Fresh elections, please

There is no dearth of formulas becauseKashmir has been discussed threadbare over the years, both in and outside the subcontinent. Americans are great ones in assembling various points of view and finding some common thread running through them. But they have honestly come to believe that a third party intervention will only impede the process. New Delhi’s own information is that Washington does not want to impose any formula on India.

However, if the Hurriyat leaders in the Valley are to be believed, Washington has revived the proposals by Owen Dixon, who was trying to mediate on behalf of the UN in 1950. His proposals were: (a) to hold the plebiscite by sections or areas; (b) to partition the state, assigning areas according to the known wishes of the inhabitants and holding plebiscite in the Kashmir Valley. When I met Aziz Sartaj in Pakistan before he assumed the charge of foreign affairs, he told me that he favoured even village-wise plebiscite, that is, more or less Dixon’s first proposal.

The second proposal was in parts similar to theone that Karan Singh had proposed in 1964 when he was still the state’s Sadar-e-Riyasat. He was in favour of dividing Jammu and Kashmir, so that the former could be merged with India at once. The Government of India reprimanded him and he gave up the proposal.

India was then in favour of Dixon’s proposal to hold a plebiscite only in the valley of Kashmir to which the addition of Muzaffarabad district, part of Azad Kashmir, was suggested so as to have a natural geographical feature provided by the river Kishanganga and its watershed in the north. Late Home Minister Sardar Patel suggested to Dixon that India could be given Jammu and Ladakh straightaway and that the plebiscite be confined to the Valley.However, the proposals did not materialise because Pakistan demanded control of Kashmir straightaway. Later, India also rejected the plan for a limited plebiscite. If America is trying to bring back the Dixon proposals now, it does not realise that much water has flowed down the Jhelum since 1950. What waspossible within a few years of India’s partition is not feasible now.

The Dixon proposals have become outdated.

India cannot afford to have a situation where the choice offered would be between the Koran and the Gita, between the Muslim umma and the Hindus. The Dixon proposals may revive the pre-partition animosities and reopen the old wounds. The Shimla agreement, that is, direct talks between India and Pakistan, has replaced plebiscite. And this is what the meeting between foreign secretaries of the two countries means. They or their political masters must find a solution through talks and a sense of accommodation.

Already the RSS parivar, including the BJP, is trying to change the country’s agenda, from secularism to Hindutva. A plebiscite in the Valley will only give the party an opportunity to inject more of communalism in the society. Suppose the Valley were to opt for Pakistan, exasperated as the Kashmiris are over the rough-and-ready methods of the administration, the RSS parivar will go totown with the argument that the Muslims, even after 50 years, have preferred Pakistan.

However imperfect, India’s secular polity has come to stay. Yet it cannot take any chances when the Hindutva forces are breathing down the nation’s neck. That there should be a mutually acceptable solution goes without saying but it cannot be based on religion. Even if it is presumed that the majority of three million Muslims in the Valley will vote for Pakistan, no formula makes sense if the 120 million Muslims in the rest of India are exposed to Hindu chauvinism.

It is, however, significant that the Hurriyat has stopped asking for the Valley’s independence. Pakistan has reportedly given a dressing down to the party leaders for having raised the demand for independence. The young Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik, committed to the cause of independence, is crestfallen. Another young leader, Shabir Shah, who dissociated himself from the Hurriyat a few years ago, never took Islamabad’s support seriously. He is all rightbecause he has floated his own party.

The elderly Hurriyat trio of Gillani, Lone and Prof. Ghani, which has been consistently following an anti-India line, has accepted Islamabad’s command. In fact, the three are now articulating the Dixon proposals. What they have not realised is that the formula which endangers India’s pluralistic society will not be acceptable.

In the medley of voices, what Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has suggested is not a bad formula. He has proposed fresh elections so that power could be transferred to new leaders. Already India is committed to the 1952 Delhi pacts, which give the Centre only three subjects foreign affairs, defence and communications. There is also Article 370 to guard the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

Eventually, Pakistan may come to realise that an autonomous status for the state will improve its ties with Srinagar and New Delhi. The old Rawalpindi road will be opened and the timber trade will revive. Of course, fresh elections in Jammu and Kashmirwill have to be held under the supervision of NGOs and human rights activists in India. The government’s interference in the elections since day one has corroded the Kashmiris’ faith in the Election Commission. When New Delhi and Islamabad come to discuss the modalities of fair elections in both Kashmirs, they will realise that the human rights activists can do a better job.