The Quiet Statesman

When former prime minister Manmohan Singh visited Jammu and Kashmir in September 2017 as the head of a Congress delegation, he evoked some nostalgia about his tenure, a  period during which a solution to the Kashmir issue had seemed within reach. Singh went about his activities in his familiar inconspicuous way. He chose to only listen and not issue any statement, nor talk to the media. But he struck a chord as a throwback to a time when centre apparently tried to be sensitive if not accommodative  towards the issues facing J&K.

Singh’s ten years at the helm – 2004-2014 – had witnessed the most promising peace process between India and Pakistan which had nearly culminated in a resolution  of Kashmir.  At one point of time as the Kashmir solution seemed close at hand, Singh had famously talked of a time when people in India would be able to have “breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul”.

There was some public criticism of Dr Singh too. Some people argued that despite making attempts and starting many initiatives on internal and external fronts to resolve Kashmir, Singh had baulked at taking these to their logical conclusion. Besides holding substantive negotiations with Pakistan over the then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s four point formula for Kashmir resolution, Singh had also set up five working groups and the three-member group of interlocutors to evolve a comprehensive response to the then state’s problems but  none of their recommendations was followed through. 

Now that Dr. Singh is no more, his passing marks not just the loss of a former prime minister but also the end of an era and a missed opportunity—one that, if seized, could have reshaped the history of Kashmir and the subcontinent. We can only look back wistfully at what seemed so close at hand but couldn’t be accomplished.  

In his book, ‘In Pursuit of Peace,’ the late Indian diplomat S K Lambah provides a comprehensive account of the behind-the-scenes efforts led by Singh and his then Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf to secure peace between India and Pakistan by resolving Kashmir. The “accord” being worked out between the two countries on Kashmir  aimed to make borders irrelevant without redrawing them, with key elements such as bus services between two parts of Kashmir already in play during Singh’s tenure. 

Lambah’s book also highlights the possibilities for peace that presented themselves over the past quarter century, including the Delhi-Lahore bus service that began in 1999, the visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Islamabad in 2004, General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to India in 2005, and the near-reopening of consulates in Mumbai and Karachi, among others. 

Earlier, another  book on the Singh-Musharraf’s Kashmir initiative by the then Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri, ‘Neither Hawk, Nor Dove’  also provided a detailed account of the ambitious transformation underway at the time.   

Kasuri writes that by the time Musharraf was ousted from office, Pakistan and India had made progress on the last of the contentious points of his four point settlement formula for Kashmir which had brought the two countries tantalizingly close to a solution. This was about creating a joint consultative mechanism between the divided parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The two countries had agreed that such a mechanism would consist of a specified number of elected members from each of the two units. There was also an agreement on “the principle of the presence of Pakistanis and Indians” in this mechanism. What was still under discussion was “the manner of the presence and association” of the two countries with the arrangement. 

However, the current state of affairs is far from promising, with no direct flights, hardly any visas issued, and no bus or train services between the two countries. As Lambah noted in his book, India-Pakistan hostilities have become an instrument of political mobilization and that the painful memories of partition are being revived. He pointed out that hate is the guiding political philosophy of both countries today, and as long as this remains the case, no channel, front or back, will work.

The situation has considerably transformed since, and in almost every sense: regionally in terms of the growing power disparity between India and Pakistan, and in J&K too, which has since been divested of its special status and downgraded into two federally controlled units, in other words, two union territories. This, in turn, has altered the complexion of the Kashmir issue as we understood it. 

And if at all the two countries return to dialogue in the near or medium future, it seems hardly probable that they will revisit the Four Point Proposals. But should the two countries choose to go back to them as a broader framework for settlement,  they will need to adapt it to the new reality, But again, getting to that point won’t be easy.

Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer 

Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now

MONTHLY	Rs 100
YEARLY	Rs 1000
LIFETIME	Rs 10000

CLICK FOR DETAILS