The same time last year, on December 25, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a dramatic landing in Lahore to personally wish his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his birthday, which coincided with his granddaughter’s wedding. The surprise trip created a furor in India-Pakistan relations with many reading this move as one that would bode well for the next year. The euphoria fizzled out soon, however, as the visit was topped by an attack on the Indian Pathankot air base by militants. The hopes that had been rekindled by Modi’s personalized visit were dashed. New Delhi had reason to be angry but it still allowed a five-member joint investigation team, including an officer from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to come in March. The Indian media reported that this was perhaps the first ISI officer to be officially given permission to visit an Indian military facility. However, Islamabad did not reciprocate with similar largesse and relations have since come to a grinding halt.
This year Modi kept his date with Nawaz on his birthday—though he just chose to make a telephone call to convey his wishes. The gesture is, nonetheless, significant given the tensions that have been exacerbated by five months of unrest of unprecedented proportions in Kashmir. It has become so bad that Pakistan raised its position at the United Nations. Nawaz Sharif spoke vociferously at the UN in September and declared Burhan Wani as a new hero of the Kashmiri people.
Benazir and Rajiv
Without apparently choosing his words carefully, Zardari told his supporters that Kashmir would become a part of Pakistan. Referring to the recent uprising, he said that the Pakistani flag had become a symbol of resistance in Kashmir. This was little more than playing to the gallery, his constituency, just because Kashmir has been back in the news
Indeed, Kashmir has started to feature in national discussions much more of late, defying the perception that fatigue had set in on the topic in government, civil society and media circles. This time the talk has taken a much more hard-line flavour, informed by the trauma the valley has faced, with its people braving bullets, pellets, being blinded and maimed. Pakistan has responded with an emotional reaction. Premier Nawaz Sharif was forced to call for a black day to mourn the rapidly rising body count and had to take a hardened stand even though he was seen as inclining towards making peace overtures. The Pathankot attack and Islamabad’s subsequent refusal to “cooperate with the investigation”, however, was met with a hawkish reaction in Delhi, with many people saying that Pakistan must not be trusted.
Prime Minister Modi did not go the extra mile to continue with peace moves as he had when he took everyone by surprise last year by visiting Lahore. Violations of the ceasefire along the Line of Control compounded the situation with hawks capitalizing on the schism between New Delhi and Islamabad. Meanwhile, Nawaz came under pressure from the Panama leaks scandal, which meant it was unlikely he would be able to go the extra mile himself. However, the reality is that New Delhi did not do anything significant either to create an environment in which talks could resume.
Now that Delhi has chosen to ignore Kashmir and does not even recognize it as a problem, the support for a peace process within Pakistan also has shrunk. One must not be taken in by some of the recent statements, such as the ones that came from Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairperson and former president, Asif Ali Zardari, who invoked Kashmir upon his return home after 18 months. Without apparently choosing his words carefully, Zardari told his supporters that Kashmir would become a part of Pakistan. Referring to the recent uprising, he said that the Pakistani flag had become a symbol of resistance in Kashmir. This was little more than playing to the gallery, his constituency, just because Kashmir has been back in the news. Otherwise, for many years Kashmir was simply missing as a talking point in the electoral politics of Pakistan, with no party mentioning it during their 2013 campaigns, for example. Internal politics, terrorism and corruption dominated the campaign that brought Nawaz Sharif back to power.
Kashmir is likely to be used by political parties in the future. Zardari’s son, Bilawal, did this during the elections which coincided with the start of the uprising in Kashmir after July 8 this year. The PPP has its own history of taking a hard-line stance on Kashmir and it has not changed much since its inception. Many analysts have concluded that Kashmir played a role in the emergence of the PPP when its founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto opposed the then President Ayub Khan’s agreement that focused on Kashmir in Tashkent with Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri that. Differences led to Bhutto’s ouster as foreign minister and little before that, during the 1965 war, he had talked about fighting a 1,000-year long war with India. Bhutto’s legacy was continued by his daughter who forcefully pursued Kashmir. This was when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister. It was during her tenure that the Organisation of Islamic Conference created a contact group on Kashmir in which the Hurriyat Conference was granted an observer’s status. Zardari’s assertion on December 23 this year, upon his return to Karachi, echoes Benazir’s outright rejection of the idea of an “independent Jammu and Kashmir”—the thought dominates Kashmir today. The bonhomie between India and Pakistan, though less focused on Kashmir, had forced Pakistan’s political parties to tone down their rhetoric.
Today, a strong pro-Kashmir movement has been reborn in Pakistan and an equally anti-Kashmir constituency prevails in India. This combination encroaches on the space for those who believe in and pursue the idea of using violence to resolve the Kashmir conflict. Social pressure that evoked emotional support to Kashmir in the wake of the recent uprising has also forced Pakistani parties to toe a hard line. In these new times, Pakistan is not far away from Kashmir; whatever happens here it gets transmitted within seconds. Pellet gun injuries left a deep impression on Pakistani society through social media even though Kashmir has been reeling for some time. As put by a journalist friend in Islamabad: “It certainly makes a difference when it comes to understanding the Kashmir of 1990 and the Kashmir of 2016.”
Against this backdrop, Modi’s telephone call is just a formality that will not necessarily help either side pick up the thread on the dialogue process. People as well as political parties now need to shun their need for rhetoric and think outside the box. But perhaps even if they did it might not make a difference in the near future given that India is gearing up for elections in four crucial states in the next three months. The ruling BJP will have to come up with a policy that will focus on Pakistan to garner support in the elections and as a result it will further strengthen extremist elements in that country. For the time being it appears that extremists both sides will prevail.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Srinagar (Kashmir) and can be reached at shujaat7867@gmail.com
