The national Opposition showed considerable grace and responsibility in the Kashmir imbroglio even though it was well known that the all-party-delegation idea was nothing but a face-saving gamble employed by Omar and Sonia Gandhi
An impartial observer would be hard pressed to put his finger on the exact cause of discomfort to the average Kashmiri on the plane of living conditions or general prosperity. So it could be inferred that their pain is psychological, or even psychosomatic and perhaps comes out of a sense of dismemberment, or cultural catharsis or perhaps even a persecution complex brought about by accession to a secular milieu. But the astute chronicler may see through the plasma of borrowed angst and imagined pain and throw open the argument of azadi with the caper, after azadi what? And that's where it all unravels, because nobody wants to talk about that. After azadi, what: an independent Kashmir? Really? Not with Pakistan round the corner; and certainly not with China breathing down from the heights of Baltistan and Gilgit.
The articulation of the deafening argument against any notions of azadi should have been done in normal course by the State — both at the centre and regionally. But that is where successive regimes — trading outposts really, considering the constant negotiations on packages —reneged and created for us the conundrum we face as a nation, weaving into the warp and weft of Kashmiriyat enough disincentives for any real solution-seeking. It is in that context that I charge moderates with the bigger crime — of wanting to leave wounds always half open, for the oozing manna that comes with the status quo. The clamour for packages like an alley travel agent selling you a trip, the chimera of AFSPA as a stumbling block, the demands of reduction of security or freeing the guilty are all proposals merely designed to frustrate any chance of progress. The recent all-party delegation was another such face-saver sought by the ruling National Conference and its alliance partner, the Congress. The opposition showed grace — and concern — and complied. Their views have since been recorded.
There has been some unwarranted controversy about the issue of meeting separatists and the BJP leaders rightly opposed it, for if the all-party delegation was merely taken to Kashmir to validate the separatist viewpoint, the purpose stood defeated. It is a matter of regret that some leaders chose to ride a little longer for the sake of their constituencies back home and forgot to dismount after the brief was met. There was little reason to commiserate with the likes of Geelani who can finally be called the Pied Piper of Kashmir for leading so many Kashmiri youths to their pointless deaths. If the cheerleaders of azadi would see clearly, their enemy lies truly within, for nothing will come of this, like nothing has come of it earlier.
But I do not state that out of a sense of nationalism only — facts buttress my prophecy. The reason there will be no azadi for the Kashmiris is because they do not hold it dear in the first instance. That a people who were given sop after sop, shown leniency at every stage, got a 'package' each time the Muezzin called and drafted a separate constitution for themselves could not find anything of value in that freedom, are asking for more! It not only belittles the concept of freedom, it exhibits the patently disingenuous Kashmiri leadership of decades and a failure of any intellectual class to build up resistance to this opiate desire.
The BJP has put forth by far the most logical, comprehensive and humane presentation of the visit so far. The party has called for a careful and discriminate separation of locals with a grouse from locals with an agenda; from people who want to go about their lives normally from those who are willing to become ammunition in someone else's gun. The party has also asked for serious introspection within the ruling combine and assess if the Nehruvian line has got the country anywhere near a solution and accept that decades of crony Congress politics in the state has been a sorry tale of trust, mistrust and bust.
Members of the BJP, who were part of the delegation, have shared their views publicly and proposed pragmatic and doable steps to first defuse the crisis, then segregate the issue into its dimensional portions and prepare responses and finally, ideate and seek —not one big-bang solution to the issue — but a host of concomitant solutions to the various aspects of the issue.
In effect, the party has pressed for a holistic understanding of the problem and a sectoral approach to problem solving. This is a first, and it would mark a creative shift of tactics and strategy on behalf of the state if the BJP's suggestions are taken up sincerely, because this approach holds the promise of not only projecting the issue of Kashmir in its proportionally smaller dimensions than the one big problem that the world has got used to seeing, but it also proffers a proactive and intuitive roadmap to solution finding for the future. This approach also instinctively echoes the wishes of the majority in the Valley while addressing any specific or even general complaints of citizen or groups of citizens as they should be, in normal course in a normal democracy.
