Whatever else they may convey, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s parleys with different Hurriyat leaders send out a loud and clear message that New Delhi does not have any worthwhile contact with them. It is the failure of the policy that India has been pursuing so far. The squabbling Hurriyat leaders came to the capital at Islamabad’s invitation, met Kasuri on his arrival and sat with him again after he finished the first round of talks with his Indian counterpart K. Natwar Singh. Kasuri talked to them for nearly three hours, to pro-Pakistan Syed Ali Shah Geelani for one and a half hours alone. The charitable interpretation is that New Delhi has not been reaching them and Kasuri is helping India by finding out what their minimum terms would be for support to the overall settlement on Kashmir.The uncharitable one — probably closer to reality — is that Pakistan is prevailing on the Hurriyat leaders to close their ranks so that they emerge as a force to put pressure on India. They have reportedly been told to set up a regular office in Delhi and adopt an ‘‘assertive’’ posture. The Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government’s non-performance has again alienated people who had participated in the last election.In any case, India does not come out well in the Kasuri-Hurriyat scenario. It can blame Islamabad for misusing its hospitality and holding parallel talks with anti-India Hurriyat leaders. But however reprehensible, the fact remains that Pakistan has once again beaten India in tactics. Hurriyat leaders have returned to Srinagar without meeting anyone in the central government which has made many offers for talks. Either interlocutor N.N. Vohra has had no way with the Hurriyat leaders or New Delhi has rejected the formulas he has prepared.There is no doubt that Islamabad is under a lot of pressure from America and other foreign powers to stop cross-border terrorism and demolish the infrastructure it has built inside Pakistan. Islamabad also realises that its fight against terrorism within the country has no credibility if it continues feeding the terrorists in Kashmir. Pakistan sees in a solid Hurriyat phalanx a force to counter the terrorists who even ‘‘defy’’ the ISI which trained and armed them. Islamabad also believes that a united Hurriyat can challenge New Delhi more effectively when the Pakistan government argues that any solution acceptable to the Hurriyat will be acceptable to it. Such a line also goes down well with international opinion.New Delhi may not experience the recurrence of the uprising as it did in the late ’80s and the ’90s, although a large number of majors in the army and officers below them (nearly 40 per cent of the force) want terrorism in Kashmir to go on. They were baptised by General Zia-ul Haq and have been influenced by the jihad factor. The higher echelons in the Pakistan army are on the side of President General Pervez Musharraf who has realised the Frankenstein of terrorism that the Pakistan establishment had created could gobble up his country as well. But the religious fanatics who wield political power in the country are foiling his efforts.Islamabad’s plan is to intensify Kashmiri nationalism to confront effectively the foreign terrorists operating in the Valley. What emerges may have a communal edge because that is the price which Geelani will exact for coalescing the different elements in the Hurriyat. The facade of Kashmiris having a separate entity may rope in the two youthful leaders Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah who have plugged the line of independent Kashmir. Apart from communalising the issue by confining the solution to the Muslim-majority Valley, Pakistan is repeating the same mistake: Not involving the people of India. Over the years, Kashmir has become part of the psyche even in the south and eastern India where interest was superficial. Kargil’s mini-war has only deepened the impression that Pakistan wants to get Kashmir at any cost. Such a feeling already exists in the rest of the country. The Pakistani establishment should know that the Indian nation would never accept a solution which in any way affects its sovereignty over Kashmir.There is no option except to evolve a settlement. Liberal Kasuri almost blew up everything when he took the old line before leaving Islamabad that no ‘‘meaningful’’ progress was possible until the Kashmir issue was settled. But then he was under immediate pressure from the military junta. On arrival in New Delhi, he was again the old Kasuri who would like to bury the hatchet with India. He said the two countries should move forward on all fronts, including Kashmir. The best would be for the two countries to sign an agreement in whichever field they had reached a consensus. One thing will lead to another. And Kashmir will be easy to tackle.Kasuri may not be able to convert the military to his point of view. But he can at least report to Musharraf that India is willing to go to any length to make up with Pakistan, provided the latter does not reopen the accession question. Autonomy or de-militarisation can be discussed, but not secession.The outcome of the Natwar-Kasuri talks has thrown up two good things: one, there would be no rigid time-frame for a solution in Kashmir; two, the bus between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad will ply, whatever the impediments. This is in the right spirit of the composite dialogue which has covered, more or less, all subjects — from terrorism to trade and from the nuclear threat to exchange of newspapers. All discussions have been ‘‘positive and fruitful.’’ Kasuri seems satisfied after meetings with Natwar Singh. Their body language showed that at the dinner Natwar Singh gave in Kasuri’s honour.Yet, the fact remains that the people in both countries are waiting for some visible, concrete results to emerge. They realise that normalisation is far off. But they want easy access to each other’s country for travel and trade. This is the least the common man expects after the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf in New York later this month. Whether an overall breakthrough takes place is difficult to guess. But the talks must go on. We have lived too long in the darkness of estrangement to go back to another period of no contact.
