Re-imagining Kashmir

The meeting between the Kashmiri Pandits Coordination Committee and the Hurriyat Conference marks an important step in the process of reconciliation in the Kashmir Valley. The Pandits were marginalised many times over: targeted by the militants, unprotected by the state, and used as pawns in politics, their plight symbolised so much of what went wrong in Kashmir. The process of reintegrating them into the mainstream of Kashmir is long overdue. Rapprochement between the Hurriyat and the Pandits will also enable Kashmiris to once again re-imagine what they once possessed: a vision of a multi religious Kashmir.

Both the Hurriyat and the Pandits were candid enough to recognise that the international dimensions of the Kashmir problem are changing. The peace process between India and Pakistan has contributed a good deal to this rapprochement. It is also important that the process of reconciliation should not always be mediated through the state. Instead it should be based on direct contacts and linkages between different groups.

Of course, the legacy of bitterness still runs deep and there are hardliners, both amongst the Hurriyat and the Pandits, who would prefer this dialogue not to proceed further. Cynics may charge that the Hurriyat is trying to create a political space for itself, after being ignored by the Indian state. But this charge misses the point. If reconciliation with the Pandits, and a commitment to help them get back to Kashmir is now part of Hurriyat’s strategy, this is all for the good. The scars of conflict in Kashmir run deep, but if the Pandits can repossess at least some of what was rightly theirs, we can be confident that there is hope for Kashmir.