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Kashmir : Winds of change |
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Chief Minister Mohammad Mufti Sayeed has a problem at hand; to ensure the defeat of the No Confidence Motion that has been moved against the Chairman of the Legislative Council, Mr A.R.Dar, by the National Conference. The motion is expected to come as a trail of strength for the NC and the PDP particularly in the Kashmir valley.
The NC had expelled Dar from membership of the party and moved the no-confidence motion against him as he adjourned the sitting of the Legislative Council during the winter session without putting the Daughters Bill to vote.
The strength of the NC and the coalition consisting of the PDP-Congress and the Panthers Party is almost equal in the House.
However, it would be a severe setback for the Mufti Sayeed in case the NC succeeds in getting the motion passed in the house. The decision of Dar to suddenly adjourn the House had come as a God sent gift for the coalition government which was facing criticism throughout the country on the issue of the Bill which sought to snatch the property rights of those women who marry outsiders. The Congress President, Ms Sonia Gandhi, was also upset over introduction of the controversial Bill in the Assembly.
Indications are that the Treasury Benches are trying to muster the support of certain Independents and others. The strength of the NC in the House earlier was 15, but with expulsion of Dar it has been reduced to 14. On the other hand, the coalition partners have a total strength of 13 (Congress 8, PDP 4 and Panthers Party 1).
Permanent Resident Bill
The Permanent Resident (Disqualification) Bill that deprived Jammu and Kashmir women of their citizenship rights on marrying non-permanent residents, is dead despite noises to table it in the current session of the legislature. Even if both National Conference and PDP - parties for the Bill - join hands, it will fall short of the necessary two-third majority. The combined strength of the two parties adds up to 43, which falls far short of the required 58.
Although PDP tried to amend the Bill by covering both men and women marrying outsiders, the National Conference wants its original version to be tabled. “No change whatsoever,” was the stand of NC legislature party leader Abdul Rahim.
“The Bill cannot be passed like this,” pointed out Tourism Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir. “I ask the National Conference to show me the way the Bill can be passed. Do we (NC and PDP) have the two-third majority for passing the Bill? The answer is no,” he added.
Congress with 24 members may well hold the key. However, they have asked for wider consultations on the issue. “ Our stand is firm and clear that the Bill is a sensitive matter and it requires wide consultation. We want it to be referred to the select committee for detailed deliberations,” Deputy CM Mangat Ram Sharma said. However, the Bill cannot be referred to the select committee because again two-third majority is required for the same. In this case, if Congress, PDP and Panthers join hands, the numbers would not add up.
Pak holds strings on peace process
On the peace talks, there is a strong view emerging that Pakistan and the Jehadis have made a comeback. Consigned by moderates to the margins of secessionist politics last year, the veteran Islamist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has been reinstated as a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami. He has won endorsement for his new, hardline political party; most important, he now has the Jamaat’s support for his anti-dialogue faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. According to Kashmir watchers, this is a clear reversal of direction. In 1997, the then head ranks with the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin and threw the organisation’s weight behind peacemakers in the APHC. He thus laid the foundation for the peace initiative that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee launched after the Kargil conflict, which in turn paved the way for the dialogue between the Union Government and the centrist faction of the Hurriyat. Now, helped by some unsubtle advocacy by the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin, Geelani is back in charge and the dialogue process back to where it began.
This is bad news for New Delhi and cause for cheer in Islamabad, which has rebuilt its political muscle in Jammu and Kashmir. President Pervez Musharraf’s announcement that jihadi terror groups operating from Pakistan’s soil will be disbanded after an eventual resolution of the conflict is a disturbing sign of what could lie ahead. While it is too early to write off the dialogue process between the Union Government and the centrist faction of the Hurriyat, officials candidly admit that there is little short-term prospect of a resumption of the stalled talks.
In essence, the centrists are unwilling to take the risk of continuing dialogue unless the Islamists can also be brought on board. The most important centrist leader, Maulvi Umar Farooq, has seen relatives and friends assassinated in recent weeks and is under intense family pressure not to expose himself to further risk until a male heir is in position to take his place as he himself did after his father’s assassination at the hands of the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin. Geelani, for his part, has made clear he will not join a dialogue process. Smaller secessionist groups that were attempting to forge unity between the warring factions have, bowing to the inevitable, called off their efforts at reconciliation.
Put simply, the process has reached a stalemate: a situation in which peacemakers have found themselves only too often in the past. In 1994, the secessionist leader Shabbir Shah emerged from years in jail and was greeted as the ‘Nelson Mandela of Kashmir’. He promised to thread fractious secessionist groups, for which he used the metaphor of “a hundred beads,” on to one single rosary. At last count, Shah’s own party had split into four. Yasin Malik came out of jail a year later but hopes that his release would yield political progress were soon belied. His organisation has just suffered yet another split. During the build-up to the 1996 general election, the dialogue that took place between Union Home Minister S.B. Chavan and a group of one-time terrorists went nowhere. It would be facile to attribute these failures only to ego conflicts and bad faith. One major lesson from these events is that agreement on a process in this case, dialogue does not automatically yield results. The unhappy truth is that while almost everyone wants peace, wishes are rarely self-fulfilling. Rigorous thought is needed on exactly what the shape of an abiding peace might be and hard work is required on the nuts and bolts needed to build it.
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