Kuldip Nayar: Kashmir's fragile peace breached again

Violations of human rights and outright plain killings, have recently increased in number in Kashmir. The victims are Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus and they are all innocent. Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has characterised the murders as part of "a struggle" for establishment of an Islamic state.

He is a pious man. Even his inclination towards a neighbouring country is no concern of mine. In a democratic polity, all types of views can be aired, even if they are diametrically opposed to the basic tenets of the state. But how does he or any of his cohorts justify the killings of the innocent? In which vocabulary are the perpetrators of such crimes not called murderers?

To dismiss the killings of the Pandits at Nadimarg in Kashmir as "part of a struggle" or another terrorist act is to underestimate the situation. It has already assumed grave ramifications. The elimination of a few thousand Pandits remaining in Kashmir is the key to the scenario now being played out in that troubled state.

There are some who want an ethnic cleansing to rid the valley of minority communities. It is more than a coincidence that whenever the Kashmiriyat begins to assert itself certain forces intervene with their AK-47s to communalise the environs. The continuation of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's government is not to the liking of such elements. They do not want it to succeed.

Whether it's "healing touch" is real, or whether it is just a dream that the Mufti is chasing with great hopes, cannot be judged in a few months' time. The Mufti government does not look like having a free hand. It has already been hamstrung by a central review committee which decides on the release of detainees, whose number runs into hundreds.

Mufti is already having a hard time in justifying the release of some.

The manner in which the BJP spokesman has pilloried the Mufti government indicates how casual and superficial the BJP can get to gain political advantage.

When Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, visited the state immediately after the incident, some of the affected members of the families of the victims blamed the state administration for the massacre. They demanded that they be allowed to migrate from the valley.

Asked whether the soft policy of the Mufti government had contributed to the situation, Advani said there was no point in blaming "this person or that" for the Nadimarg killings. Corrective measures must be taken wherever necessary.

Advani said that terrorist acts in Jammu and Kashmir were essentially "because of our neighbour". Every single terrorist act in the state and elsewhere in the country had an outside hand in it.

The only heartening side of the situation is how all forces in the state, including the Hurriyat, have come together to condemn the killings. People are sick and tired of violence. They want peace. There is a groundswell of opinion in favour of a settlement.

This is, in fact, the time when New Delhi should be accelerating the process of talks with the Kashmiri leaders. Like a typical bureaucrat, interlocutor N.N. Vohra is too slow to focus the attention of the people in Jammu and Kashmir on the solution of the problem.

But the government, too, seems to be playing its cards close to its chest. Even the outline of what the centre has in mind is yet to become clear.

There is no doubt that the terrorists who struck in Kashmir were afraid of a settlement which would make them redundant. But what they do not understand is that their terrorist acts are convincing even the cynical that it is only violence that is preventing the state from refurbishing its identity.

What has hurt me most is that some members of the All Party Hurriyat Conference, who should have condemned the militants, are silent for one reason or the other. Why can't they take upon themselves the responsibility of stopping the guns directed towards the common man?

They have rightly spoken against the excesses committed by the security forces. Human rights activists in India have supported them and compiled reports which Islamabad has quoted at UN fora to "prove" that even Indians are critical of the security forces.

What about the militants who have initiated the Nadir Shah-type reign of terror in the Valley?

Their victims are the innocent. The Hurriyat should go across to talk to the militants' leaders to stop the killings. The Hurriyat should start from the Valley where they claim they have the entire population behind them. Surely, the dissensions within the party should not come in the way of stopping murders.

The word "Islam" means submission (to the will of God). A Muslim is one who "submits" himself. Every true Muslim is guided in his day-to-day acts by the word of God. Geelani should search his soul because not even once has he decried the killings of the innocent, whether Sikhs or Hindus. Violation of human rights is not that of one community in Kashmir. It is of all.

It is strange that across the border, authorities should dwell more on the assassination of Abdul Majid Dar, former operational commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, than the killing of the Pandits.

What is not realised is that an agreement between New Delhi and Srinagar will hasten a dialogue for "a durable solution" as the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration have envisaged. It should also be realised that those who killed 24 pandits, including 11 women and two children, were not freedom fighters. By all accounts, the terrorists have connections with militant organisations and continue to have sustenance from them.

This is the time when the intelligentsia should speak up. They may not like India's stand on Kashmir. But they cannot possibly be supporters of - or encourage - the Jaish-e-Mohammad and other religious zealots in their selective killings.

What is at stake in Kashmir is not merely a piece of territory but the ideology of secularism. The stake in the subcontinent is even bigger. It is survival of democracy itself which needs peace and normalcy.

The writer, a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a Rajya Sabha MP. He can be contacted at knayar@gulfnews.com