Treading through a minefield

As the peace process gathers momentum, new challenges become apparent.

BEHIND veils of secrecy, the shapes and colours of Jammu and Kashmir's future are starting to reveal themselves. Two governments, their covert services, terrorists, politicians and a small circle of mediators seem to have succeeded in gathering together the pieces of the Jammu and Kashmir peace puzzle from the far corners to which they were flung by the violent jehad that began in 1990. No one outside this magic circle of peacemakers - and perhaps not even they - seems to have much idea of just how the final picture will appear. Yet, it is impossible not to discern that history is, in fact, being made.

In New Delhi, the long-stalled working group on Centre-State relations set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began its work on December 13. In coming months, the working group's chairman, Justice Saghir Ahmad, will hear submissions from parties such as the Congress, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on their visions for the future. Although the National Conference has chosen to boycott the proceedings, citing concerns about continued human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, the party's past proposals on autonomy for the State will without dispute inform the discussions.

President Pervez Musharraf, in turn, has stated his willingness to drop all Pakistani claims to Jammu and Kashmir if four conditions are met: autonomy or self-rule, presumably on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC); free movement across the LoC; joint supervision, a still-undefined idea that presumably will expand existing mechanisms for border management, water regulation and trade to other areas of interest; and, finally, phased demilitarisation, linked to a de-escalation of violence.

Indeed, Pakistan's military ruler seems to be preparing his people for a settlement well short of that country's stated demands. Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam recently noted that Pakistan had never laid formal claim to Jammu and Kashmir, an assertion that is factually accurate but is also certain to generate a furore in Pakistan. Musharraf's ideas are not different, in their broad-strokes emphasis, to the content of a secret paper handed over to Islamabad by Manmohan Singh's government for exploratory discussions on how far India could go.

For its part, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has drawn increasingly closer to ideas such as self-governance, a formulation not dissimilar to the National Conference's demand for autonomy or the PDP's calls for "self-rule". At a recent press conference in Srinagar, APHC leader Abdul Gani Butt sought "a debate over self-governance at the people's level", to "develop a broader consensus in this part of Kashmir and that [Pakistan-occupied] part of Kashmir". Rejecting the self-governance idea, he argued, would end up marginalising secessionist voices. "We must collectively show India and Pakistan that the peace path passes through Kashmir," he asserted, "or else we may be swept aside."

Is peace then imminent? Not quite. This year will see, bar a major calamity, the lowest levels of violence since the long jehad began. Close to a thousand people will have died in the fighting in Jammu and Kashmir, putting the conflict below the threshold of common scholarly definitions of what constitutes a war. Yet, the formidable challenge of ending terrorist violence remains, and failure could only too easily undo all that has been achieved so far.

"Next week," top Hizbul Mujahideen commander Mohammad Ashraf Shah told a confidant in October, a few days before Eid, "this war will end". Less than two months later, Shah's bullet-ridden body lay inside a safe house he had been using since August for a series of secret meetings with politicians linked to the ruling PDP to push a peace deal with the Hizbul Mujahideen. His maimed body was evidence of the cul-de-sac that seemed to lie at the end of the road to peace: the inability to compel terrorist groups to join the peace process.

In the summer of 1991, not long after he had completed his final-year school education, Shah abandoned his home in the south Kashmir village of Jablipora, and his hopes of one day becoming a doctor, to train at a Hizbul Mujahideen terror camp near Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. By 2001, Shah was leading the Hizbul Mujahideen's terror operations in Rajouri and Poonch, operating under the code name `Sohail Faisal'. He took charge of the strategically vital south Kashmir division - the Hizbul Mujahideen's strongest and most affluent command - after the elimination of his predecessor, Shabbir Bhaduri, in a February 2005 encounter.

Shah soon demonstrated his exceptional covert warfare skills, forging an alliance with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) that facilitated a series of successful car-bomb attacks across southern and central Kashmir. His cadre demonstrated the exceptional brutality that was increasingly needed to put down growing public anger against terrorism, beheading suspected informers, shooting dissenters and even bombing anti-Islamist Sufi clerics.

Privately, though, Shah was sending grim messages to his boss, the Hizbul Mujahideen amir-i-jihad Mohammad Yusuf Shah, who operates using the vainglorious nom de guerre Syed Salahuddin, after the 12th century warrior who liberated Jerusalem from the crusaders. Hizbul Mujahideen cadre, he said, were demoralised and desperate. The terrorist group needed to listen to its friends in the PDP, he argued, and to put a ceasefire in place and come to the negotiation table.

Hours before Shah's death, evidence emerged that his masters were listening to what their field commanders had to say. In an August 27 interview, the amir-i-jihad told the Srinagar-based Current News Service that his organisation was "ready to announce a truce even today, but for that, India will have to accept our three conditions". These, he said, were that "prisoners should be released unconditionally, strength of troops be cut down to the pre-1989 position, and human rights violations should be stopped". "I took up the gun as a last resort," the amir-i-jihad said, "and I would be the happiest person if guns on both the sides stop roaring." He even seemed willing to drop his demand, conveyed through intermediaries to India's external covert service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), for talks in a West Asian country. "What is important," the Hizbul Mujahideen chief said, "is not the venue but the agenda of talks".

In the interview, Shah dropped several long-standing Hizbul Mujahideen preconditions for a ceasefire: that India respect the right of Jammu and Kashmir residents to what it calls "self-determination", for instance; affirm that no solution is possible within the constitution; withdraw all forces; and join a three-way dialogue with Pakistan and representatives of the jehad. The language of the August 27 interview appeared to offer a breakthrough.

Even as mainstream politicians called on New Delhi to meet the Hizbul Mujahideen halfway, Shah backed down. Three days after the interview was given, United Jehad Council (UJC) spokesperson Syed Sadaqat Husain told the Srinagar-based Kashmir News Service that the Hizbul Mujahideen chief "had not offered [a] ceasefire". Husain claimed that Shah, "while responding to a question said that the UJC doesn't believe in [initiating a] ceasefire for the sake of [a] ceasefire." All the old preconditions, he asserted, remained in place.

Shah remained silent, evidently shouted down by Islamist hardliners. Hours before Husain's comments, the veteran Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, whom the Hizbul Mujahideen claims is its political patron, had dismissed the ceasefire proposal with contempt. At a rally, he hailed the sacrifices of those he described as "martyrs" to "a just and sacred cause". Geelani also flatly rejected the Hizbul Mujahideen's calls for the two APHC factions to join hands, saying "unity can only be forged with those people who support our demand for the right to self-determination".

None of this is surprising to those who are following the peace process. In August, even as division commander Shah energetically pushed for an Eid ceasefire, his amir-i-jihad gave an interview that many believed would facilitate a rapid breakthrough. In the interview, the amir-i-jihad for the first time announced that the Hizbul Mujahideen would be willing to join a dialogue with New Delhi on solutions other than the implementation of United Nations resolutions calling for Jammu and Kashmir's final status to be determined by a plebiscite. He even suggested the Hizbul Mujahideen would be willing to contest an internationally supervised election.

"We will encourage any move that will lead to a withdrawal of troops," he said, marketing the ceasefire proposal as a concession to the long-suffering residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pronouncements such as these were in fact driven by changing circumstances in Pakistan. Friction between the UJC and its patrons in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate became public in March, when 18 top jehad commanders staged an unprecedented public protest in Muzaffarabad. The protests followed the ISI's decision to terminate monthly subsidies ranging from Rs.400,000 to Rs.3,000,000 to Islamist terror groups operating against India.

Mohammad Ashraf Shah led the protests, sharing a platform with the LeT's Mohammad Zaki ur-Rahman, the Jaish-e-Mohammad's Abdul Rahman, the Harkat ul-Mujahideen's Maulana Farooq Kashmiri, al-Umar's Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front's Bilal Ahmad Beig and al-Badr's Bakht Zamin Khan. Speaking to Frontline during the protests, UJC spokesperson Mohammad Kalimullah said the protesters wanted Musharraf to reverse policies that "dishonoured a war in which 100,000 Kashmiris have sacrificed their lives". "Until he announces that Pakistan's moral and political support for the mujahideen in Kashmir will continue," Kalimullah said, "our leaders will remain on hunger strike. We will not back down."

Warnings from the ISI, though, led the protesters to call off the protests. Although terrorist groups continued to mount large-scale offensive operations against India, the protests failed to secure them additional funds and weapons. An investigation by Pakistan's Herald magazine, the details of which were published in August, said there was a mood of "lethargy and disorientation" at jehadi training camps. By May, the UJC was apoplectic about what it described as the Pakistan government's "weak and apologetic" policies on Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the "pointless moderation" of secessionist politicians. "Some so-called moderates are playing political showmen," the UJC said, "and keep knocking on New Delhi's door. They are part of Indian cunningness." It was clear, though, that the terrorist coalition was in trouble.

Shah drew the obvious lessons from what was going on. Under intense pressure from the United States to dismantle the infrastructure of Islamist terrorist groups in Pakistan, Musharraf could no longer continue to subsidise the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir. Musharraf, it seemed, intended to use a peace settlement with India, bearing the imprimatur of the APHC, against organisations such as the Hizbul Mujahideen. The peace deal would allow Musharraf to crack the whip against terrorists without risking a serious battle within Pakistan. From the point of view of individuals like Shah, the next step was also obvious: unless the Hizbul Mujahideen leadership cut its own deal, and soon, it would be left out in the cold.

As things turned out, though, the Hizbul Mujahideen could not deliver its end of the proposed ceasefire deal. For one, its allies in the UJC had no political stakes in Jammu and Kashmir and therefore little to gain from joining the peace process. A joint statement issued by front organisations of the LeT, the al-Umar and the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front attacked the Hizbul Mujahideen for making "pointless calls for a ceasefire". Without the support of these groups, a ceasefire was pointless. The Lashkar, after all, had demonstrated its military capability to undermine any movement towards peace during the Ramzan Ceasefire of 2000, when violence against civilians rose to record levels. The ISI, then as now, refused to call the Lashkar to heel, arguing that dismantling the jehad would relieve all pressure on India to make concessions.

By October, Mohammad YusufShah had been pushed back to his earlier positions, including rejecting "anything under the Indian Constitution". He described plans for self-rule - a formulation that had won the support of Musharraf - as "a document of slavery".

While part of this rejectionist posture was driven by the Hizbul Mujahideen's need not to alienate its allies in Pakistan, the Hizbul Mujahideen also confronted serious internal problems. For a ceasefire to work, its central leadership would need to be able to compel its field cadre to locate to predetermined positions and then to punish ceasefire violators. However, its highly criminalised field units were making cash hand-over-fist from extortion and organised crime - and the cash-strapped central leadership could not compete. In turn, the field units themselves were deeply divided. Its southern division commander bitterly resented the fact that his subordinate in Poonch, Mohammad Yunus, was made the overall commander for Jammu and Kashmir.

Yunus had served as the amir-i-jihad's chauffeur in Pakistan and came from a family with a long history of service to the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami - and these links counted more than pure combat experience.

In the wake of the southern division commander's death, the political divisions in the Hizbul Mujahideen command on dialogue have manifested themselves down the terror group's command structure. Hizb leaders have, for instance, been unable to take a decision on the competing claims of hawks and doves to succeed the killed terrorist. Javed `Seepan' Sheikh, an Anantnag-based policeman-turned-terrorist who strongly favours dialogue, and Pulwama district commander Parvez Dar, a hardliner who favours escalating violence, have both put in claims to lead the Hizbul Mujahideen's largest unit. Until a second meeting is held in late December to decide these competing claims, Tral-based district commander Hanif Khan has been appointed acting divisional commander.

Where might things go from here? The peace process within Jammu and Kashmir can usefully be understood as a three-legged stool involving political parties committed to India, secessionist political parties and terrorist groups. While India and Pakistan - the carpenters, so to speak, who must hammer the stool into shape - have made not a little progress, none of the three legs is as stable as it appears.

At the level of the mainstream parties, each actor understands that the peace process holds out enormous dividends - but also great risks. Should the National Conference be able to advertise a final settlement as vindication of its struggle for autonomy, the party would regain its status as the natural party of government in Jammu and Kashmir.

The PDP knows that conjuring up a successful peace deal offers it the hope of reaching out of its south Kashmir strongholds and displacing the National Conference State-wide. Congress politicians, in both New Delhi and Srinagar, are also aware of the sheer scale of the peace prize. Yet none, witness the National Conference decision to boycott the working groups set up by the Prime Minister, can risk seeing its adversaries walk away with the reward.

For secessionist formations, the stakes are even higher. "Pakistan's decision to endorse slogans such as self-governance and autonomy," a senior secessionist leader told Frontline, "leaves us with no space at all. We have been left with no room to manoeuvre, for the mainstream parties have already taken up the slogans that we would have adopted as compromises." As a consequence, there is intense positional struggle within secessionist ranks for what space remains. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik's decision to set up an office in downtown Srinagar was seen as a direct attack on Mirwaiz Farooq's constituency and provoked a violent backlash.

Although Mirwaiz Farooq remains too fearful for his personal safety to open a full-scale dialogue with New Delhi until the Hizbul Mujahideen is on board - he cancelled a scheduled meeting with the Union government's official interlocutor, N.N. Vohra, after news leaked to the media, and then petulantly insisted that any further talks would take place "only with the Prime Minister" - the cleric knows he has to move forward or face irrelevance. Interestingly, PDP president and Member of Parliament from Anantnag Mehbooba Mufti used a recent conference in Cairo to brief the APHC chairman on her party's self-rule proposals - a meeting that holds out the prospect of future alliances cutting across secessionist-mainstream lines.

Yet, there is no evidence that any of these formations have the tools needed to deal with the problems confronting peacemaking: the criminalisation of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the ISI's unwillingness to shut down the Islamist armies it gave birth to. What can be done? RAW is known to have maintained discreet channels of communications with the Hizbul Mujahideen leadership in Pakistan, and a Government of India envoy is believed to have held at least one round of discussions in New York with a prominent Islamist leader. But the key to peace lies in Islamabad, not New Delhi.

Pakistan, for the moment, seems willing to nudge the Hizbul Mujahideen towards the dialogue table. Judging by the increasingly acid polemic directed by both the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar at Musharraf, it seems probable that they understand the peace process as a means of delivering euthanasia. Yet, Musharraf has proved unable or unwilling to act against their physical infrastructure and leadership, which is a cause for concern. Many amongst the ranks of Islamist terror groups, and their friends in Pakistan's military, look forward to a time when the U.S. loses interest in Afghanistan; when pressure on Islamabad eases; when the jehad may flower again.

The peace process between India and Pakistan, Manmohan Singh and Musharraf said in April 2005, is "now irreversible". In fact, experience has shown that it is incredibly fragile. Now is the time for Pakistan to move forward and for India to push as hard as it can - or risk seeing history brutally reversed.