We're With You, General

It is slowly beginning to sink in that the Delhi meeting of President Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh achieved an unprecedented, indeed unhoped for, breakthrough in relations between the two countries. For, in one dramatic move, General Musharraf replaced a relationship that had so far been based upon mistrust with one based on trust. He said as much during a meeting with Indian editors on Monday morning a week ago but the real indicator of his willingness to place his trust in Dr Manmohan Singh was his willingness to replace a territory-centred approach to the resolution of the Kashmir problem (which is what every agreement between Pakistan and India from the UN resolutions of 1948 to the Simla Agreement of 1972 had been based upon) with a people-centred approach that relies upon softer borders and an increasingly free social, political and economic interaction between the people of both parts of Kashmir to throw up proposals for the amicable and stable resolution of the dispute between the two countries.

If all were to go well, this approach could effect an economic and cultural reintegration and effective autonomy for all parts of the old princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, within the existing security umbrellas provided by Pakistan and India. But the process is long and fraught with uncertainty. Its success requires an unusual degree of steadfastness of purpose in both countries and a freedom from destabilising external shocks. Such is Musharraf's belief in Manmohan's sincerity that he's willing to put his faith in the process and live with the uncertainty. But his decision says a great deal about him too. Human beings find uncertainty difficult to live with even at the best of times. That Musharraf is able to do so on such a momentous issue speaks volumes of his mental toughness and self-confidence.

But everyone in Pakistan is not a General Musharraf. Even liberal intellectuals, not to speak of the Pakistan army, are finding it difficult to shed the territorial mode of thinking. They cannot be blamed for this because territorial consolidation behind hard frontiers has been the defining feature of the nation-state that came into being contemporaneously with industrial capitalism. We have lived in the era of the nation-state all of our lives and find it hard to think of nationhood divorced from hard frontiers. Most of the Pakistani intelligentsia therefore finds Musharraf's actions incomprehensible. From that to mistrust is but a small step.

India must therefore act soon, and in a decisive manner, to demonstrate that the people-centred approach will work, and that Musharraf's trust is not misplaced. That is why the suggestion made by Jalil Abbas Jilani, the spokesman of the Pakistani foreign office, that India would push the peace process forward hugely if it withdrew its army from Kashmir, deserves to be considered seriously. To those schooled in mistrust, this would instantly appear as yet another Pakistani attempt to con India into leaving itself defenceless in Kashmir or, by refusing, to remind the world of the oppressive yoke under which the Kashmiris are suffering. But a closer examination of the proposal and the situation that now prevails in Kashmir shows that Pakistan is most probably making this proposal in good faith.

To begin with, one doubts very much that Jilani meant literally all of the Indian army. Today most of it is concentrated along the border and in Ladakh, and is not involved in counter-terrorist operations. These are the purview of the Rashtriya Rifles, who are divided into two dedicated counter-insurgency formations, named the Kilo and Victor Force respectively. One suspects that Jilani was referring mainly to these forces.

The second reason for considering it seriously is the change in the nature and intensity of the militancy in Kashmir. According to the army and the police, there are between 1,600 and 1,900 active militants in the state of whom just about half are from across the LoC. Most of the latter are now lying low. Intercepts suggest that their funds are running low because replenishments have become niggardly. They are aware that, after the building of the fence along the LoC, even escape from Kashmir has become difficult. The fence has also made infiltration more difficult. This has brought the level of infiltration down below the number of foreign militants killed. The steady attrition in their numbers during the past two-and-a-half years has demoralised most, if not all, of those who remain.

The Kashmiri elements among the militants, on the other hand, have now become so embedded in the state's criminal structure that even a final resolution of the dispute by India and Pakistan may not make them lay down their arms. Today they offer a variety of services, from tossing grenades and planting improvised mines to protecting candidates in elections and intimidating families who try to send their children to the new goodwill schools that the army has been setting up.

The task of rooting them out can be done best by the j&k police which has developed an effective counter-insurgency capability in the last decade. Since the police are Kashmiris they usually get to know who's new in a village or mohalla. People also find it easier to give them information. Senior police officers claim that in the past two or three years they've been supplying most of the information upon which counter-insurgency operations are based. The time may thus be ripe to hand these over to the police and give a slimmed-down Rashtriya Rifles the task of backstopping them. That was the model that eventually proved successful in Punjab. If the peace process were to move ahead side by side, there is no reason why it would not work in Kashmir.