Growing schism

A SHOWDOWN now seems near inevitable in the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC). Bucking terrorist fiat and protests from hardliners, APHC chairman Abbas Ansari announced on August 10 that he wished to travel to Pakistan to persuade armed Islamist groups to "lay down the gun". "A solution to the Kashmir problemcan be found only through dialogue," Ansari said.

The cleric-politician, recently elected to head the 25-party secessionist conglomerate, claimed to have the support of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi for his visit.

Ansari's call for dialogue is not new. Even his arch-enemy, the Jamaat-e-Islami's Syed Ali Shah Geelani, told a rally in April that the time for armed struggle had passed. However, what is more surprising is that Ansari's statement came just days after the Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah threatened a new wave of terrorist attacks on Indian targets. Shah had earlier threatened to unleash a large number of suicide squads. Given the fact that Shah is closely affiliated both to Geelani's faction within the Jamaat-e-Islami and to the hardline politician himself, Ansari was clearly making a point to the armed groups in Pakistan - something most APHC leaders have for long been reluctant to do.

In recent weeks, hardliners and centrists in the APHC have been at loggerheads on just about every issue of importance. On August 5, a three-member delegation of APHC leaders, led by Ansari, met Aziz Ahmed Khan, the newly appointed Pakistan High Commissioner to India. Two other centrist figures, Abdul Gani Bhat and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, also accompanied him to New Delhi for the meeting, and for subsequent dialogue with officials in the embassies of the United States and Iran. Finally, the delegation met the Kashmir Committee set up by former Union Minister Ram Jethmalani.

In the days before their visit to New Delhi, the centrists came under fire from a curious, but long-established, coalition of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which labels itself as a secular-nationalist organisation, and the Jamaat-e-Islami. JKLF chairman Yasin Malik described Jethmalani as "inconsistent" and "wavering" on the agenda for dialogue with the APHC. Malik said: "When Jethmalani met Hurriyat the first timehe gave the impression that he was talking about Kashmiris' aspirations. But his statements to the press said he was referring to autonomy, and at another point, he talked about Hurriyat's participation in the Assembly polls."

Geelani soon joined the JKLF assault. The centrists in the APHC, he argued, were "wasting time." Jethmalani's agenda, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader said, "is no secret now". "What can one get out of a meeting with a person who persuaded Hurriyat leaders to participate in the previous elections? "Geelani asked.

Many of the smaller members of the APHC, largely Islamist splinter groups sympathetic to Geelani, also challenged the centrists' course of action. Mohammad Azam Inqilabi and Nayeem Ahmad Khan demanded that the APHC executive, dominated by centrists, be made more accountable to its General Council and the Working Committee, where the Islamists wield greater power.

However, within the Jamaat-e-Islami Geelani has little support. Syed Nazir Ahmad Kashani, the newly elected chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has distanced himself from the fracas within the APHC, and from Geelani in particular. At a press conference on July 29, Kashani shot down calls for third-party mediation on the Kashmir dispute, a centrepiece of Pakistan policy long backed by Geelani. "We do not have moderates in the Jamaat-e-Islami," he said in response to a question. "We are all moderates." Kashani said he would strive to complete his three-year term in the office strictly according to the Jamaat constitution, which focuses on the social and religious objectives rather than politics.

Left with little choice, Geelani now plans to set up a separate party, should Kashani eventually remove him as the Jamaat-e-Islami's representative in the APHC. "My party," he told the Srinagar-based Greater Kashmir, "will strictly desist from the political ambiguity." The APHC constitution, he said, ruled out any solution to the Kashmir issue "under the purview of the Indian Constitution", adding that even a three-way dialogue between India, Pakistan and the APHC would be contingent upon the relevant United Nation's resolutions. "Any activity outside this ambit would amount to treason," Geelani concluded.

Others in the APHC, however, clearly do not concur. Geelani's best bet now is that a massive escalation in terrorist violence derails the detente process - and succeeds in coercing the centrists into silence.

At a meeting in the Unified Headquarters early this month, officials told Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed that infiltration from Pakistan, much of it by battle-hardened Islamists from that country and Afghanistan, had risen to unusually high levels.

Although there have been relatively few headline-grabbing terrorist operations this summer, levels of violence have risen to that comparable to previous years. "Sooner or later," says a senior Border Security Force official, "the terrorists who have arrived will act. They have not come here for a holiday."

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Chief Minister, then, are not the only politicians whose future is staked on detente: its success or failure could transfigure the course of secessionist politics in the State as well.