A Tryst With The People - (Indolink.Com, 08/10/2002)

-- By Dasu Krishnamoorty

The people of Jammu and Kashmir are going to exercise their vote today (Monday) amidst unprecedented security build-up, mindless violence and an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. It may continue till the election is over. Undaunted, Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh has decided to go ahead with the election. The threats of militant outfits to subvert the electoral process apart, there is a dangerous surge in international interest in the Kashmir problem which formed the backdrop to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee´s meeting with President George Bush.

The 55-year-old contention known as the Kashmir problem is now troubled by uncalled for international acrimony and undeclared subcontinental war. The two constantly alternate as cause and effect. Look at how the global community or whatever you call it puts its crooked finger in the Kashmir pie

First, Pakistan is in no mood to settle it as a bilateral issue. Its efforts to lob the ball into the court of the world community are well known and have borne fruit. Consequently, in the last one year, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld visited India three times each; Richard Armitage visited twice; Tony Blair three times and Jack Straw three times. High-profile visitors came also from France, Russia and Germany. Kashmir is now firmly on the international agenda whether we like it or not. In New York and Washington, the two rivals and prospective interlopers played out their roles. Bush has expressed concern over killings in Kashmir, especially of candidates. Terrorists have gunned down the Law Minister of the state, who is also a candidate for the election, in less than a week after they had eliminated another contestant. In New York, Vajpayee told Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen that every effort was being made to intimidate voters in Jammu and Kashmir but India would do its best to hold free and fair elections in the state. The political process is the real target of these terrorists.

UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan in an address to the General Assembly dangled the sword of international intervention if a fresh crisis erupted between India and Pakistan. Annan´s threat needs to be taken seriously because of the sudden activist role the UN has adopted lately. There is an overt attempt to equate India with Pakistan. Not long ago he had said that a UN resolution passed half a century ago is unimplementable. Pakistani delegates raised the issue at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference at Windhoek in Namibia.

Annan has done little to erase the impression that the UN under him had become too namby-pamby to stand the intimidation of a clutch of powerful nations. Doubts arise if he had made that statement about intervention on behalf of the UN. His speech has emboldened Pakistan´s President Gen. Musharraf to rant in the language of desperation. Annan has indirectly absolved the role of terrorists in what is happening in Kashmir and put India in the same league as Pakistan as responsible to normalise the Kashmir situation.

The Indian scene: Mediation or intervention is not acceptable to India because it has always maintained that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter to be solved within the framework of Shimla and Lahore pacts. Not only that, it decries any attempt either by the UN or any other country to use terrorism as a pretext to intervene or play a middleman´s role. Annan hinted at such a role when he said that he would welcome the efforts made by well-placed member-states´ to help the two leaders find a solution.´

Regardless of what Annan proposes to do, Kashmir is burning and a free and fair election is possible only in the realm of imagination. The situation is so far from normal that Defense Minister George Fernandes had to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Unified Headquarters to review security arrangements. Just as he was about to land to attend the funeral of the slain Law Minister, terrorists opened indiscriminate fire killing 18 persons, 15 of them security personnel. Among those who ran for cover were several journalists. Sonia Gandhi dropped plans to address election rallies.

It seems that the Vajpayee administration is under pressure to show to the international community that the election is an irrefutable proof of Kashmiris´ desire for democracy and integration with India and of the failure of the ´freedom struggle.´ Any alternative to an election would amount to a loss of face for the federal government. This election will be worthwhile if it can bring to the people what they want: development that has eluded them despite several elections. Even so, development did not figure in the manifestos of several parties.

A definite gain of Vajpayee´s visit to the United States is Bush´s assertion that what was going on in Kashmir was terrorism and not freedom struggle. He also promised that he would bring pressure on Musharraf to stop incursions into the state. But Musharraf told the world media that Pakistan could not stop intrusions because, according to him, there is no infiltration across the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir. He fittingly described his outburst against India in his address to the UN as the language of desperation.

The election in Kashmir seems to be an accountability exercise to mollify western sentiments. The Election Commission has permitted more than a score of diplomats to assure themselves of the fairness of the election process. Somehow, this idea of appeasing the ´international community´ is humiliating, more so because that term stood only for the developed countries of G8. Were there observers for Gen. Musharraf´s referendum?

Whoever happens to be in power in Delhi has to decide whether Kashmir is a bilateral issue or if there is room for outsiders to poke their noses into what is strictly a matter between two neighbours. Terrorism, however, is an international menace and needs collective effort to fight. But as Vajpayee has said it cannot provide a justification to impose unsolicited international mediation.

It is difficult to predict the outcome of the present election in the face of violence, boycotts and threats to disrupt it. Nor can a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem be found. Neither a democratic set-up nor a military junta in Pakistan can assure the Indian side that they would abide by any agreement signed bilaterally or through any other diplomatic effort. Because, annexation of Kashmir is the only agenda for its rulers to win popular support. Musharraf told the Asia Society in New York that no ruler can stay in office in Pakistan if he or she were to abandon the Kashmir issue.

Kashmiris themselves must stop looking across the border for a solution of their problem. Their problem is poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment. It has to do with the governments they have elected. In normal conditions, election is the best device for the Kashmiri people to empower themselves and build the economy of the state. The Abdullah dynasty has wasted precious years and massive federal aid without changing the economic conditions of the people.

If Hurriyat and its likes had not boycotted the election, it would have proved their opposition to violence and support for democracy. The boycott has eloquently declared their intentions, which are not very different from those of Gen. Musharraf, who has invited them to Islamabad for hatching fresh conspiracies. They have lost their right to be included in any caucus discussing the future of the state. How can groups without faith in democratic processes be relied upon to work for people?

Today´s election is an exercise under duress, an imperative for the media-inflated ego of CEC Lyngdoh and a compulsion for the federal government to prove a point. However, it will accomplish some credibility, depending on the voter turnout.