The Kashmir Hurriyat leaders’ talks with Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani represent a new initiative to break the ice with the Hurriyat representing the separatist sentiments in the Kashmir Valley. This is an exercise in engagement that moves along a parallel course as the process of normalization of relations between India and Pakistan goes apace. Most analysts of the Kashmir scene would agree that this is an opportunity that could be a major step towards restoring normalcy in the State.

When the Centre appointed NN Vohra as its main interlocutor a couple of years ago, the Hurriyat leaders had declined to respond on the ground that they were not keen to talk to official intermediaries, and wished to talk only with senior political leaders. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s decision to nominate Deputy Prime Minister Advani for conducting the dialogue on behalf of the Central government removes the deadlock.

For the Hurriyat leaders, New Delhi’s invitation comes at a particularly significant juncture. The Hurriyat conglomerate, comprising nearly two dozen radical Kashmiri groups and parties, has been beset with internal dissensions. Over the past few months its former President and head of the fundamentalist Jamait Islami, Ali Shah Geelani, has been up in arms against the present leadership. Geelani, who has all along toed an openly pro-Islamist and a pro-Pakistan line, was averse to be seen as functioning under the leadership of the relatively junior (and moderate) Maulvi Abbas Ansari. The fact that Ansari represents the minority Shia community does not make it any better.  The differences, once these came into the open, led to a schism which ended with Geelani announcing the formation of a parallel Hurriyat outfit of his own. The battle lines were thus drawn between Geelani and the rest. Geelani, expectedly, has been trying to run down the talks as a meaningless exercise.

Given this context, the Deputy Prime Minister’s invitation comes at a time when the main Hurriyat faction led by Abbas Ansari has been under pressure from Geelani and company. There are two ways in which this pressure can operate. The Ansari group could feel spurred by the taunting language often used by Geelani to mock the moderates and strike difficult and uncompromising postures just to prove that the Hurriyat minus Geelani has not given up any of its past stridency. In such an event, the New Delhi talks could end up as one more reiteration of known positions. On the other hand, if the Hurriyat leaders decide to seize the opportunity and respond with new ideas and imagination, they might be able to find the path to an eventual resolution. Such a breakthrough presupposes a willingness to leave behind the past and come up with innovative ideas on both sides.

However, Ansari’s statement prior to the group’s departure from Srinagar that the Hurriyat would insist on permission to travel to Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir does not sound encouraging. He even suggested that the talks might not progress any further if such permission was not forthcoming. For one thing, such insistence would appear like laying down a precondition when the two sides are supposed to engage in a dialogue without any preconditions. Second, New Delhi’s premise behind the initiative has been that its dialogue with the Kashmiri leaders was an exercise with a group of Indian citizens and it was independent of its confidence building measures with Pakistan. In other words, New Delhi talks were not to be viewed as prelude to a trilateral engagement. It would be unwise for the Central government to alter that position.

The most charitable view of Ansari’s statement may be that it was meant mainly for effect and did not represent a hardening of positions. In order to avoid inflexible positions it is important that the Hurriyat’s dialogue with the Centre should be held away from the media glare.  The Beg Parthasarthy talks, which eventually led to an accord signed between Sheikh Abdullah and Mrs Gandhi  were concluded after   four years of intermittent confabulations. The talks were also conducted away from day to day media reporting. There is a lesson to be learnt from that experience. The two sides need to appreciate that the talks, by the very nature of the complexity of the issues involved, would have to be a prolonged exercise. It would be unavailing if this opportunity were to be used to rush to conclusions or to score brownie points either way.

Further, the Prime Minister’s move to engage the Hurriyat leaders in a dialogue should form part of a comprehensive exercise involving all segments of opinion in the State. This is important for two reasons. A durable solution to the issues must involve all the ethnic and other entities that comprise the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Secondly, Hurriyat leaders have tended to strike larger than life postures by presuming to speak on behalf of all sections of the State’s population. That does not square up with the situation on the ground. A comprehensive dialogue process should also help put the role of the Hurriyat leaders, who represent just one segment of opinion in the Valley, in its correct perspective.