Click to play videoAfter days of unrest, Jammu and Kashmir was peaceful on Tuesday. But the peace is deceptive. For the first time in over a decade, separatist slogans are being openly shouted out in Srinagar.
A dispute whether land should be given or not to the Amarnath Shrine Board has now become a full fledged crisis about the future of Kashmir in India. On Tuesday, Kashmir was peaceful as people resumed normal life. There were lines outside ATMs as markets opened and heavy traffic on the road. But Jammu continues to simmer, rocked by protests.
"Jeeve Jeeve Pakistan. Bharat teri maut aye," ("Long live Pakistan, death to India,") ranted over five lakh people who marched to the United Nations office in Srinagar and shouted these slogans.
Meanwhile, the Government looks helpless and Kashmir is drifting dangerously away from India. Is Kashmir only a matter of time? Is it time to hand out a separate status to the Valley on a platter?
CNN-IBN asked that question on its show Face the Nation. On the panel of experts, to debate the question were PDP President Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed; BJP Spokesperson, Arun Jaitley; and National Spokesperson for the Congress Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
Time For Plebiscite?
BJP has been saying that the ongoing crisis in J-K is a dispute between the separatists and the nationalists. But eminent writers like Arundhati Roy have been saying that Kashmir needs azadi (freedom), columnists like Vir Singhvi and Swaminathan Aiyyar have been saying India cannot continue holding Kashmir by force, that there should be a referendum, a plebiscite.
Arun Jaitley outrightly rejected the idea of a plebiscite. He stated that India can do without Arundhati Roy but cannot cut Kashmir away from it.
"The point simply is that you had a certain set of wrong policies which culminated into a situation where the whole movement which started for a separate status in 1950. Its journey has been towards separatism. But I think even today, any country worth its salt is going to allow its territory to be compromised with and India shall not under any circumstances compromise with its territory," he stated.
It's true that the space for the nationalist forces, the national mainstream parties in Kashmir has been narrowed down in the last few weeks. But that is a recent phenomenon. There was a phenomenon a few weeks ago where the stakes were larger but the wrong policies of the government have narrowed down that playing area.
Not calling Arundhati Roy or Vir Singhvi anti-national, Jaitley said that countries are nor governed by the views of writers who write in a flow of the movement but run by governments that want to hold the country together at all costs.
"Those who have no stake in running the system are free to express their opinions in this democracy, but their views will find few takers in the society," he said.
Separatist Slant
Experts questioned the outright separatist slogans like 'Long Live Pakistan' and 'Death to India, 'here comes the Lashkar' that protestors shouted in the march to the UN office in Srinagar on Tuesday.
They felt that leaders like Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed should have voiced caution.
However, she shot back at all experts saying, "You cannot wish away the situation in Kashmir. You need to have a dialogue and find a solution to the Kashmir problem. The process was started by Atal Behari Vajpayee who had two rounds of dialogues with Hurriyat leaders. Many confidence-building measures were taken forward but unfortunately, in the last three years all that came to a standstill."
Her argument was that with economic blockade of the Valley by BJP, the Kashmiris have been totally alienated from the rest of India.
With the chants of azadi louder than ever in the Valley, is it time to resort to a plebiscite? Jaitley rejected the idea again.
"It was an original Nehruvian mistake committed more than 55-60 years ago. We paid a heavy price for it and there is no reason why we must repeat the folly," he stated.
Is There A Solution
Jaitley believed that normalcy must return to the Valley as early as possible. Freedom is but a pipedream, not even a distant reality, but a total impossibility. India must not and will not compromise its territorial hold, what is needed is a dialogue with parties and the strengthening the nationalist parties.
Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed argued that the separatist protestors were not violent in any manner. They were going about peacefully and were not armed at all. That was in stark contrast to Congress workers, she pointed out. "The Congress party workers are too scared to celebrate Independence day in the Valley and were wandering about with tridents and swords with the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti in Jammu," she said.
"Yes we are for the resolution just as we are all for the self-rule, we want the opening of roads and reduction of troops. We are all for the double currency and joint mechanism to seek solution to the Kashmir stand-off, and we stand by it in Srinagar, New Delhi, in Jammu and even in Islamabad," she added.
Experts opined that PDP was demanding an entire package minus 'total separation' or azadi as they called it. The question is, is Mehbooba Mufti against a totally independent status for Kashmir?
"You have to evolve a solution. Even the separatists, one section was calling for asking for Pakistan, another was demanding 'azadi'. You need to have a dialogue and a consensus," said the PDP President.
Jaitley on his part refused to accept that it was a communal rhetoric where BJP activists shouted Bharat mata ki jai (victory to Mother India) and ran amok with trishuls in hand.
"For 50 days of the agitation in Jammu, two agitators have committed suicide, three-four others have died in the police and army firing. The Jammu agitators have not gone and killed anybody, let us not exaggerate. People have been killed and pushed out of the Valley. Five lakh Kashmiri Pandits and Sikhs who have been pushed out of the Valley. So let us not talk of which region is peaceful and which is not," countered Jaitley.
"Dialogue cannot be on the conditions of dual sovereignty or of India bartering away its territory. Any solution will have to be within the framework of the Indian Constitution," he further insisted.
The Union Government's Take
Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the BJP has unwittingly pushed the cause of separatism by its radical talks and helped the separatists achieve what Pakistan could not in the last two decades.
He also blamed Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP of engaging in a rhetoric in the Valley, insisting that all they did while in power in the state was right and once they were out, they turned agitators.
The blame game is on, say experts. The BJP blames the Congress and separatists; the PDP blames the Congress and the BJP, while the Congress puts the onus on both - the BJP and the PDP.
While the BJP feels that the referendum will be an extreme step to take, there is still a faction in the mainstream India which feels the people of Kashmir should be allowed to have a say and express their will.
SMS/Web Poll: J&K crisis: Is azadi the idea whose time has come?
Yes: 59 - per cent
No: 41 - per cent
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