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about Asia Buzz
Subcontinental Drift: Call Delhi's Bluff
Why Kashmir's rebels should negotiate with the Indian government
By APARISIM GHOSH
May 11, 2000
Web posted at 8:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 8:30 a.m. EDT
ALSO
Subcontinental Drift's Aparisim Ghosh presents
Conversations
• 'Kashmir is not an animal to
be carved up'
Exclusive interview with recently
released Kashmiri separatist Yasin
Malik (transcript)
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When I met Yasin Malik in his Srinagar home last fall, the boyish
chief of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front was expecting to be
arrested at any moment. The Indian general election had just begun,
and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organization
of separatist groups, had called for a boycott of the polls in Indian-held
Kashmir. Voting in Srinagar and its surrounding areas had been very
thin--as little as 1% in some polling booths. The success of the boycott
was a huge embarrassment for New Delhi, and Malik knew that he and
other Hurriyat leaders would be punished.
"They will take me again," he told me, in the matter-of-fact way a
man might talk about an ordinary day at the office. "They will put
me in jail, then they will release me again to show the world how
benign the Indian state is."
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INTERACTIVE
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Sure enough, a few days after our meeting, he was thrown back in jail
for having helped organize the boycott. He was released on May 3,
in a gesture of New Delhi's newfound eagerness to negotiate a peaceful
resolution to the Kashmiri rebellion. Lal Krishna Advani, India's
Home Minister, has said the government will soon open talks with Malik
and other Hurriyat leaders.
Malik, 32, is deeply skeptical of Delhi's sincerity. Speaking over
the phone on Wednesday, he pointed out that Advani had insisted the
talks be held within the framework of the Indian constitution, which
states that Kashmir is an integral part of India. Malik says this
precondition effectively rules out any peace talks: "If one party
wants to impose its agenda on the other, then what can we discuss--the
weather?" He believes Advani is trying to win diplomatic brownie points
in the international community by making an offer the Hurriyat cannot
but refuse.
[Click here to
read an edited, abridged transcript of the interview]
But by refusing to go to the negotiating table because of a technicality,
Malik and the Hurriyat are committing a strategic and political blunder.
The time is ripe for real progress in Kashmir: in the afterglow of
U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to India last month, Delhi is
more likely to make concessions than at any point in recent memory.
Clinton may have promised to keep the U.S. out of the Indo-Pakistani
dispute over Kashmir, but he also made it clear that Washington expects
Delhi to come up with a peaceful solution, soon. Hence Advani's overture
toward Malik and his ilk. A year from now, when the Clinton visit
has been forgotten, the Indian government will be much less inclined
to parley with the Hurriyat.
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CONVERSATIONS |
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Subcontinental Drift's Aparisim Ghosh presents
Conversations
Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir
Liberation Front, talks to TIME Asia associate editor
Aparisim Ghosh about New Delhi's offer to open negotiations
with Kashmiri separatists. |
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If
Advani is indeed bluffing, then exposing him to the world can only
be to the Hurriyat's benefit. If he is sincere, then, by entering
negotiations now, the Hurriyat will catch Delhi in its most generous
mood. It will also win those diplomatic brownie points for itself.
Once talks begin, Delhi will be under increasing international pressure
to bring Pakistan into the picture and make the discussions truly
meaningful. Islamabad, in turn, will be pressed to stop arming militant
Kashmiri groups and, instead, give negotiations a chance.
There's another important consideration: as more and more Afghan mujahedin
enter the fray in Kashmir, the Hurriyat runs the real risk of losing
control of the rebellion. Malik maintains that the majority of the
rebel fighters are locals, but reports from Kashmir suggest foreigners
are taking on an ever larger role. The outsiders have their own agenda--a
jihad, or holy war, which is not necessarily the same thing as Kashmiri
independence. In a few years, Malik and the Hurriyat might find themselves
pushed to the margins of the Kashmir uprising, unable to negotiate
for anything.
The moment for talks is now: a great deal depends on Yasin Malik's
willingness to set aside his skepticism and seize the day.
Sound-off about the news in South Asia to
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