Why the Interlocutor Needs to Talk to Hurriyat on Priority

After asserting that the samasya (problem) in Kashmir can be solved “only through dialogue” by embracing its people not through bullets and using abuses, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi led government on October 23, in a seemingly well thought-out ‘policy-shift’ has appointed a former Intelligence chief Dineshwar Sharma as special representative who will lead the talks to find a permanent solution to protracted political dispute in the state.

Appointment of 63-year-old formerly an Indian Police Service officer, Dineshwar Sharma has invoked different response across the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Many call him incarnation of 1970s Gopalaswami Parthasarthi while other term it an “eyewash”. “I hear they are playing interlocutor again,” novelist Waheed Mirza noted.

As per former chief minister, Omar Abdullah the acceptance of the political nature of the Kashmir issue is a resounding defeat of those who could only see use of force as a solution. “It is a political problem it is not only talking to people of J&K, Ladakh they have to talk to Pakistan also,” Omar tweeted.

State’s Mehbooba Mufti in a tweet responded that “dialogue is a necessity of the hour and the only way to go forward, his appointment is a good initiative and should be a success.”

Home minister Rajnath Singh also termed the interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma’s appointment critical for achieving sustainable dialogue process. “He has right to talk to engage whatever party he wishes to. He will talk to all stakeholder without restrictions and will decide whether to talk to Hurriyat Conference,” the minister said on Monday while addressing the media in New Delhi.

Composite Dialogue

All pro-Indian ‘mainstream’ parties based in Kashmir accepts legitimacy of India administering Kashmir, so talking with them is no big deal most of these parties are already in consideration. The meaningful “talks” will yield results only if it happens between conflicting parties: in context of Kashmir, party like Hurriyat Conference which believes in resolution of Kashmir dispute through “peaceful and non-violent-means” has posed a challenge to status-quo over the years, including the other militant outfits who believes in using violent means and categorically terming Indian rule in Kashmir as “illegitimate”.

Traces of such an attempt, previously happened during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee tenure in 2004 where the differing Hurriyat leaders was given a democratic space in the form of “composite dialogue”. However, the process sustained for a short period until the National Democratic Alliance were vetoed out of power.

Interlocutors of 2010

Seven years ago, under the leadership of Manmohan Singh, India was facing the heat of summer uprising of 2010 in Kashmir which killed 120 civilians especially youths. The then Congress-led UPA government ended up appointing a three-membered-interlocutors team to file a time bound report to find a meaningful solution.

After meeting 700 delegations across 22 districts, the report filed by interlocutor M M Ansari, Dileep Padgaonkar and Meena Kumari fetched no positive results on ground. Firstly, the report was not made public, and secondly the large section of population doubted the sincerity of the use of interlocutors by New Delhi as a “time-buying-tactic” which often gets exposed when such initiatives fails to incorporate the conflicting All Party Hurriyat Conference and the rival Pakistan in the dialogue process.   

“These interlocutors were appointed to divert the attention of world community and Kashmiri people from the core issue,” the Hurriyat Conference leader, Mirwaiz Umar later stated in 2011. Similarly, as per Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Yasin Malik he termed the interlocutors report irrelevant: “Because we didn’t meet them,” he said. 

The Policy-Shift?

Interestingly, Dineshwar Sharma’s appointment to initiate a sustainable dialogue will yield any substantiate results for many is little hard to digest, knowingly after viewing the track-record of BJP four-year-rule and contextualizing Narendra Modi’s overall hardline statements on Kashmir. This policy shift invokes lot of questions.

“India should shun all its rhetorical position on dispute including integral part theory and proceed honestly to form a framework taking in consideration all the parties of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Pakistan on negotiating table and discuss the way-forward to resolve it in time-bound-structure,” a 24-year-old Sajjad Hamid who works as an engineer, said.

Remember: few months ago, how national media including the India’s counter-terrorism agency, National Investigation Agency, was allegedly ‘used’ by Centre against the amalgam of pro-freedom (separatists) All Party Hurriyat Conference groups especially the hawk Syed Ali Geelani faction, and how military offensive was intensified against indigenous militant groups by taken away most top militants leaders in 2017, and also imposing constitutional changes such as dissolution of the financial autonomy of state of Jammu and Kashmir through Goods and Sales Tax and finally an attempt to abrogate special status of permanent residence through Article 35A – all of these policies were seen by observers, as an offshoot of right-wing government’s grand strategy on Kashmir.

Similarly, the other policies that were previously adopted by coalition government in Kashmir under the patronization of New Delhi were heavy use of pellets shotguns against protesters wherein thousands of youth lost eyesight partially or fully; an attempt to create Israel-type separate colonies for migrated Hindus, and a furor over conducting surgical strikes against Pakistan, and making a cruel example in history by using civilians as human shield besides the ongoing tide of prevailed fear-psychosis across region generated by virtue of braid chopping of men and women which has been termed by state apparatus as ‘mass hysteria’.

According to Shujaat Bhukari, who participates in different Track II diplomacy processes, he writes, “So what led to this change of stance? Is it the international attention Kashmir has been receiving that prompted the BJP to want to let the world community know that it has a softer face? Or is it a strategy to divert attention from the challenges the Narendra Modi government is facing within the country on account of an economic slowdown and glitches in the implementation of the new Goods and Services Tax, among others?”

Umer Beigh is an independent journalist from Kashmir. He is a graduate from Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, JMI, New Delhi.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick.