans were winning the Vietnam war. So, one must remember that the spirit and emotions of the people cannot be captured in figures. But as far as mere figures go, the level of violence is lower than it has been in the worst years. Among fatalities, the largest number are of militants; next come personnel of our security forces; and then civilians – and a large proportion of the latter are ones who are killed by shelling from across the border.
And if you were asked to point to developments that you find most disturbing?
Three. First, most of those who are wielding the gun today are not infiltrators from Pakistan but young men of our own. Second, a dangerous cycle has taken hold. Security forces receive intelligence that some terrorists are holed up at a particular place, or in a particular building. When they reach the place and start operations to apprehend or kill the terrorists, civilians gather. They isolate and obstruct vehicles. Some of them pelt stones. With so many civilians in the area, some are bound to get killed in the engagement and cross-firing that follow. The funeral processions of and prayers for those who have got killed become emotional events: two or three in the crowd are so charged that they announce then and there that they are joining the militants. This can become a self-feeding spiral. Third, all political parties and the Hurriyat too have lost legitimacy and, therefore, as one of our foremost national security experts told me, we are farther from recommencing the political process than we have been for years.
Apart from the alienation that they may feel because of recent developments such as these, underlying the Kashmiri demand for azadi and autonomy is the feeling that they have a culture and a long history that are distinct from the rest of India.
Every part of India has a culture that is distinctive, and every part has a very long history. You just have to think of, say, Tamil Nadu or Kerala, or indeed of any one of our Northeastern states.
A clash at Dooru in Anantnag district after an overnight gunfight in which two militants were killed. (File)
But what about the demand for autonomy?
That must be reduced to specifics. As you know, many persons, and not just Kashmiris, today argue that more powers should be devolved to states, even to smaller units like urban corporations and panchayats. But the case must be built on specifics. One has to show which power that currently resides with the Centre, say, is impeding the growth of the state or the welfare of its people. And how devolving that specific power to the states will improve the lot of the people.
In the case of Kashmir, consider two examples. Crores upon crores would have gone from the Centre for projects in Kashmir. Clearly, the benefits have not reached the people of the state. Assume for a moment that some of the money was siphoned by politicians or personnel connected with the Centre. But surely, a large part would also have been siphoned by persons connected with the state. Does that call for more “autonomy” or for closer scrutiny? For more rigorous work by bodies like the CAG or their removal from the scene altogether?
Similarly, there is no doubt that some of the elections in the state were rigged – and this is a fact that has caused immense resentment among the people; in fact, the possible rigging of a particular election led a middling Jamaat-e-Islami preacher, Mohammed Yusuf Shah, to cross over to Pakistan where he morphed into a Pakistani asset, Syed Salahuddin. To ensure free and fair elections, do we need more or less supervision by the Election Commission? Do we need – and not just Kashmiris but people all over the country – a strong and independent national Election Commission or one in the clutches of whoever dominates a state?
So, the case for greater devolution of powers, in the extreme for “autonomy” must be reduced to specifics: which power should be devolved? Why?
Of course, the youngsters who have taken to the gun are not demanding just “autonomy” but azadi.
That is a chimera. It is not going to materialise. And waiting for it, killing and dying for it is going to lay waste yet another generation. Yet another generation will be even less equipped to face the world it will have to face than the current generation which has already lost decades.
On one thing we should be absolutely clear. Whoever takes to the gun will have to be countered by the gun. And not by deploying “minimum force”. But by employing overwhelming force. K P S Gill used to say, “There is no point running after the terrorist. You have to outrun him.”
By the prescription that one must use “minimal force”, I understand that one must minimise collateral damage: hence, where one can use water cannons and one uses tear gas; or where one can use tear gas and one blinds youngsters with pellets, one is being foolish. That is not a question of using minimum or maximum force. It is using force foolishly.
All right. A gun for a gun. What else?
Of course, the most important thing is to talk – all the time, to everyone. With his vast experience in Kashmir, in his book, “Kashmir, The Vajpayee Years”, A S Dulat makes the most persuasive case that one must go on talking, and go on talking, and go on talking. And “talking” means first of all, and most of all, listening.
You said “to everyone”. Would you include leaders of the Hurriyat in that? Aren’t they pro-Pakistan, aren’t they tightly controlled by Pakistan?
Of course, the Hurriyat was the creation of Pakistan, and they are tightly controlled by Pakistan. We have the word of a former head of the ISI itself on that. In the most absorbing conversations of Dulat and Lt General Asad Durrani, at one point while recounting some of the things that the ISI did right, the General says, “…going back to the evolution of the Kashmir uprising of the 1990s, I think the formation of the Hurriyat to provide a political direction to the resistance was a good idea. Giving up the handle on the movement – letting the factions do what they bloody well wanted to – was not.”
The point being that on Hurriyat being a creation of Pakistan there is no doubt. But it is precisely because some of the leaders have been pro-Pakistan, precisely because some of them have been directly controlled by Pakistan that we must talk to them. They are citizens of India. For what seem to us to be bad reasons, and what seem to them to be good reasons, they have come under the influence of agencies of another country. We have to reach out to them and convince them — both that the mirage they say they are agitating for, azadi or merger with Pakistan, is just that, a mirage; and, second, that together we can build a great future for the people of Kashmir. We have to convince them.
But why is it then that not just the BJP but also the Opposition parties like the Congress are so dead set against talking to the Hurriyat leaders?
I am not sure that they are that averse to talking. They just don’t want to be heard saying that we should talk to Hurriyat, etc. They shudder that they will be accused of being “soft on terrorism”.
And also because they don’t know the slightest thing about even recent history. You remember what a hullabaloo there used to be about the Hurriyat leaders calling on a visiting Pakistani minister or going to the Pakistan High Commission for tea? Who is it who said, “Let us end this nonsense. Let them go and meet whoever they want at the High Commission”? As Dulat records, it was the Congress Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao. As for the BJP, they don’t want to even remember that Advaniji held formal talks with Hurriyat leaders, that Atalji did not just allow them to meet whoever they wanted, he facilitated their going to Pakistan. And they met Musharraf. And do you know what Musharraf told them? To redouble their support of terrorists? The exact opposite: he told them to get ready for taking part in elections! When Geelani tried to intervene, Musharraf cut him off, “Get out of the way, old man,” he said. The Hurriyat leaders were shell-shocked.
We must also remember that, in fact, almost everyone is almost all the time talking to everyone! It is just that often people are afraid of acknowledging this. Dulat – who had served in Kashmir as part of IB, who had been head of RAW, and who at the time was in the Prime Minister’s Office – narrates a delicious incident in his book on Kashmir. On a flight to Srinagar, he found that the Mirwaiz, Maulvi Abbas and he were the only ones in Executive Class. Dulat had extended conversations with each of them. When the plane landed in Srinagar and they were walking towards the Arrivals, “Someone saw us coming in a single file, so they asked the Hurriyat leaders if we had been discussing something. The Mirwaiz said that there was a third person who said hello and spent time talking with Maulvi Abbas, but he himself had no idea of the identity of that third person. When approached, Maulvi Abbas said, yes he had been talking to Dulat, but only because he was introduced by the Mirwaiz!”