If you are having difficulty in understanding Kashmiri politics at this juncture, don’t be surprised, so is everyone else. After years of complaining that New Delhi was not listening to them, the Kashmiri leaders — from the extremist Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the mainstream National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah — are now professing unhappiness and have refused to participate in the round-table meeting called by the prime minister on February 25. Mr Abdullah complains that there is no clear-cut agenda, while Mr Geelani maintains that talks will yield nothing. The JKLF chief, Yasin Malik, had no problems meeting the PM last week but he too won’t participate in the roundtable. As for the moderate faction of the Hurriyat led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, it has, perhaps characteristically, debated the issue to the point of paralysis, to say the time is not ripe for talks.
Some of the separatists are taking their cue from Pakistan, not because they like to follow Islamabad’s bidding, but perhaps from a fear of the Pakistani jehadi gun pointed at their back. The Pakistanis don’t want any progress that outpaces their bilateral dialogue with India. So everyone wants to up the ante — Mr Malik wants talks in a third country, Mr Geelani wants a tripartite dialogue, the Pakistanis want demilitarisation and the moderate Hurriyat — well, no one really knows what it wants.
The time has come for the Kashmiri leaders to prove themselves worthy of being called leaders. They need to be brave and press ahead with dialogue, the only way lasting peace can come to the state. Pakistan will play the spoiler. But only the political forces in the state have the power to overcome Islamabad’s ability to do so. New Delhi must do what it must do: press on with its campaign to defeat the gun, and offer a platform where all reasonable options for Kashmir can be discussed in an atmosphere free from coercion by any side. But let’s be clear about one thing: substantive responsibility lies with the Kashmiri parties. And for the present, they seem to be unable to assume it.