Before he left for New York, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued an order making Special Advisor M K Narayanan overall in-charge of Internal Security with special emphasis on Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East. In short, the PMO is no longer prepared to leave decision-making in these two critical areas to the Home Ministry. The Government has been inviting flak for its handling of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and, more recently, Manipur. Talks with the Hurriyat have stalled in Kashmir and in Manipur, the Centre is lurching from one crisis to another. It’s learnt that Narayanan, told to put back on tracks the Centre’s dialogue with Kashmiri separatists, has already begun working on a plan which, when the Prime Minister returns next week, will need his approval: move the Department of Jammu and Kashmir from the Home Ministry to the PMO. Sources said that Narayanan has been collecting inputs from the internal security establishment and Textile Secretary Wajahat Habibullah, known more for his understanding of Kashmir affairs. Once the go-ahead is given, the plan, sources said, can be implemented on ground within the next eight weeks. By then, UPA bigwigs will have all visited Jammu and Kashmir: Congress president Sonia Gandhi is due in Ladakh on September 30 to inaugurate a Pashmina exhibition. She will be followed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil on October 22-23 and Manmohan Singh in the last week of October. Sources said that if the new plan is okayed by the PM, Home Ministry mandarins will have little say in Kashmir affairs except on deployment of security forces. Both Patil and Home Secretary Dhirendra Singh will be sounded once the plan is approved. Sources said one reason why the Kashmir department, presently under the Home Secretary, should be moved to the PMO is because the Defence and External Affairs ministries also play a role in the state, given the Pakistan angle. The thinking here is that the PMO can play an effective coordinator. Key to the new plan is a suggestion which advocates discreet substantive dialogue with Kashmiri separatists. It’s quite the opposite of what happened during the NDA rule when the talks were held under the media spotlight. Clearly, the UPA government has learnt from past experience. It doesn’t want statements from the Government and separatists flying around. Those working on the plan recall how Maulvi Abbas Ansari was ‘‘misquoted’’ in 2002 as saying that there was no need to talk to Pakistan or the US on Kashmir. This saw the US easing pressure somewhat on Pakistan and within days Islamabad came out in support of the Hurriyat faction led by hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Sources said that a recommendation will be made to keep the dialogue process as quiet as possible. But one NDA leaf is being retained: the plan says talks should be held within insaniyat ke dayre, as Vajpayee called it, rather than the rigid ‘‘four walls of Constitution’’ suggested by Patil. The idea is to encourage the likes of Mirwair Umer Farooq, Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah to eventually participate in a democratic process. The Centre, on its part, is exploring ways to give more space to the Kashmiris so that they are all on board the peace wagon.
