JAMMU & KASHMIR

Partition plans?

The contents of a newly available document, together with other evidence, point to some kind of a disquieting enterprise by the BJP-led government to partition Jammu and Kashmir, which is being discussed under U.S. patronage.

PRAVEEN SWAMI

HAS the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in New Delhi been engaged in a covert dialogue on plans to partition Jammu and Kashmir and create a new quasi-independent state?

Frontline has obtained a confidential document issued by the New York-based Kashmir Study Group (KSG), which was circulated recently among a select group of top officials in the United States, Pakistan and India. The document, the second of a seri es called "Kashmir: A Way Forward", details proposals for the creation of a new Kashmiri state or states. These plans, the KSG asserts, came into being after tentative proposals authored in December 1998 were handed over "to government officials in India and Pakistan, and to diverse leadership in Kashmir, and many opinion makers in India, Pakistan and Kashmir". For more than one reason, the claim appears plausible.

The KSG is run by an affluent U.S.-based businessman of Srinagar origin, Farooq Kathwari. Kathwari owns Ethan Allen, an upmarket furniture concern whose clients include the White House. Several figures of the Indian establishment, including former Foreig n Secretary N.K. Singh and Vice-Admiral (retired) S.K. Nair, participated in deliberations that preceded the release of the first "Kashmir: A Way Forward". Although all the Indians concerned denied having endorsed the report, Kathwari was subsequently gr anted a visa to visit India. His journey did not just consist of visits to his relatives in Srinagar, for the businessman met what one official source describes as a "who's who of the BJP establishment".

"Kashmir: A Way Forward" outlines five proposals for either one or two new states, which it describes somewhat mysteriously as a "sovereign entity but one without an international personality". "The new entity," the KSG document says, "would have its own secular, democratic constitution, as well as its own citizenship, flag and a legislature which would legislate on all matters other than defence and foreign affairs." The document adds: "India and Pakistan would be responsible for the defence of the Kas hmiri entity, which would itself maintain police and gendarme forces for internal law and order purposes. India and Pakistan would be expected to work out financial arrangements for the Kashmiri entity, which could include a currency of its own."

IN essence, the KSG suggests five possible forms of a new Kashmiri state. The first two proposals envisage the creation of either two separate Eastern and Western Kashmiri entities on either side of the existing Line of Control (LoC), or a single state s traddling it. The fourth and fifth options explore how these states would look like if an agreement came about on significant territorial exchanges along the LoC, with the whole of Rajouri and much of Poonch going to Pakistan in return for large but thin ly populated Balti-speaking territory. "Kashmir: A Way Forward" argues that the exchanges would safeguard the Mangla dam watershed in Pakistan, while providing strategic depth to the Uri hydroelectric project in India and securing the Srinagar-Kargil hig hway from attacks.

But the third and most significant version that "Kashmir: A Way Forward" envisages is a single Kashmiri state on the Indian side of the LoC; this proposal is based on the assumption that Pakistan would for some reason be unwilling to accept the creation of a new entity on its side. Interestingly, the possibility that India would not be willing to accept the creation of some form of new state is not discussed in the paper. The KSG's concept is built on the assumption of a tehsil-level referendum leading to all of the districts of the Kashmir Valley, and the district of Doda opting to be part of the new entity. The entity could also include the district of Kargil, three northern tehsils from Rajouri and the tehsil of Udhampur.

S. SUBRAMANIUM
A 'full moon day' in Rajouri.

PERHAPS more interesting than the geographical outlines of the KSG's Kashmir are the stated reasons for its creation. Enormous leaps of reason are used to avoid the assertion that these tehsils incorporate all the principal Muslim-majority areas of Jammu and Kashmir as it exists, or that a communal sundering is being contemplated. "All these areas," the document asserts, "are imbued with Kashmiriyat, the cultural traditions of the Vale of Kashmir, and/or interact extensively with Kashmiri-speaking peopl e." The document says: "In all but five of tehsils so designated, Kashmiri is the language of a clear majority of the population, while in three of these five problematic tehsils, Kashmiri is the single leading language."

At least two problematic elements exist in this discourse. For one, the implicit proposition that some areas in Jammu and Kashmir do not "interact extensively with Kashmiri-speaking people" is mystifying. State employees shuttle between Jammu and Kashmir 's two provinces twice a year, and trade between the regions is vibrant. Then, while Doda's relationship with Kashmir is indeed an organic one, so are its ties south of the Chenab with Jammu. Indeed, the district has often agitated against the perceived hegemony of the Kashmir Valley elites. Finally, if language and culture are arguments for a sundering of the existing State, it is unclear why the KSG even considers the prospect of a single entity. Punjabi, not Kashmiri, is spoken across the LoC, and cu ltural traditions there have little to do with those of the valley.

The specifics of the KSG's problem give some insight into just how ill-founded its linguistic claims are. The three northern tehsils of Rajouri - Thana Mandi, Buddhal and Rajouri - themselves share language, culture and trade ties with the three southern tehsils - Kalakote, Sunderbani and Mahore. Kashmiri is nowhere the dominant language here. Yet the KSG document argues that this "Sunni Muslim tract has had close links with Kashmir over many centuries and would likely opt for inclusion in a Kashmiri st ate if given the choice." Clearly, the KSG worldview is founded on the privileging of religious identity over culture and language. Nowhere in "Kashmir: A Way Forward" do its authors even explore the possibility that the relationship of Rajouri's Muslims with their Hindu neighbours could be more profound than those to the north in the Kashmir Valley.

Similarly, in the 1981 Census just 3.2 per cent of the residents of Karnah and 31.3 per cent of the residents of Uri recorded their first language as Kashmiri. These tehsils, along with Gurez, recorded the highest turnout levels in the recent Lok Sabha e lections in the Baramulla constituency despite calls by secessionist groups for a boycott of the exercise. Nonetheless, the KSG-conceived state is based on the assumption, clearly driven by communal premises, "that they would opt to join our hypothetical Kashmiri state". In both Ramban and Bhaderwah tehsils in Doda, as the KSG acknowledges, Kashmiri is not the principal language. Nonetheless, here too the KSG assumes that its residents would vote to join the new entity. This is again a communally driven supposition - one that terrorist massacres through these areas have done not a little to give body to.

Similar premises drive the inclusion of what the KSG describes as the Gool-Gulabgarh tehsil in Udhampur, its sole Muslim-majority area. But there is no such tehsil, for both Gool and Gulabgarh were until recently parts of Mahore tehsil. Gool subsequently became a separate tehsil. Interestingly, the case for merging Mahore with Doda was first made in April 1999 by the controversial Regional Autonomy Committee of the Jammu and Kashmir Government (Frontline, July 30, 1999). The committee had recomme nded the sundering of the State into several new provinces, with the Mahore tehsil, along with Doda, becoming part of a new Chenab province. Informed sources told Frontline that the State Government was pushing ahead with these plans, with Riyaz P unjabi, an academic, presiding over their implementation.

Indeed, the dots on the page are starting to join together into a disturbing picture. Michael Krepon, head of the influential U.S. think tank, the Stimson Centre, gave more than a little indication of official thinking in that country on the future of Ka shmir. "India's Kashmir policy," he told The Indian Express on November 28, "has been predicated on the passage of time theory and limited to counter-insurgency operations." He added: "The question that needs to be asked is whether or not this is working in India's favour because as time passes, Pakistan is becoming weaker." One senior Western diplomat explained to Frontline what this might mean in practice. "India as the stronger state needs to make concessions," the diplomat said. "It ne eds to agree to a one-eighth of the way house, if not a half-way house." The diplomat added: "That could mean soft borders in Kashmir, people-to-people contact, and free trade."

But the problem with a "one-eighth of the way house", as anyone familiar with South Asian cities will attest, is that they tend to get built eventually. Pakistani journalist Talat Hussain recently reported in The Nation that the back-channel negot iators during the Kargil War, Niaz Naik and R.K. Mishra, had discussed what was described as the "Chenab Plan" for Kashmir. The Chenab Plan, which according to Hussain's report was documented in a Pakistani proposal, an Indian response, and a second Paki stani proposal, suggested a recognition of the LoC as the border, followed by the grant of autonomy to the Kashmir Valley. The demands made by Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah for a restoration of the 1953 status of Jammu and Kashmir are also not distant f rom the KSG conception of a quasi-independent state.

Despite persistent U.S. denials that it wishes to mediate on the future of Jammu and Kashmir, the fact remains that it has emerged as a central player. The KSG proposals, read in the context of the Regional Autonomy Report, Krepon's argument and the Niaz Naik papers, suggest that some kind of disquieting enterprise to partition Jammu and Kashmir is being discussed under U.S. patronage. That the Government of India is even willing to engage in such dialogue, premised as it is on a sundering of Hindu from Muslim, says not a little about the lack of honesty with which the BJP's Kashmir policy has been conducted. Neither the participants in this dialogue nor its content is visible other than as shadows, and India's people, it seems probable, will be the la st to be told what emerges from it.

It is unclear if the BJP will agree to plans for a new partition, howsoever it is packaged, or if it will succeed in selling it to India's people. Should such a sundering come about, however, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh vision of a Hindu India will b e one step closer to being realised. In 1951, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah had argued that the accession of Kashmir to India would help defeat the project of turning India "into a religious state wherein the interests of Muslims would be threatened". Just ov er 50 years later, at least some people would evidently like that small geographical obstacle, made up of just four Lok Sabha seats, removed.