Borderline headline

Things are slipping in the Northeast. The Centre needs to build a larger team and back it with political clout. However, the larger Pakistan issue is a little more complex.

Representational image of Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir | PTI File photo

Isn’t it funny, and happily so, how much economics dominates our political thought processes these days compared to, say, a couple of years ago when all we worried over constantly was tackling terrorism and avoiding a full-scale war? Since Vajpayee’s April 2003 turnaround in Srinagar we have seen that mood change dramatically. But now it has begun to seem sometimes that we may have over-corrected. We may indeed be in danger of slipping into complacence.

The past three weeks have seen a marked rise in terror attacks in the Valley. The J&K chief minister and his deputy have been attacked thrice and the seriousness of these is evident from the fact that each one claimed some lives though the main targets were, mercifully, unhurt. Now there has been an attack on Dal Lake, the frequency of encounters on the LoC has increased and, what is most worrying of all, political rhetoric of even the middleground is growing murkier by the day.

Similarly, things are slipping in the Northeast. Manipur is worse than it has been in decades. Anarchy of the kind that prevails today I do not even recall from my days as a frequent traveller there, reporting the insurgency in the early eighties when four mountain brigades of the army were involved in the fighting. Then, at least, it was between the underground and the state. Now, the underground may be weaker, but disaffection has burst out on the streets, the state government has no credibility or control, the armed forces do not know who to shoot at and the Union home ministry, you would presume, is still so busy drafting the repeal of POTA it has no time for such distraction. The promise that the early success of the operations against ULFA had held out is now fading as the policy seems to have lost momentum and direction. Talks with NSCN have, mercifully, been resumed and not junked in the confusion. A settlement with the NSCN is the key to permanent peace and stability in the Northeast. In more ways than one, the NSCN is the only fully functional insurgent group in the Northeast with a strong presence in the neighbouring Burmese districts and no other group, including ULFA, will survive once the NSCN joins the political mainstream.

It is also an indicator of how economics holds sway over politics these days that the new government’s attention has remained so focussed on areas where it has significant differences with its Left partners than issues of national security where there is much great convergence.

For example, any positive movement or initiative vis-a-vis Pakistan, or any of our own separatist groups, is unlikely to bring just approval and appreciation of the Left allies. It will also help strengthen the feeling that the UPA government is moving forward instead of stalling, as it would inevitably be seen to do on economic issues. Yet, why do we see the confusion on Kashmir? The NDA initiative with Hurriyat seems to be definitely floundering. If you follow reports from the Valley, particularly from this newspaper’s formidable team of reporters there, led by Muzamil Jaleel, whose word is taken seriously by all sides, the old disillusionment is also returning within the state’s politics and administration. Seeing internal initiatives lose their way as hopelessly as the monsoon in the north, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has sometimes began to speak the language of the Hurriyat which, in turn, is veering away from the middleground.

This is particularly dangerous because it has now begun to undermine India’s greatest achievement in the Valley in a long, long time ‘ the election of 2002 and the installation of the Mufti government with Congress support. The election was a remarkable moment of glory for our democratic process. While the BJP buried its old prejudices and insecurities to allow a free election, the election commission under J.M. Lyngdoh made one possible, and then Sonia Gandhi showed that rarest of rare phenomenon in our politics ‘ a big heart ‘ in letting the Mufti and his PDP run it. It had seemed all this while that all parties had decided that this issue was so important they needed to rise above partisan politics. Is that changing now, with the Congress in power in New Delhi? Has this confused both ‘ its leaders in the Valley who may be smelling fresh opportunities and ambitions, and its interlocutors in Delhi?

The prime minister has a point when he says his government has been around for just over 60 days and was far too preoccupied with building a coalition, working on a CMP, then a budget and going through the Parliament session, to focus on all these issues. But there is no time to lose now. He has to tell his home minister to take Manipur and the Northeast more seriously and work on a long-term strategy. The home ministry needs to hand pick civil servants and intelligence veterans with experience on the Northeast to bring focus back on a region which has been on the mend and may, therefore, have suffered from complacent neglect. The ascent of Ajit Doval, as the head of the Intelligence Bureau is, in that sense, a positive move. He is an old Northeast hand, and has run the IB operations in both Mizoram (at the peak of the insurgency) and Sikkim (in the phase when the Chogyal had died) and earned both goodwill and awe. But the Centre needs to build a larger Northeast team and back it with political clout.

The larger Pakistan issue is a little more complex. It is believed to be the prime minister’s and his team’s view that while the Vajpayee government achieved the mercurial feat of making a 180-degree turnaround from “aar-paar ki ladaiyi” (the final war) to peaceful negotiations, it did not quite have a road map as to where the process was headed, and how. Probably that is because the Vajpayee team was so sure of returning to power it believed it could pick up the thread in its next innings, just as Indian batsmen are typically wont to do. But it has to put heads together now and draw up a road map. The fact that a negotiation process is on, is by itself a beginning for a new government. That the last one did not leave behind a road map should not become an excuse to lose momentum now.

There is urgency because, as often happens in the interlinked destinies of the two nations, political clocks in India and Pakistan are ticking in contrary directions. Just as a new coalition finds its feet and stabilises in India, the peculiar Pakistani set-up under General Musharraf is headed for a bit of tension in the months to come. His replacement of Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali with Shaukat Aziz does not quite buy him the safe space he needs so he could shed his uniform in December. You’d now bet that he won’t and that might just be the trigger Pakistan awaits for the demon called politics to break free of the military’s shackles. Already traditional politicians have become more vocal. Benazir is striking up alliances. Nawaz Sharif defied the gag order to even speak with Indian journalists. Several Pakistani politicians, now sidelined by Musharraf’s peculiar democracy, have even been spotted at the presidential election convention in the USA. Why are they there if not to network and seek support post-December?

The UPA government and PMO are not short of wisdom on these issues. Nor do they lack the talent to confect a new approach. The problem is, finding the focus and giving it the right political priority. Maybe the end of the budget session will see some of that.

Postscript: Not only is Nawaz Sharif speaking to the media attacking the general, he has even written letters to his old political acquaintances in India, notably to I.K. Gujral, praising India’s democracy and its record of the peaceful transfer of power. The sub-text is, do not count me out. You might just see an interesting 2005 in Pakistan.