INDIA’S home minister says there can’t be any talks with Pakistan until peace comes to Jammu and Kashmir first.

It’s not clear if he was posturing as politicians often do or stating it as conviction common with India’s right-wing nationalists. The backdrop to the comments is the three-phase assembly elections scheduled in Jammu and Kashmir from Sept 18, which Home Minister Amit Shah is keen to win for his party.

Not talking to Pakistan till peace returns to violence-wracked Kashmir makes for a strange argument to keep aloof from an important, in fact, a critical neighbour. It’s particularly strange coming from a country that purports to be working for peace in a distant conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

How could there be peace without talking to key stakeholders in the European theatre? It’s interesting nevertheless that India flaunts an appetite for resolving disputes abroad (not excluding Sri Lanka and the Maldives) while rejecting friendly offers from world capitals to help in its perpetually troubled ties with Pakistan.

Of course, there are those in India’s ruling pack that believe there’s nothing to talk to Pakistan about. The only dispute, they say, is India’s claim on Azad Kashmir, which the Rao government had formalised through a parliamentary resolution in the 1990s. Even that claim needs talks, right? Or, as some ardent nationalists dream, the army would do the job. It’s this kind of alarming rubbish that former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo referred to in his memoirs. He got a midnight call about a crisis that broke out in 2019 between India and Pakistan. Pompeo called it a terrifying stand-off between nuclear neighbours.

Wrecking the special status of Kashmir has long been a key quest for Hindutva groups.

To stay with the argument, could Russia and Ukraine sort out their differences without addressing the interests of the Russian-speaking population of Donbas? Could the people of Donbas find peace without reference to the warring sides? Apart from the tautological infirmity in Shah’s logic, there is grudging admission of a resounding failure wrought on hapless Kashmiris and, in fact, on the entire country. Team Modi had overreached its capacity to resolve burning domestic problems.

Step back a bit. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrecked India’s economy on Nov 8, 2016, with his disastrous move to demonetise 80 per cent of the country’s currency, he took the plea that it would rein in terrorism. One could quibble over Modi’s definition of terrorism, but that is what he said. People for better or worse agreed to heed the claim at the time, and they obviously suffered for it. Their suffering hadn’t ended, however, when Modi wrecked the state of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, claiming that breaking it up and removing its special status guaranteed by the Indian constitution was another means towards ending terrorism.

Five years after heaping misery on the people, and after countless innocent lives were lost, people maimed and jailed, Shah indicated last week that he still hadn’t succeeded in bringing peace to the region. Reports quoted him as telling BJP workers in Jammu that terrorism, a description for armed resistance against Indian rule, was only 70pc tamed in 10 years of Modi rule, whatever the faux statistics mean.

Shah also said that the special status could never again be restored to the state, and described opposition statements that all Kashmiri parties would work towards that end as vacuous. Assembly elections are being held in Jammu and Kashmir together with state polls in BJP-ruled Haryana, abutting Delhi. Elections in Jharkhand and BJP-ruled Maharashtra are also pending. The dismantled state of Jammu and Kashmir is currently only a union territory, in the way that Delhi is. J&K wasn’t. The Modi government says it is committed to restoring statehood to J&K but without the special rights, and sans the region of Ladakh, which was detached from it in the Aug 2019 move.

Most Kashmiri parties in the electoral fray are keen to see the feeble attempt at restoring democracy in the state as a potential harbinger of peace to end their exacerbated suffering under Modi’s rule. If Shah has his way, he will install a BJP-led government in the Muslim-majority region. It would serve no intrinsic purpose though since the BJP is already ruling Kashmir with the help of its hand-picked lieutenant governor, a veritable viceroy representing Delhi. But the symbolism of a win would help the ruling party score brownie points in the face of possible defeat in the other state polls.

The way the chips are stacked, a BJP victory could yet be the outcome in J&K. The Congress has aligned with the National Conference of former chief minister Farooq Abdullah, but another member of the India-wide opposition alliance, the PDP of Mehbooba Mufti, is going on its own. On the other hand, a party set up by the jailed and newly elected MP Engineer Rashid is leading the charge against the BJP.

In the multi-cornered melee, the BJP could emerge as the single largest party, and the lieutenant governor would be well within his rights to invite it to form government. The visuals of a Hindu nationalist party ruling predominantly Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir would lend a degree of heft to the celebrations in 2025 of 100 years of the foundation of the RSS. Wrecking the special status of Kashmir has long been a key quest for Hindutva groups.

Given the state of affairs, what kind of relationship could one foresee for India with Pakistan in the near or distant future? When Jinnah was asked about Pakistan’s equation with India, he cited Canada and the United States as examples to follow. As for Gandhi, he was preparing to visit Pakistan on a peace mission when he was laid low by Hindutva conspirators whose sympathisers are ideologically connected with the party ruling India today. How shall we then contemplate peace ahead?

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2024