Crystallizing Peace in Kashmir: Politics or Administration?

The political condition of contemporary Kashmir is defined by a certain languidness, torpor and a dull resignation. This is in sharp contrast to the ‘ragda’ phases- periods when Kashmir erupted and Kashmiris became energized and launched a diffuse protest against the Indian state and its representatives. This rather schizophrenic dichotomy is rather inexplicable and bizarre. What accounts for the lull and the eruption? What political lessons can be drawn from this? And can the situation be ‘exploited’ to obtain permanent peace and tranquility in Kashmir? Or in other words does the current lull offer an opportunity to resolve the internal dimension of the conflict in Kashmir for good? And who can potentially be an enabler for this?

The eruption of Kashmir and the energization of Kashmiris accrues and stems from the fact that the powers that be in the Indian political class have viewed Kashmir from an administrative, management and security prism. This means that these powers feel and believe that containment of the insurgency by military means, of a semblance of a patina of governance, followed by dollops of monies and other administrative means would end the conflict in Kashmir. This narrow and technocratic approach views the conflict as a conflict of interests that can be managed by the so called ‘rational bureaucratic’ method. It naturally militates against and ignores the conceptual dynamic of the dispute: an abstraction called freedom and its ancillary-self determination. (In vulgar and crass terms, it is akin to the belief in the tooth fairy sneaking during the night and stealing the bad tooth. Or in a nutshell, this approach is delusionary.  Commonsense suggests that the bad tooth needs treatment).  The eruption of Kashmir or what has popularly been called ragda is an eloquent reminder about the failure of the management approach.

 What then accounts for the current lull? Does this mean that Kashmiris are a mercurial lot prone to temper tantrums? The answer is a clear and a big no. They are animated by the concept of freedom and self determination and obstructionism of these aspirations accounts for the protests. The current lull accrues probably from the forces of attrition and the shelf life of protest movements and the triumph of state power. Potentially and probably, Kashmir can erupt again and the cycle of protests and lulls will resume. The question is how to obviate and break this cycle and crystallize a Kashmir at peace within and without? Answering this question and proffering a solution is not easy. However, a tentative attempt to offer a template is worth it given its consequences.

The first step is to acknowledge the nature of the dispute by powers that be in the Indian political establishment.  The nub of the dispute is about a people wanting and desiring freedom and its corollary, self determination. Accepting this premise does not mean the end or withering of India’s sovereign remit over Kashmir but finding ways and means to sate this quest within the sovereign rubric of India. This, given the subjectivity of freedom, is eminently possible. A paradigm and template that sates the aspirations of Kashmiris under the broad rubric of freedom and within the sovereign remit of India could potentially go miles in resolving the psychic and abstract dimensions of the conflict. The rest then is corollary or mere detail. The question is who will bell the cat?

The onus or responsibility of this falls on the shoulders of the young Mr. Omar Abdullah. Why? Because it is his party’s plank that comes closest to sating the abstraction of self determination and freedom in an idiom acceptable to the Indian state. This plank is greater autonomy. It approximates freedom and can be presented to both Kashmiris and the Indian state as an equilibrium and win win solution. How can the young Mr. Abdullah do it?

 He can do it by being a ‘therapeutic populist’, a consensus building leader and an educator. It is by no means a stretch to posit that Kashmir and Kashmiris have suffered a lot since the past few decades. They are a ‘wounded people’-psychically and emotionally. This sense of hurt and grievance needs to be attended to. And it is only a leader with organic ties to Kashmir that can heal Kashmiris. Mr. Abdullah- the scion of the indomitable and the charismatic Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah- is potentially that kind of leader. All he needs to do is to connect to people in an idiom that they understand and appreciate in a manner that enables a transfer of allegiance from the late Sheikh Abdullah to him. Plebiscitary authority can then be vested in him. The power that could accrue from this would be immense and a case of transference would occur: people would project their aspirations and desires onto the personality of the young Mr. Abdullah. He could then follow it up by expanding and redefining his support base in a manner that coalesces the cleavages-political, economic and social- of Kashmiri society and makes them work together in harmony. The idiom that he employs to build this political class should be informed by the preferences and popular culture of Kashmir is and his goal should be the distribution of power to the people. This populist program should be enacted and pursued simultaneously by a project of what is called good governance, decentralization, direct democracy and administrative competence. The corollary to this should be activism on the centre state relations front where the young chief minister should educate centre about greater autonomy and its benefits.

A concerted effort along these lines could potentially transform the conflict dynamic in Kashmir and resolve the internal dimension of the conflict for good. Politics, to iterate the cliché, is an art of government involving authority and government while as administration is all about management and the rational bureaucratic method. It is about time that Mr, Abdullah disentangled the two and focuses on politics. Or merge them together in a fruitful symbiosis and synthesis and crystallize the current lull into lasting peace. Is he listening?