The music of Claude
Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg famously said, was a glorious sunset that
had been mistaken for a dawn. Most
ordinary people in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) would, perhaps, understand
the sentiment. J&K has
had more than its fair share of false dawns through its bloody, twelve-year
war: political dialogue, unconscionable machinations and outright
military suppression have, at various points, generated optimism that
peace might be just around the corner. With horrible inevitability
and even more appalling regularity, all the supposed 'miracle solutions'
have failed. The breakdown of the Union Government’s nascent
dialogue with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen ought, given this background,
to have been catalogued as just the latest in a long series of lost
opportunities and obvious calamities. This time around, however, an
extraordinary consensus has developed that the Hizb’s dialogue
with the Union Government continues to hold out the prospect of an
abiding peace.
Politicians cutting
across party lines have called on the Government to revive the dialogue
process. In the wake of the Hizb's termination of its unilateral ceasefire,
Union Home Minister L.K. Advani proclaimed that his Government would
not “deviate from its chosen course of talks with all those in
Kashmir who eschew the path of terror and violence”. Just days later, the Congress (I)’s Ghulam
Nabi Azad demanded that the “doors for talks should not be shut”. Both the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India endorsed,
with minor caveats, Azad’s call.
Almost no one, bar the
Samajwadi Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, appear to be left out
of the upswell of optimism. Underpinning the general consensus is
the conviction that "... it is a time for reconciliation and
peace; for statesmanship and conscientious action; and above all,
for truthfulness and wisdom."
It is near-impossible
to dispute these assertions (perhaps, more accurately, sentiments),
for much the same reasons as it is difficult to contest the proposition
that motherhood is a virtue. There can, obviously, be no time where
“truthfulness and wisdom” are undesirable.
In some key senses, such assertions constitute a polemically effective,
but ultimately inadequate, evasion of the real questions raised by
the dialogue process.
Despite its abrupt
end, the dialogue initiated with the Hizb is, indeed, driven by the
play of forces that continue to hold out the prospect of peace. What
proponents of the dialogue have not addressed, however, are the more
unpleasant questions that the dialogue process holds out.
What are the forces engaged in the dialogue, and to what end?
What might the political and ideological agendas of those who claim
to seek peace be? And on what terms might peace indeed be brought
about, or, perhaps more accurately, bought? The real problem of the
Union Government’s dialogue with the Hizb, I shall argue, is
that the price of the peace it might secure could, paradoxically,
prove higher than the admittedly crippling costs of war.
The
Making of the Ceasefire
At 5:35 PM on August 8, 2000,
Indian signals intelligence began jamming the half-dozen frequencies
used by the Hizb. Five minutes earlier, the Hizb's supreme commander
Mohammad Yusuf Shah, who prefers to use the suitably heroic nom de guerre Syed Salahuddin, announced that the ceasefire his organisation
had announced a fortnight earlier had come to an end. Both the declaration
of the ceasefire and its termination have caused considerable confusion,
not the least because commentators appear to have sundered the events
from their surroundings in secessionist politics in J&K.
The broad sequence of events
leading to the Hizb’s unilateral ceasefire is now relatively
well known. Early this year, top Hizb commanders sent out feelers
through a United States-based figure to the Indian Government, exploring
the possibility of a ceasefire. The Prime Minister’s Office responded
some six months back, through the medium of the Research and Analysis
Wing (R&AW) chief, A.S. Dulat. An India-based intermediary was
sent to Pakistan, where a covert dialogue began on ceasefire plans
and the possibility of talks with the Government. Further talks continued
in Dubai. After months of discussion, Majid Dar, the operations chief
of the Hizb, was asked to return to India. He would, the Hizb commander
told his interlocutor, sound out the field cadre in J&K on what
position they believed the organisation should take on a possible
ceasefire. Dar arrived in India late in April 2000, flying through
Kathmandu, with guarantees of protection from the many units of the
Army and Police who were awaiting his return.
Dar rapidly discovered a large
constituency within the Hizb who wanted peace. He found a powerful
ally in Masood Tantrey, one of the most important Valley commanders.
Within the All Parties Hurriyat Conference [APHC], Indian intelligence
officials involved in the process say, Abdul Ghani Bhat and Abdul
Ghani Lone endorsed Dar’s plans. Jamaat-e-Islami political chief
Syed Ali Shah Geelani was less enthusiastic, but was finally pressured
into accepting the Hizb’s emerging position. A small group of
Srinagar-based journalists were invited to meet Dar at a secluded
safehouse on July 24. The Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin, Dar said, had chosen
to declare a unilateral three-month ceasefire. This, Dar argued, was
necessary to allow the initiation of a political process. The Hizb,
he continued, had to “dispel Indian propaganda that we are terrorists,
rather than a people fighting for our birthright, freedom.” He
laid down few pre-conditions: The ceasefire was subject to the cessation
of Indian violence against civilians and political activists; the
use of the ceasefire by India as a ‘tactical weapon’ for
propaganda, he added, would subvert its purpose.
It is important to note that
no serious political preconditions were laid out at this first press
conference. Much of the meeting was used to spell out the Hizb’s larger political strategy. The
Union Government’s nascent offer of dialogue with the APHC, Dar
suggested, was positive. “Let them talk to anybody”, he
said, “the aim of the exercise should be to resolve the issue
amicably, through a dialogue without preconditions.” The Hizb,
Dar continued, would encourage politicians from India and abroad to
visit the State, and participate in a process of dialogue with its
people. Conscious of the reaction his statement was certain to provoke
from Pakistan-based far-right groups, Dar described their cadres as
“our brothers who have come to our help… Once the problem
is resolved amicably and peace is restored”, Dar concluded, “they
will return peacefully”.
It seems clear, in retrospect,
that Dar’s press conference wasn’t part of a well thought
out strategy: it was, rather, a desperate attempt to force the pace
of events. Signals intercepts suggest things weren’t
quite in place even on July 25, the day after Dar announced the ceasefire
in Srinagar. The next morning, the Hizb’s
deputy chief, Ghulam Nabi Khan, a key member of the subsequent negotiation
team, issued a call to field units, using the code name Khalid Saifullah, for an escalation of the jihad. Khan was joined by the head of the organisation’s Pir
Panjal ‘Regiment’, code named Nasr-ul-Islam, who was later
to emerge as one of the ceasefire’s key opponents. It was only
late on July 25 that the Hizb’s control transmitted signals to
its field stations D2 and 93, announcing a unilateral ceasefire.
Even three days later, station 14, which services the Hizb's
field units in the Rajouri-Poonch belt, told these field units that
some 1,000 sathies [helpers, cadre] would be sent
across the LoC soon.
Dar’s effort, perhaps,
was to force Pakistan into accepting a ceasefire without its inclusion
in the dialogue first being accepted by India. What is without dispute
is that his announcement, and his commander’s subsequent endorsement
of the ceasefire, were blacked out on Pakistan Television. The United
Jihad Council, a coalition of fourteen Pakistan-based terrorist groups
operating in J&K, promptly removed Shah from his post as chief
of the organisation, and demanded that the Hizb immediately withdraw
its ceasefire. Yusuf Shah was deemed a traitor to the cause and widely
condemned in Pakistan. The same day this decision was taken, the Jaish-e-Mohammadi, the Jamait-ul-Mujaheddin,
and al-Umer Mujaheddin claimed credit for a series of six bomb blasts
in Srinagar, which they said had been set off to protest the ceasefire.
Similarly caught off-guard,
the APHC promptly reneged on its earlier commitments to Dar. Bhat,
who had been elected chairman of the organisation, defeating Lone
by a single vote, failed to stand up for a deal he himself had endorsed.
A press release put out by the organisation did not condemn the ceasefire
in itself, but said it was “a step taken in haste”. “The
Hizb leadership”, it argued, “has also failed to perceive
the Indian machinations and cunning behaviour that has always been
there to divide Kashmiri opinion on issues like this”. At the
same time, however, the APHC insisted that the dispute on Kashmir
“should be resolved through peaceful means, to ensure the prosperity
of the region.” APHC chairman Bhat, for his part, described the entire enterprise as “directionless”.
Taken by surprise at the speed at which events had moved, the
APHC, like Pakistan, was now nervous about being left out in a potential
dialogue between the Hizb and the Indian Government.
Worst of all, the Hizb's rank
and file was taken by surprise. Feroz Moulvi, a top Hizb operative,
was shot dead shortly after the ceasefire, when he opened fire on
an Army patrol. Although the Army apologised for the incident, it
illustrated just how difficult it would be to ensure an effective
ceasefire without the Hizb cadre relocated in fixed, mutually agreed-upon
locations. The communal massacres of early August reinforced this point. August 15 wasn’t far away, and junior army
officers told 15 Corps Commander Lieutenant General J.R. Mukherjee
that the cessation of operations against the Hizb made securing the
countryside next to impossible. Informers rarely knew which groups
they were bringing in information about, and, in any case, the Hizb
and other organisations often operated in joint groups. More important,
elements of the Hizb had themselves participated in the August 1 carnage,
targeting the family of one-time pro-India militia member turned police
officer, Mushtaq Ahmed Ganai.
Clearly, the speed at which
the ceasefire had come into being imposed sharp pressures on the dialogue
process, not in the least because the modalities of the ceasefire
itself had now overwhelmed the issues at stake in the larger dialogue
process itself. There is no hard evidence on just why Dar had to announce
the ceasefire when he did, but its timing clearly suggests the dialogue
process was in trouble with Pakistan even before its initiation.
The
Pakistani & APHC Responses
A system had to be found to make the ceasefire
meaningful, but nobody seemed to agree on just what it might be. While
the August 1 massacres had, to the Union Government’s credit,
failed to derail the negotiations, they had made it impossible to
define a basis for progress.
Bhat and his colleagues had
worries other than the modalities of how a ceasefire might work. Dar’s
choice as interlocutor of his old colleague in the Tehreek Jihad-e-Islami,
Fazl-ul-Haq Qureishi, had incensed the APHC leadership. Both Dar and
Qureishi had their political roots in the People’s League, not
the Hizb’s parent Jamaat-e-Islami, and neither had any real connection
with senior figures in the APHC. The choice of Qureishi meant the
APHC, which just weeks before had been considering opening up a dialogue
with the Union Government, was now almost entirely irrelevant. Qureishi,
a veteran of secessionist political movements in J&K, had disassociated
himself from armed struggle years earlier, and lived in a modest home
in Srinagar’s Soura area that stood in stark contrast to most
APHC leaders’ opulent residences. In effect, his choice meant
the Hizb no longer needed the APHC to represent its interests, or
the armed struggle.
Pakistan’s problems with
Qureishi were also rooted in history. The People’s League was
formed in September 1974 by Nazir Ahmed Wani, and rapidly gave birth
to a welter of pro-Pakistan terrorist groups. As early as in 1979,
its leaders had formulated a three-year plan for an uprising against
Indian rule in J&K. In 1988, People’s League chief Abdul
Aziz Sheikh returned to J&K from Pakistan, and began organising
a cadre for armed action. Later the same year, however, the League
broke into two units, with former APHC member Shabbir Shah and S.
Hamid forming the now-defunct Muslim Janbaaz Force. Sheikh and Mohammad
Farooq Rehmani, for their part, set up the Tehreek Jihad-e-Islami.
Although most of the Tehreek’s cadre, under pressure from the
Inter Sevices Intelligence (ISI), had joined the Hizb by 1993, Fazl-ul-Haq
Qureishi and Rehmani stoically distanced themselves from these proceedings.
By some accounts, so far unverifiable, Rehmani has been involved in
recent months in parallel dialogue efforts initiated by R&AW.
Strategists in Pakistan, predictably, were concerned
at the way events were proceeding, and the fact that elements outside
the APHC appeared to be controlling their shape and character. Although
there is little doubt that intense United States pressure was applied
to ensure the ceasefire was realised, Pakistan’s military establishment
evidently felt that events were just proceeding too fast. If a ceasefire
was successfully implemented before political dialogue began, Pakistan
would lose its last source of leverage. That, in turn, would mean
that Pakistan would find itself left out of a role in the Hizb’s
negotiations with the Union Government. Pakistani military strategists
had simply not expected India to respond so fast to the August 24
ceasefire, and when the August 1 massacres failed to disrupt the dialogue,
other means had to be found to contain the dialogue as fast as possible.
Shah was being pressured to
announce an August 8 deadline for the inclusion of Pakistan in negotiations
even as India's Home Secretary Kamal Pande met the Hizb representatives
and Qureishi on August 3. The
media noted that Dar had not attended the talks, but few understood
the significance of his absence. The ceasefire’s central advocate
had handed over responsibility to his subordinates, unwilling, perhaps,
to take responsibility for what was to follow. Qureishi stayed on
as interlocutor, but the Hizb team changed around. Ghulam Nabi Khan,
Farooq Sheikh Mirchal, who used the code name Feroz, Masood Tantrey,
a long-time Hizb operative from Doda, and Ghulam Rasool Dar, who uses
the nom de guerre Riyaz
Rasool, were left to run the show. The Hizb team was furious with the presence
of the media when the talks began. Rasool Dar seemed particularly
upset, demanding that photographers not take his pictures.
In the event little, other
than the modalities for a ceasefire, was discussed at this first meeting.
The Hizb demands for the release of prisoners, as well as cutbacks
in search and cordon operations were briefly considered as subjects
for further deliberation. But even as teams were announced for further
talks that morning, Yusuf Shah announced an August 8 deadline for
the involvement of Pakistan in the negotiations. Political dialogue,
he said, had to precede an end to hostilities. Qureishi responded
by saying he would do his best to get Yusuf Shah to extend that deadline,
but his efforts turned out to be futile. Yusuf Shah was just under too much pressure
to be able to agree to any compromise. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s
post-Pahalgam declaration in Parliament, under pressure from the Right
Wing in his party, that talks could be held only within the framework
of the Constitution, was the final nail in the ceasefire’s coffin.
Unsurprisingly, the second
round of talks that were supposed to be held on August 7 never took
place. Special Secretary, Home, M.B. Kaushal was ostensibly busy with
a meeting of Chief Ministers in New Delhi, an excuse feeble even by
official standards. It is hard to believe that no substitute could
be found given that the Hizb deadline was to come into force the next
day. The tragic fact was that there was no purpose served by his arriving
in Srinagar. Quiet dialogue between the Intelligence Bureau (IB),
R&AW, Qureishi and Dar did take place for several days, but to
no real end. Dar said he was not willing to risk acting independently.
Qureishi, too, let it be known he could do little. Prime Minister
Vajpayee’s vascillating position on whether or not dialogue had
to be held within the framework of the Indian Constitution provided
hawks in Pakistan’s military establishment the final lever they
needed. Yusuf Shah was told flatly by the ISI to call off the ceasefire,
a demand the Hizb was in little position to resist.
The
Political Context
In fairness to
Vajpayee, there is little he could have said, short of inviting Pakistan
into negotiations, that might have saved the dialogue. It is important
to understand, however, that the abortive negotiations were not the
consequence of official policy, but the outcome of forces set in play
two years ago. There is more than a little reason to believe that
these forces are far from spent, but the manner in which events proceed
could yet surprise observers. Far from silencing guns in the Valley, the dialogue
process could restore their centrality to the political discourse.
Two elections took
place on either side of the ceasefire of August 24. On July 20, after a series of meetings to elect
a new leader had been postponed, Muslim Conference leader Abdul Ghani
Bhat was elected chairman of the APHC. He replaced the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani. At the August 28 meeting of the Majlis-e-Numaindgan, the 90-member ‘lower
house’ of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Ghulam Mohammad Bhat was re-elected
Amir [chief] of the organisation, defeating Geelani’s nominee,
Ashraf Sehrai. Just one member of the house voted for Geelani
himself to be elevated from political chief of the organisation to
its overall leader. The media noted both events, so to speak,
but did not notice the import of either.
Bhat’s status as the leader
of a political organisation which has little power and even less influence
on terrorist groups did intrigue some media observers. The background
to his elevation, however, was entirely forgotten. On April 18, 1999,
the traditionally pro-Pakistan hardliner had called for a dialogue
with mainstream political organisations leading to a joint resolution
on the future of J&K. The basic thrust of this dialogue, Gani
Bhat said, would be “the lasting resolution to the dispute in
accordance with the aims and aspirations of the people.” It would
then be communicated, he continued, to the Governments of India and
Pakistan, and to the United Nations. These proposals marked a drastic
break with the traditional APHC rejection of mainstream democratic
politics, and its assertion that no final solution of the dispute
on J&K could be made outside the mechanism of negotiations involving
India and Pakistan. All sections of Kashmir’s society, he argued,
had to be involved in “initiating a genuine political activity”.
“If [former Chief Minister] Ghulam Mohammad Shah, [Congress (I)
leaders] Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Mehbooba Sayeed, and for that matter
even [the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s] Mohammad Yusuf
Tarigami and National Conference are interested in the
resolution of the dispute, we should rise to the occasion and address
the issue.”
The then APHC chairperson and
Jamaat-e-Islami political chief, Syed Ali Shah Geelani maintained
a studied silence on Gani Bhat’s remarks, made while the two
were sharing a platform to commemorate the death anniversary of People’s
League and insurgent leader S. Hameed. However, for the first time,
Geelani also said that he was not opposed to the emergence of an independent
Kashmir. The reasons for the APHC’s new-found moderation weren’t
difficult to find. The first half of April 1999 had seen the organisation
challenged by the success of an agitation by the People’s Forum
for Justice [PFJ] over new taxes imposed in the State budget. The
APHC had traditionally condemned such agitational programmes as irrelevant
diversions from the larger struggle on Kashmir’s future. The
emergence of the PFJ thus marked something of a rebellion by middle-level
leaders against APHC orthodoxy. Given that much of the PFJ’s
support came from Srinagar's trading and business communities, the
APHC’s traditional constituency, the organisation was forced
to realise it had lessons to learn.
Ghulam Mohammad Bhat’s
re-election as Amir-e-Jamaat [Jamaat-e-Islami chief], and his decisive
triumph over Geelani, illustrated the workings of other ground-level
political pressures for peace. Interestingly, he began his offensive
from within the Jamaat’s ranks, and considerably before his namesake
in the APHC was able to do so. On
November 14, 1998, G.M. Bhat proclaimed his party’s decision
to sunder linkages with terrorist groups, specifically the Hizb. Bhat’s
press conference focused on attacks on the Jamaat cadre by Indian
security personnel and pro-Indian militia groups. Over 2,000 Jamaat
workers, he claimed, had been murdered as part of a “systematic
campaign to finish our party”. This policy, Bhat continued, was
profoundly misplaced, for the Jamaat had “nothing to do with
militancy”. “If a picture showing [Hizb chief] Syed Salahuddin
shaking hands with Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain
Ahmed is published, one should not find fault with us”, he complained.
“We are being made scapegoats in this game of politics.”
The Jamaat chief’s remarks
were endorsed by three senior leaders of the organisation who shared
the platform. All four sought to legitimise their departure from the
Jamaat’s position through reference to its until-then secret
constitution. This document, G.M. Bhat said, committed the organisation
to work for the spread of Islam and universal brotherhood through
peaceful means. The party, he pointed out, had contested the elections
of 1987 as a constituent of the Muslim United Front. Had those elections
not been rigged, he argued, Kashmir’s recent history would have
been “very different.” In
any case, Bhat concluded, the Jamaat would now seek to resolve the
crisis in Kashmir through “amicable means”.
G.M. Bhat’s dramatic proclamation
enraged his opponents in the Jamaat-e-Islami hierarchy. The then-APHC
chief, who heads the Jamaat’s political wing, claimed Bhat did
not have the support of his own party cadre, and reiterated “full
support for the armed struggle”. Bhat’s claims to have spoken
for the entire Jamaat cadre, Geelani wrote acidly in a public statement,
were “far from being true”. “I strongly refute and
contradict the views expressed by Bhat at the press conference,”
Geelani proclaimed. The Jamaat
was involved in backing insurgent groups, he said, and would continue
to support armed struggle. “I
want to make it clear”, the APHC chief said in a statement, “that
I have all along and at every level differed with the policy being
pursued by the Jamaat chief.” “I made my differences known to Bhat from
time to time through letters,” he ended, adding that “if
the need arises, my communication on this issue with the Jamaat chief
can be released.”
Such open disputation of the
Amir’s authority was at the time unprecedented. What is clear,
however, is that this confrontation had been brewing for at least
some months, during which G.M. Bhat had been calling for an end to
Kashmir’s “gun culture”. The remark was made in the
course of an interview to a Srinagar-based magazine, shortly after
Bhat was released from jail in October and installed as the Jamaat
chief. Bhat had argued that although he believed the armed struggle
was itself legitimate, it was a response to a specific phase in the
secessionist movement, and had now “served its purpose”.
The sole prospect of an end to violence in Kashmir, he asserted, was
a “political dialogue”.
Jamaat figures who wished to
severe links with the Hizb had transparent motivations, for their
field-workers have been subjects of the state’s wrath. From as
early as October 1997, Jamaat workers in Kulgam had sought to make
their peace with the Army, participating in local official functions.
Hizb leaders, it is evident, read the signs from Srinagar
well. The organisation’s
relationship with Jamaat field-workers had become increasingly fragile,
and many were unwilling to sacrifice their core political objectives
for the future promise of liberation from India. The fact that effective
control of the Hizb had passed from the Jamaat leadership to Pakistan’s
intelligence apparatus had accentuated strains between the two. The
month after G.M. Bhat’s statement, Hizb chief Yusuf Shah, himself
a long-standing Jamaat member, issued a statement from his Muzaffarabad
headquarters distancing the armed organisation from the party. “Among
its thousands of freedom fighters”, Yusuf Shah’s statement
read, “there is a good number of young liberators who were born
to parents owing affiliation to the National Conference and other
political organisations”. “It is unfortunate,” it ended,
“that our scope of affiliation is restricted to the Jamaat-e-Islami.”
In the two years that have
passed since that statement, the Hizb leadership clearly had the opportunity
to realise that the Amir-e-Jamaat was making sense. On the ground,
Bhat’s pronouncements began to have their effect. Pakistani cadre
from the Harkat-ul-Ansar, LeT, and, most recently, the Jaish-e-Mohmammadi,
had increasingly displaced the Hizb’s
predominantly Kashmiri recruits, sometimes relegating them to humiliating
roles as porters and guides. Some
leaders had begun to reconsider their options. Ghulam Nabi Khan, for
one, was correctly or otherwise, rumoured early this year to be flirting
with political factions in both the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) and National Conference. To add to the organisation’s troubles,
its leadership in Muzaffarabad was anything but united. Rifts started
showing up within the once-monolithic Hizb, with Yusuf Shah pitted
against Riyaz Rasool and Ghulam Nabi Nowsheri. Nowsheri and Rasool,
sources disclose, complained that Shah was not committing commanders
close to him to the conflict in J&K, allowing them instead to
hide out in Muzaffarabad.
In Kashmir, the fact that G.M. Bhat was not assassinated
for his remarks suggests his position had more sympathy within the
Hizb than observers at the time believed. Days before the ceasefire
came into place, Bhat again reiterated his position. This time, he
was more explicit in his formulations. Talks between the Union Government
and groups in J&K, the Amir asserted, had a “bright future…
Even when armies fight, the problem has to be solved at a political
level.” There was, he
concluded, “no solution through guns, and no alternative to dialogue.”
Bhat went on to complain bitterly that state repression, the
result of the Jamaat’s affiliation with the Hizb, had prevented
the organisation from growing.
Abdul Ghani Bhat’s politics, for their part,
were not unknown to Pakistan, which plays a central role in the APHC’s
affairs. The fact that he took charge of the organisation at a time
when it was preparing for a dialogue with the Union Government indicates
that Pakistan is not opposed, per
se, to negotiations on J&K. Rather, Pakistan seeks to ensure
its representation as a key player in the State, and a party to any
eventual settlement. As stated earlier, Pakistan was clearly upset
at the prospect of being marginalised in the dialogue with the Hizb.
Ghani Bhat’s opposition to the Hizb ceasefire, along with that
of other APHC figures, was based only on Pakistan’s exclusion
from the process.
Two points here are central to the present critique
of the dialogue process. First, the political movements that underpin
it, originated from within secessionist forces in J&K, and are
not the result of backroom manoeuvres or covert machinations. By 1998,
faced with the fact that the National Conference had succeeded in
consolidating its presence on the ground, if not its mass credibility,
both the Jamaat and elements in the APHC clearly saw the spectre of
complete margainalisation. The Union Government of the time, and the
regimes that preceded it, saw no reason to engage in a dialogue that
would legitimise these groups. There was nothing to stop either the
Jamaat or the APHC centrists from engaging in mainstream political
activity then, but no special concessions were extended so they could
represent themselves as exclusive spokespersons for the people of
Kashmir. Second, and more important, the democratically elected government
of J&K, along with mainstream political parties like the Congress
(I) and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP, remained the principal arbiters
of J&K’s relationship with the Indian state, not forces who
stand outside the democratic framework. As such, democratic organisations
could be the authors of their own political agenda, and did not need
to compete for space with secessionist or terrorist groups.
Two years ago, at least the secessionist politicians
in J&K came to understand that insurgency would not help realise
their objectives. Ironically,
Hindu ultra-nationalists have helped restore terrorist groups to the
centre-stage in J&K politics. A
dialogue intended to end armed violence has served only to convince
secessionist politicians that the gun is, in fact, their only guarantee
of political relevance. This is the paradox at the core of the
dialogue process, and one, I shall argue later, that could prove central
to the reshaping of J&K.
Security
Issues
How will these
political dynamics impact on terrorist groups? Can political pressure
to end violence in J&K significantly contain militant activities?
Three propositions,
not necessarily reconcilable, have dominated public discourse on the
security issues that have emerged from the Hizb’s short-lived
ceasefire. First, some have argued, the Hizb’s
decision to proclaim a ceasefire was a Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam-style effort to buy time to regroup and reorganise. This argument
rests on the twin premises that the Hizb has been military crippled,
and that even a temporary cessation in Indian anti-terrorist operations
would make their resumption difficult. The second proposition, allied
to the first, is that the Hizb is deeply divided, and possibly on
the edge of a decisive split in its ranks. The final proposition is
that if the Hizb is, in fact, serious about ending hostilities, its
vacation of its decade-old role would cripple other terrorist groups
active in J&K.
Claims that the
Hizb was merely buying time to regroup are debunked by the withdrawal
of the ceasefire itself. No real tactical gains could have been made
by the organisation in just two weeks.
Indeed, intelligence reports suggest several groups who have
closely worked together with the Hizb, notably al-Badr, the Harkat-ul-Ansar
and the LeT, were forced to relocate weapons dumps and hideouts to
prevent the prospect of their one-time allies betraying them. Dispersion
of cadres and the jamming of its wireless frequencies after the ceasefire,
too, have caused the Hizb not a little difficulty. Cadres had come
overground in several places and motivating them to return to the
hard life in the forests of J&K will not be an easy job for field
commanders. Whatever the Hizb’s
motives in initiating a dialogue may have been, then, the purely
tactical could not have been a primary consideration.
I have dealt earlier
with the political fissures within the Hizb, and believe its internal
dissensions played a central role in bringing about moves towards
a dialogue. Importance has been vested in a recent clash in Rajouri
between the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Hizb cadre, but such feuding
between terrorist groups is common in J&K, and has little but
local significance. It would be profoundly misleading to believe that there
is a generalised, schematic schism between the Pakistan-based high
command of the organisation and its field cadre in J&K, or between
the Hizb and other terrorist groups. For one, the differences evident
early this year between Yusuf Shah, Rasool Dar, and Nowsheri, concerned
the deployment of personnel within J&K, not the ideological direction
of the organisation. Even if Rasool Dar or Majid Dar could be argued
to constitute a peace constituency within the Hizb, the fact remains
that powerful figures within the Kashmir-based formations were opposed
to any form of dialogue. Thus, while the bulk of the organisation,
in line with the Jamaat, may believe that insurgency has outlived
its purpose, it is hard to see any significant vertical schism emerging
within the Hizb as a result of its internal political dynamics.
Given the deeply
fluid character of the insurgency in J&K, it is also hard to see
what political, as opposed to a purely short-term tactical, purpose
a schism within the Hizb could, in fact, serve. In the short term,
some elements within the Hizb might, indeed, be recruited to work
with Indian security agencies against their one-time comrades.
Such defections have taken place in the past, notably when
the pro-India militias of Mohammad Yusuf (‘Kukka’) Parrey,
Liaqat Ali Khan, known as Hilal Hyder, and Javed Shah broke from the
remains of the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen and the Tehreek Jihad-e-Islami.
It has also been largely forgotten that there is also a breakaway
faction of the Hizb already in existence, the Acchabal militia of
Ghulam Nabi Azad that, during ‘Master’ Ahsan Dar’s
reign, was part of the Hizb. Dozens of small Hizb splinter militias
exist through the State, the result of regular surrenders that have
taken place since at least 1993. All these militia groups have played
a valuable role in taking on terrorists in the countryside, but their
existence has created at least as many problems as it addressed. Most
of their leaders, ranging from Firdaus Ahmed Baba to Parrey, have
ended up politicians. As perceived traitors to the jihad,
they have little or no legitimacy among their one-time constituency
in J&K.
What is, perhaps,
most important about these past experiences in schisms within terrorist
ranks is that none, at least in the middle-term, have in themselves
contributed to a decline in levels of violence. The loss of recruits
from J&K that the formation of the militias in 1993-1994 constituted
was rapidly made up, notably with the induction of personnel from
Pakistan's Punjab, the North West Frontier Province and, to some extent,
Afghanistan. The decline of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front
(JKLF) saw the rise of the Hizb, and its own reverses, in turn, gave
birth to fascist organisations like the LeT. There is little doubt
that both the Lashkar and Harkat-ul-Ansar will be able to continue
to operate in J&K even without the Hizb’s assistance. Many of their commanders have years of experience
in the State. For example, Rawalpindi resident Arfeen Bhai, using
the code name Lukmaan, has commanded al-Badr in J&K, and has spent
at least six years on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC).
The recent interrogation of a surrendered Lashkar terrorist, Abu Jirat,
has made clear that his former organisation has no intention of de-escalating
hostilities in the near future, for upwards of 800 cadre are being
trained for terrorist activities in Muzaffarabad and Bhawalpur.
Most important,
within the Hizb, there is a significant section of cadre whose interests
would be jeopardised by a return to peace. A Hizb terrorist with a
price of Rs. One lakh on his head, Mohamamd Syed Wani, is believed
to have made efforts to purchase a second hand car for fabricating
an explosive shortly after the ceasefire went into effect. It is unclear,
but possible, that this was the vehicle used in the LeT’s August
10 car-bombing on Residency Road in Srinagar.
Intelligence officials believe that Wani probably acted alone,
servicing a Lashkar unit with whom he had earlier contact in defiance
of his command. Interestingly, the terrorist had been arrested earlier,
and although he subsequently went underground, a local court has refused
to cancel the bail he obtained. The point, however, is that linkages
between Hizb cadres and other groupings operate at a variety of levels,
and contain entirely personal and mercenary arrangements as well.
In Anantnag, moreover, top Hizb operatives Shabbir Ahmed Bhaduri and
Mohiuddin Ahanger both rejected the ceasefire, as did almost the entire
Pir Panjal ‘Regiment’ in the Rajouri-Poonch area. The sheer
scale of money involved in violence would, moreover, be more than
adequate incentive for a considerable part of the Hizb’s cadre
to reject efforts to bring about peace.
Indeed, there has been at least one recent case of a poor Hindu
from Jammu joining terrorist ranks in search of a living.
Some
'Empirical' Observations
The stark fact
is that Pakistan, not the Hizb, has the power to dictate the shape
and form of violence in J&K. The larger context of this
proposition becomes evident from data on terrorism in the State. Estimates
of trans-border infiltration, put together from Military Intelligence,
Intelligence Bureau, and J&K State intelligence data [Table 1],
suggest that trans-border infiltration declined prior to the talks
with the Hizb, and was not correlated to these negotiations. While
these figures, based on source reports, surveillance and fire contact,
are by no means authoritative, they do constitute a useful rough guide
to the ground position. The figures show that infiltration declined
steadily through the first five months of 2000. Just 429 terrorists,
both of Kashmiri and foreign origin, came in across the LoC into J&K.
The figure for the same period in 1999 was 824; 1,031 the year before
that, 595 in 1997, and an enormous 1,863 in 1996, the year the first
Lok Sabha elections in almost a decade were scheduled to be held in
J&K.
Many officials believe the
decline in trans-border infiltration into Kashmir is not the result
of fissures or fatigue within terrorist groups, but the outcome of
tactical decisions made in Pakistan. More foreign and Kashmiri-origin
terrorists have moved across the LoC in Jammu from January to May
this year, for example, than at any point in the past. Within Kashmir,
there has been a sharp decrease in movement, but at least two explanations
are there for this phenomenon. For one, approximately two additional
brigades have been deployed in counter-infiltration positions along
the LoC in Kashmir. That has meant increased levels of fire contact
along there, making infiltration more difficult. Secondly, negligible,
indeed, perhaps no, movement of any foreign terrorists took place
from January to April into the Valley, which appears consistent with
Pakistan’s overall efforts to represent violence in the State
as a purely local uprising. This, interestingly, has been mirrored
by a small, but significant, increase of local recruitment, particularly
into the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
It is important to remember
that similar tactical shifts in infiltration have been evident before,
and that these figures are not indicative of any generalised collapse
of cadres in either the Hizb or other organisations. The build-up
to the contested Lok Sabha election of 1996 saw unprecedented numbers
of terrorists being pushed across the LoC, with a record 740 terrorists
of foreign origin entering Kashmir alone that April. The political
marginalisation of the APHC by the return to power of the National
Conference, and the vigorous counter-terrorist campaigns of the winter
of 1996-1997 saw that figure decline. Again, the coming to power of
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre saw infiltration levels
build up, a phenomenon particularly evident in Jammu, where communal
massacres were executed to provoke Hindu retaliation, a tactic that
had some success. After the Pokhran II nuclear tests, infiltration
figures dropped sharply, generating more than a little complacency
in New Delhi: with devastating consequences, statistics show, in the
summer of 1999.
If infiltration figures offer
no meaningful reason for optimism that international pressure on Pakistan,
or direct dialogue with terrorist groups, could lead to a reduction
in violence, neither does data on the actual ground position. 610
separate attacks on security personnel have been carried out through
J&K up to May this year, a substantial rise from 439 during the
same period in 1999 [Table 2]. 153 security force personnel have been
killed in these attacks, up from 102 during the corresponding period
last year. Many have been the
victims, not of frontal engagement, but improvised explosive devices,
mines and suicide attacks. Even the number of civilians killed by
terrorists has risen, from 289 to 371. These figures suggest that
whatever US pressure there has been on Pakistan to de-escalate conflict
in J&K was, at best, of limited effect.
If Srinagar, Jammu and other
major cities in the State were relatively peaceful during the dialogue
process itself, it is possible that this decline in violence was rooted
in broad political and diplomatic objectives. Pakistan may have wished
to show the US that it had worked to restrict infiltration, and that
pressure had been applied to sustain the dialogue process. The J&K
Criminal Investigation Department’s fortnightly figures suggest
another plausible explanation: terrorists have been eliminated in
numbers unprecedented in recent years. 576 terrorists, almost equal
to the numbers believed to have entered, have been reported killed
in the first five months of 2000, up from 374 from January to May
1999. Even more surprising, the ratio of security personnel killed
to terrorists killed, which dipped to an unacceptable 1:1.63 in August
1999, has also risen. These increases are surprising, since Army units
are perceived as having been focussed in defensive postures since
fidayeen (suicide) attacks commenced.
Several factors appear to have
led to the turn-around, but it would be churlish not to note that
troops under the command of the 16 Corps, headquartered at Udhampur,
appear to have performed exceptionally well, along with paramilitary
force personnel and the J&K Police’s Special Operations Group
(SOG). Some 276 terrorists, almost half the number killed this year,
have been eliminated in Jammu, a reversal of the usual pattern. In
general, both the 15 Corps at Srinagar and the 16 Corps appear to
have settled into counter-terrorist operations
again, after the enormous disruption caused by
Table 1: Transborder Infiltration, 1996 - 2000 (May)
|
Year
|
Province
|
Origin
|
Jan
|
Feb
|
Mar
|
Apr
|
May
|
Jun
|
Jly
|
Aug
|
Sep
|
Oct
|
Nov
|
Dec
|
Total
|
|
1996
|
Kashmir
|
Foreign
|
134
|
75
|
208
|
740
|
36
|
41
|
83
|
157
|
34
|
40
|
77
|
113
|
1738
|
|
|
|
Local
|
43
|
32
|
283
|
128
|
76
|
35
|
421
|
358
|
118
|
113
|
121
|
127
|
1855
|
|
|
Jammu
|
Foreign
|
|
