Reconciliation in Srinagar

The Prime Minister8217;s flying visit to Srinagar to pay his last respects to Begum Akbar Jehan in recognition of her valiant role in Kashmiri history was also a significant gesture of reconciliation towards her son, Farooq Abdullah. It served to underline at a personal level what has not been adequately conveyed in recent days at the political level, that the National Democratic Alliance8217;s political ally is held in high regard. That kind of reassurance was needed after the bruising message of the Union cabinet8217;s abrupt rejection of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly8217;s autonomy resolution but for one reason or another Atal Behari Vajpayee failed to give it. He has made up for the lapse now. It was a sound decision to go to Srinagar for the funeral accompanied by senior members of the cabinet and to visit Hazratbal, one of the holiest of Kashmiri shrines. Some gestures speak louder than words and these are bound to go down well with the people of Jamp;K.

The trip has also helped to break the impasse between the central government and the state government. The agreed July 15 meeting in New Delhi between Vajpayee and Abdullah is a positive development. It takes the steam out of the hotheads in the National Conference on the one side and the BJP and its allies on the other, who have been calling for the NC to quit the NDA. At this stage anything that arrests the slide towards the kind of breach in Centre-State relations that the exit of the NC would represent is welcome. Staying engaged is absolutely essential to manage political differences. However, more misunderstandings would result from treating the Delhi dialogue merely as a device to defuse a political crisis. The Centre should be aware that it is committing itself to a course of action on which many things hang, among them, popular expectations and the credibility of the NC and Abdullah, crucial elements in the present architecture of democracy in the state. If nothing very much can be achieved on July15 it should at the very least herald the start of a series of serious, structured discussions on the knotty autonomy issue.

In Srinagar Vajpayee made such an uncharacteristically convoluted statement on the Jamp;K resolution that it is bound to raise questions about how well-prepared he and the cabinet are to deal with this complex matter. To say the resolution was not rejected outright but was not accepted does not betray clarity of the highest order. It is a transparent attempt to sooth frazzled nerves in Jamp;K without giving anything away. Vajpayee and Abdullah are approaching the Delhi dialogue from diametrically opposite positions and it will take great wisdom, patience and goodwill to narrow the gap between them. So far Abdullah has appeared to be the more flexible of the two. However, he must be able to control party hardliners who appear to want to precipitate a crisis. Spokespersons for the NDA are making a pre-emptive bid to blur Article 370 by treating Jamp;K autonomy issues as not essentially different from the question of devolution of powers to other Indian states. This will not do. Surely, the starting point must beconstitutional commitments and what needs to be discussed is the degree of autonomy for Jamp;K that is in the best interests of the state and nation.