More gleefulness from the Economist as India suffers. See how much trouble we Brits
created for you Indians with our siding with the Pakistanis over
Kashmir?
Habibullah (he ordered biriyani for terrorists holed up in a mosque in J&K) is
certainly fishing in troubled waters, isn't he? Now that the Hurriyat
has lost favor with the US State Dept, is Habibullah the new golden
boy? His star is certainly on the rise, as he is close to the "inner
voice", apparently.
Note: the following is an excerpt, protecting copyright
==================
Kashmir's peace process
Over before it began
Aug 19th 2004 DELHI
From The Economist print edition
A promised new dawn in Kashmir looks more like sunset
AP
Uncompromising Geelani
RAISED hopes this year for peace in Kashmir's 15-year insurgency rest
on two flimsy props. The first is an elaborate peace process between
India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed neighbours that contest
sovereignty there. The second is a parallel dialogue between the
government in Delhi and moderate separatists in Indian-controlled
Kashmir. The first prop has apparently survived India's change of
government in May, and will next month bring direct talks between the
two countries' foreign ministers. But, after just two rounds of
exploratory talks before the elections, the second is crumbling, with
worrying implications for the broader peace process.
A big part of the trouble is the worsening rift within the
separatists' forum, the All-Party Hurriyat Conference. Always split
over whether or not to talk to the Delhi government, one of its
leading lights is now giving warning of "civil war". A "unity force"
set up to bring the factions back together this month dissolved itself
in despair. A few days later, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the Hurriyat's
most uncompromising leader, launched a new party. Mr Geelani, who
believes that in 1947 Kashmir's Muslim majority was cheated of its
birthright—accession to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan—remains
steadfastly opposed to talks with India.
... deleted
In talking to India at all, the moderates ran the risk of reprisals by
extremists, and also of undermining their own credibility and
perpetuating the split in the Hurriyat. Indeed, cynical Kashmiris see
these as India's aims all along. But, in the short term at least, the
winner in local politics has been the pro-Pakistan, Islamist tendency
represented by Mr Geelani. The losers have been the moderates and
those nationalist groups that want independence from both India and
Pakistan.
Violence persists, in a war that continues to claim 3,000 lives a
year. India says Pakistan has reneged on its pledge to stop the
infiltration of militants across the line of control. This week, the
Home Ministry's annual report accused Pakistan of continuing the
practice of "exporting cross-border terrorism as an instrument of
state policy". Few doubt that Pakistan is continuing to fuel the
conflict. But most of the militants are young native Kashmiris.
"Kashmir's children live in a state of perpetual anger and
frustration," according to a report by Wajahat Habibullah, a senior
Indian civil servant. That report, written when the author was on
sabbatical at the Institute of Peace, a think-tank in Washington, DC,
has stirred up a controversy in India. It suggests that America, which
is regarded by Kashmiris as an "honest broker", could facilitate a
settlement to the conflict. And so it might—except that this comes
close to what Indian opinion has always regarded as an unacceptable
heresy: the "internationalisation" of the Kashmir dispute.
Since Mr Habibullah is seen as close to the family of Sonia Gandhi,
leader of the ruling Congress party, India's opposition Bharatiya
Janata Party saw a chance to make political capital out of his subtle
and balanced analysis, and labelled it "anti-India". This does not
bode well for the future of India's bipartisan consensus on the peace
process with Pakistan, and hence may spell trouble for the process
itself.
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