With the apparently pre-determined script playing out last night in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s talks with the Hurriyat leaders, the prospects for the Indo-Pak summit in New York next week have brightened.For all the praises the Hurriyat leaders sang after their first-ever meeting with an Indian Prime Minister, sources suggested last night’s deal on ending all forms of violence in Jammu and Kashmir might have been pre-cooked between Delhi and Islamabad.As Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf prepares for his third meeting with Manmohan Singh, analysts say, he needs signs of movement in India’s Kashmir policy to sustain domestic political support for the peace process with India.Musharraf’s persuasion of India to embark on a substantive engagement with the Hurriyat and the first results from the process should provide the space for Pakistan’s top gun to unveil the next steps in improving Indo-Pak relations.But why has India chosen to edify the Hurriyat as a special interlocutor in Kashmir and risked the ‘‘association’’ of the Kashmiris with what it sees as a bilateral peace process with Pakistan?The Indian establishment for long had barely concealed contempt for the Hurriyat leaders as the brazen tool of Pakistan’s policy in Kashmir. That political assessment in New Delhi has not really changed. It has been simply turned on its head.Precisely, because it represents the interests of Pakistan, the Hurriyat is now handy for India as well. Delhi can now showcase the steps it needed to take to redress the grievances of the Kashmiris as important gestures towards the Hurriyat.And the positive response from the Hurriyat should provide the political cover for Musharraf to take difficult steps on ending violence and infiltration by claiming the Kashmiris themselves want it.The first signs of India’s readiness to play ball with the Hurriyat came when it chose to let its leaders travel to Pakistan on the bus to Muzaffarabad some weeks ago.The decision was perceived by some as against the spirit of the originally agreed rules for the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service launched in April this year. These rules which allowed travel only between the divided parts of Jammu and Kashmir.The move brought objections from none less than the former prime minister and the founder of the Indo-Pak peace process, Atal Behari Vajpayee.Clearly, that decision to the let the Hurriyat leaders travel to Islamabad on the bus was part of a new understanding between Delhi and Islamabad on how best to leverage the Hurriyat factor for mutual benefit.Singh’s meeting with the Hurriyat will allow Pakistan to claim that Musharraf has got the Kashmiris involved in the peace process. India, while insisting that the talks with Pakistan remain bilateral, has now a parallel track which can be used to bring down the levels of violence and cross-border infiltration.The script has played well so far in what appears to be a win-win-win game for Delhi, Islamabad and Hurriyat. But the day Indo-Pak dialogue stalls, so will the engagement with the Hurriyat.
