THE Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir was established in October 2010, following a recommendation of an All Parties delegation that visited the state in the wake of a violence-ridden summer. Over a hundred young people were killed in the incidents of stone throwing. Several hundred more were injured. Not geared to handle spontaneous, mass protests on such a large scale, the local police and the paramilitary forces proved to be grievously inept. The mood in the valley – indignant, sullen, crestfallen – was ominous.

It is in this atmosphere that the interlocutors began their work. As it is, their appointment had elicited much cynical comment, much of it related to their alleged lack of political gravitas. Undeterred by these adverse circumstances, the interlocutors set about to fulfil the mandate given to them: to reach out to the broadest spectrum of opinion to elicit its views on the contours of a permanent political settlement in the state.

Over the next eleven months, they visited all the 22 districts of the state, conferred with more than 700 delegations representing political parties, community and professional organizations, students and professors, religious heads, human rights groups, civil society activists, newly elected panchayat members and heads of the military, paramilitary and police forces. They held three round table meetings with academics, cultural personalities and women from all the three regions of Jammu and Kashmir and attended three mass meetings. And they took into account a voluminous amount of documentation, both official and non-official, as well as scholarly studies and journalistic reportage.

Much of what they heard – close to 80 per cent – was in the nature of grievances about poor governance, lack of jobs and quality educational and public health facilities, retarded development of infrastructure, corruption, the ham-handed approach of the security forces, alleged human rights violations by terrorists and security forces alike, the widening chasm between the three regions of the state and so forth. The political views were not just diverse but also widely divergent. They, therefore, had to steer their ship through choppy waters.

Throughout the report they thus endeavoured to avoid using adversarial or self-serving rhetoric. To refer to the portions of the erstwhile princely state on the Pakistani side, they had to choose between several options. In scholarly writings, reference is made to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) with or without single quotation marks around the word ‘Azad’. Some referred to it as ‘so-called Azad Kashmir’. Some distinguished writers like J.N. Dixit, B.G. Verghese and, more recently, Luv Puri have preferred the term ‘Pakistan-administered J&K’. That expression also occurs in the writings of two eminent American diplomats and scholars, Teresita and Howard Schaefer.

 

This got the goat of the sangh parivar. The interlocutors were, of course, aware of the 1994 parliamentary resolution which speaks of ‘Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’. But they did not come across this term in any statement issued after bilateral official talks between India and Pakistan on the J&K issue. When they referred to ‘Pakistan-administered Kashmir’ they meant just that. Pakistan has been administering portions of the erstwhile princely state for more than six decades after it refused to vacate them as per the resolutions of the UN Security Council. To administer the state does not automatically confer legitimate ownership of it.

For that very reason they did not refer to ‘Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir’ because on moral and political grounds J&K has been and will remain an integral part of the Indian Union. Whether we will be able to get Pakistan-administered J&K back into India’s fold is, to say the least, debatable. Just as Pakistan’s attempts, through violent means, to grab our Jammu and Kashmir is a classic example of chasing a chimera. That, in fact, is the pith and substance of the Shimla Agreement, the Vajpayee-Musharaff joint statement and General Musharaff’s formula for resolving the contentious issue.

Of significance in this regard are accounts of the discussions between Strobe Talbot and Jaswant Singh as narrated by the former in his book Engaging India. On page 94 Talbot writes the following about his meeting with Singh at Frankfurt on 9-10 July 1998: ‘He mentioned that his government might consider converting the Line of Control, which was based on the 1949 ceasefire line between the Pakistani and Indian portions of the territory, into an international border – a significant departure from the long-established BJP position that India should persist in seeking the integration of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir.’

Until this happens, it stands to reason that the definition of Jammu and Kashmir in the First Schedule under Article 1 and Article 4 of our Constitution will hold good: ‘territory which immediately before the commencement of this Constitution was comprised in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.’ However, as the remarks of L.K. Advani, Jaswant Singh and Manmohan Singh show, in diplomatic negotiations this definition has remained unstated.

 

Indeed, the interlocutors’ report also takes care not to endorse words and expressions that are loaded with partisan intent. These include autonomy, self-governance, nationhood, core issue, Kashmiri sentiment, etc. Their intention was to change the narrative on Jammu and Kashmir. In this regard, hardly any commentator has discussed a lengthy chapter in the report devoted to the economic and social development in the state or to specific suggestions concerning the cultural interests of various sections of the population. One commentator even called the latter ‘frivolous’, while others asserted that the efforts to focus on issues of governance and development were meant to detract attention away from the political issue when half the main report is precisely devoted to political and constitutional matters.

Allegations have been made that the report is partial to the Kashmiri separatists and to the Kashmir Valley in general. This is far, far from the truth. Three paras in the report (page 34) refer to the ‘sense of victimhood’ prevalent in the valley and list the reasons for it. Four paras discuss the sense of victimhood in Jammu and Ladakh and list the reasons for it. Jammu in particular, as was noted in the report, has long-standing grievances about the imbalanced delimitation of constituencies in the state as well as about a raw deal the region has allegedly received at the hands of the political elites in the valley as regards allocation of development funds and representation in the civil services and police.

 

One allegation was that the report did not pay enough heed to the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits evicted from the valley. In fact, it is discussed on several pages, especially pages 94 and 96. The interlocutors took note of what Advani writes on this subject in his autobiography: ‘I cannot consider any solution honourable and durable which does not result in the return of all the Kashmiri Pandits and also of all Muslim residents of Kashmir who have had to flee their native land because of violence. That is an important touchstone for judging the return of normalcy in the valley.’ The recommendations of the interlocutors regarding the Pandit community is very much in line with this statement. They have also discussed the plight of Sikhs and Pandits who chose to remain behind in the valley. And they made recommendations to address the harrowing difficulties faced by them as well as by migrants from West Pakistan who are denied their most elementary civic rights.

Moreover, they drew attention to the grievances of nomadic communities such as the Gujjars, Bakerwals, Pahadis, Gaddis and Sippis, not to forget the Kargilis and other communities staying in remote and hilly areas. These people have stood by India with a degree of dedication and enthusiasm that commands instant respect.

 

It is for all the above reasons that an entire chapter of the report has been devoted to the devolution of legislative, economic, administrative powers to the three regions and further down to the level of districts and panchayats. Sheikh Abdullah had spoken about devolution. So did three commissions set up by the Union government: Justice Gajendragadkar, Justice Sikri and Justice Wazir. But there has been no movement forward in this regard. That is why the report emphasized again and again that a political resolution in the state cannot be seen from the prism of any one region or any one community.

Much disinformation has been spread about the interlocutors’ recommendation to set up a Constitutional Commission to review all central acts and all articles of the Constitution extended to J&K after 1952. They spelt out the reasons in considerable detail. Two commissions – one established by Sheikh Abdullah and headed by D.D. Thakur and the other by his successor G.M. Shah and headed by Ghulam Nabi Kochak – reached contrary conclusions. D.D. Thakur concluded that all the central acts and all the articles of the Constitution extended to the state were legally and constitutionally valid and that they helped to promote the welfare of the people of the state. G.N. Kochak argued otherwise. Neither of these two reports were tabled on the floor of the state assembly.

Similarly, two of the three rulings of the Supreme Court on this issue upheld the first version but one did not. The Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah Accord of 1975 had no follow-up either. Finally, under the chief ministership of Farooq Abdullah, the state assembly passed a resolution asking for a pure and simple return to the pre-1953 situation. The then NDA government paid no heed, quite appropriately, to this resolution.

In his autobiography, My Country My Life, Advani has the following to say on this subject (page 678): ‘There is a clear case for devolution of more financial and administrative powers from the Centre to the state. NDA favoured this for all states, not for J&K alone.’ He elaborates on this subject on page 690: ‘ I explained to them (the state government) why the NDA had rejected granting the pre-1953 status to J&K. At the same time, I said the government was willing to consider realistic ideas about certain special powers for the state which would help the political process to move towards the goal of permanent peace, normalcy, development and integration with the national mainstream.’

 

The interlocutors’ recommendation as regards the Constitutional Commission reflects these very sentiments and ideas. They want the commission to review all the central acts and articles of the Constitution extended to the state since 1952, not with a view to turning the clock back but in order to decide once and for all whether they have prevented the state from addressing the diverse interests, concerns, grievances and aspirations of all the regions and all the communities in the state. They have stressed that most of the acts and articles are not the least bit controversial. But certain issues – like the election or nomination of the Governor, the Governor’s powers to dismiss an elected government, the nomenclatures of the Governor and the Chief Minister, the representation of officers of central civil services and the state civil services – can be debated. The report lists the options and indicates the interlocutors’ own choice. But none of this is cast in stone. Any change in the status quo has to happen after developing a broad consensus in the state and in Parliament.

 

Another important recommendation – to remove the word ‘temporary’ before Article 370 and replace it with the word ‘Special’ – was made keeping in mind certain precedents. Under Article 371(A) several states in the Union enjoy a ‘Special’ status. The interlocutors believe that it can also be given to J&K since our Constitution is flexible enough to address the unique situation that prevails in that state.

There has been criticism about the alleged failure of the interlocutors to speak about the violence perpetrated by terrorists/militants. A reference to them can be found on pages 22, 23, 24,26, 27,28 and 100 of the report. It indeed makes it clear that the peace process cannot move forward unless terrorist activity in J&K and in other parts of India instigated from across the LoC ceases altogether. Only then can the LoC become, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said, irrelevant.

Hours after the report was made public, the militants based in PoK and the separatists based in the valley debunked the report on the grounds that it had not taken the ‘sentiments’ of the Kashmiris into account. Some went so far as to allege that the interlocutors had given a ‘saffron’ twist to the issue. Why? Because they had called for a devolution of powers to the three regions!

The fact is that despite repeated pleas, the separatists refused to meet the interlocutors. They then made bold to charge that their views were ignored. Meanwhile, the BJP and the sangh parivar alleged just the opposite: that the report was valley-centric, pro-separatist and even pro-militant. To be denounced from both ends of the political spectrum brought only cold comfort to the interlocutors.

 

Most commentators not formally linked to the separatists also harped on the report’s failure to come to terms with the ‘real’ or ‘true’ or ‘genuine’ political aspirations of the Kashmiris. That allegation calls for two responses. One, that these epithets are no more than pseudonyms for secessionism. These commentators are chasing a chimera if they believe that any government in New Delhi, not to speak of public opinion at large, will countenance any political settlement in the state that is outside the Constitution of India. India’s strategic interests, including the control of river waters, cannot ever be compromised.

In the second place, the commentators see red when you speak of the divergent political aspirations in the state. Yet, those divergences exist. This is not a Hindu-Muslim problem. The Shias of Kargil and the Sunni nomadic population along the line of control (LoC) have their specific set of political aspirations. These are markedly different from the political aspirations of the Kashmiri separatists in the valley. The interlocutors’ report therefore addresses all of them at the regional and subregional levels by proposing a multilayered system of governance.

When the report was presented to the Home Minister well within the prescribed time framework, it was understood that it would be made public in order to facilitate a nationwide debate on its recommendations. It was also agreed that the report would be discussed with all parties to elicit their views. The debate did take place but in bits and pieces for other than the BJP, no party has given its views. And, of course, it was never taken up at the parliamentary level.

Whether the UPA II government can summon the nerve to do so is a moot question. It is engaged in firefighting on far too many fronts to want to open another one, especially as the general elections draw near. But this is an ostrich-like approach. The heightened tensions between Indian and Pakistani troops along the LoC in early January this year, increased militant activities directed at the elected members of panchayats and the legitimate fear that the American troops pull out from Afghanistan might spur more militant activity in J&K should encourage New Delhi to address the legitimate political, economic, social and cultural concerns, grievances, interests and aspirations of all regions and all communities in the state without further ado.

A discussion on the report, conducted at the political level, will enable all stakeholders, including separatist groups and even militants who are prepared to lay down arms, to move away from their stated positions in order to arrive at a consensus in a spirit of lucidity and realism. They might not get all that they want nor want all that they get.

 

At the very least, they can reach an agreement on the less contentious recommendations of the report: confidence building measures, better governance, swift economic progress, addressing social and cultural concerns, end to human rights abuses, rehabilitation of people uprooted from their homes due to endemic violence and so forth. That could create an atmosphere conducive to the search for a permanent, political settlement in the state. But the failure to achieve even this much can only result in maintaining a debilitating status quo to the detriment of the people of the state, of the nation and of South Asia as a whole.