When Atal Behari Vajpayee went to Kashmir for the first time after becoming Prime Minister, he talked about insaniyat being the limit to which the Government could go to find a solution. In April 2003, from Srinagar, Vajpayee reached out to Pakistan with a renewed hand of friendship, after the fiasco of Agra and nine months of an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Pakistan.When Manmohan Singh goes to Srinagar tomorrow for the first time after taking over as PM, he too will be painting the wide strokes, geared to win the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people. In recent days, the Prime Minister has told friends that he wants to do something for Kashmir “from his heart.’’While Vajpayee went for style, Manmohan wants to emphasise the substance. Having announced a reduction of troops from the state before his visit, he is expected to go beyond what he has already announced. He may now pitch for softer borders to make travel easier for Kashmiris, to reunite families on either side of the border, and for those uprooted from their homes and living in camps—the Kashmiri Pandits—to return to their homes and hearth.Politically, CM Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and his daughter PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti have been pressing the PM to announce during his visit the opening of the Srinagar-Muzzafarabad road.The Prime Minister spoke about his impending visit this evening: ‘‘I am going to get a feel of what the people are thinking, and to encourage them to get out of old modes of thinking.’’ Chatting informally at a Diwali-Eid Milan get-together held at the residence of Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Manmohan Singh was asked if he would be talking to the Hurriyat leaders while he was there.The PM replied, ‘‘I will be talking to whoever wants to talk to me.’’ Would he be talking to the hawks? ‘‘I don’t know who is a hawk,’’ the PM replied cryptically. ‘‘I’ll talk to anyone who wants a peaceful solution to the problem.’’On the problem of Kashmiri Pandits, the PM said, ‘‘We will look at all things that need to be done.’’ An official in the PMO said that a “major effort will be made to assuage their feelings (of Kashmiri Pandits) and greater help will be offered for their education and shelter.’’The Prime Minister is expected to put his weight behind Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s announcement that the Hurriyat leaders could travel to Pakistan if they wanted. Mirwaiz Omar Farooq has made it clear that the third round of dialogue with the Centre would not resume unless they were given permission to visit Pakistan.
