Hurriyat-Advani talks: A framework

BACK TO BASICS

The first meeting between the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and the Deputy Prime Minister, L K Advani will be held today. Irrespective of the outcome of the meeting, it is a significant move towards resolution of the long-standing Kashmir issue and restoration of normalcy in the state.

It will be juvenile to expect a breakthrough or a big bang announcement after the meeting. The issue is too complex and its history too tortured for the two parties to be able to make any major headway.

At best, the meeting can be the start of a process, which if handled well by both sides, could result in a framework for solution. The goal in the first series of meetings should be to breed 'mental antibodies' that would prevent the two parties from taking any imprudent decisions. Success in such cases has most often resulted from a series of trade-offs and self-restraints.

There is bound to be a great temptation to announce road maps or work out a model for resolution. In reality, road maps prejudge the issue and models make a mockery of the specificity of the issue.

It is best to use the collective wisdom and first deliberate upon a framework for a solution rather than try to seek a solution. What is needed is a contextual framework within which the issue can be placed and the contours of the solution worked out.

The core issue "" simple and stark "" is the contention of the Hurriyat (and for that matter of all secessionist groups) that the Kashmir issue is an ethno-national one. On the basis of ethno-nationalism, they are making an ethno-territorial demand. In the past, this demand has taken two forms "" one is an independent nation-state and the other a merger with Pakistan. (Incidentally, it is this which is the reason for the split in the Hurriyat).

While Kashmiris have historically had a heightened sense of ethnic specificity, in the late 1980s and 1990s the ethnicity got politicised. This was to a large extent fuelled by the fact that J&K, in a definitional sense, is a 'failed state'.

That failure did catalyse a number of forces that brought about a shift in individuals' primary political identification, from membership in an associative civil state to membership in a particular ethnic or religious nation. The turning point was 1989.

Most political analysts, as well as politicians at the national level, do recognise the ethno-nationalism of the Kashmiris. However, for very obvious reasons, they differ from the Hurriyat and other advocates of independence in not accepting the ethno-territorial demand.

Indeed, P V Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister acknowledged the ethno-national basis of the Kashmir issue aspects, but stopped short of acceding to the ethno-territoral demand. For him 'the sky was the limit for autonomy'. Indeed, the special status of J&K in the Indian federation is in implicit recognition of this fact.

Given this, today, on one side of the table we have the view that ethno-nationalism is entitled to a nation state; on the other side the view is that ethnicity can be retained without a nation state. To get the two stands to move broadly in one direction, what is needed is a framework that is based on the 'de-statisation' of ethnicity and the 'de-ethnicisation' of statehood. In other words, decoupling the concept of the state from that of ethnicity.

In operational terms, the first step to do this could be to agree to the setting up of an independent Constitutional Review Commission. The members of this should be a set of mutually agreed Indian jurists. The terms of reference of the Commission could be to review all laws that have been made applicable to the J&K state after November, 1956 "" that is when the constituent Assembly of J&K was dissolved.

The laws could, on the basis of their constitutional validity in terms of the Constitution of India and the constitution of J&K, be classified into two groups; unconstitutional and constitutional application to the state.

Having done this, a joint political group can be set up. The objective of this group should be to reverse the betrayal of the Kashmir electorate, a breach of fundamental constitutional convention, and a recrudescence of Kashmir nationalism. They could cross-classify the constitutional and unconstitutional applications as laws that have constrained/impaired the functioning of the civil society of J&K and those which have benefited governance and strengthened the institutions of the civil society.

On the basis of this exercise, all laws extended to the state after 1956, would be classified into four broad categories. Then the process of engagement and disengagement can start. If it is agreed that there are laws whose application to the state are not only unconstitutional but have also impaired the functioning of the civil society and autonomous governance, these can be scrapped.

The result would be that at the start of the process, the system would have been cleansed, moved back in time and some sovereignty would have been restored to J&K. All of this would have been within the Constitution of India. It would also change political arrangements backed by an institutional change. That is critical for any set up to be sustainable.

In other words, it is a win-win situation for all. This is needed at least in the first round of talks, if the talks have to go on. Neither side can, at least in the first round, be seen as having yielded to the other.

haseebd@business-standard.com