Every major initiative needs a catchphrase - a ready slogan to steady and focus the protagonists in times of confusion, as it were. Such a juncture presented itself somewhat prematurely this week, when the compulsive choreographers of death and division effected the most wicked massacres across Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday night, even before the peace talks between New Delhi and the Hizbul Mujahideen could get underway. It is a juncture that was apprehended, but surely not so soon.Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has sagely and maturely risen to the occasion to provide that critical steadying hand to stop the emerging consensus on the Kashmir peace initiative from unravelling. Let insaniyat, not necessarily the Constitution, provide the framework for the talks, he said on Thursday. Well said. In one pithy sentence, he has wisely and hopefully, conclusively put an end to a self-limiting semantic debate on whether the negotiations with Kashmiri leaders would be held within the purview of the Constitution, or not.In the process, the prime minister has given unto himself and his nation a much needed touchstone by which to assess potholes and smooth stretches alike in the long, winding road ahead. Insaniyat it must be. Insaniyat it is that dictates that New Delhi make critical distinctions when tragedies like Pahalgam leave all observers stunned and benumbed. A distinction that has been well made. Talks with Pakistan, it has been argued, are conditional upon that country openly condemning the killings of innocent people in Jammu and Kashmir. Yet, talks with a vast cross-section of the alienated Kashmiri population must continue unhindered. This domestication of a dialogue with separatist Kashmiri leaders is the signal achievement of this millennium year. It may not be clear where the current dialogue with the Hizbul Mujahideen will end, whether it is a shot in the dark for both sides or whether it will gradually illuminate the tunnel; but what is evident is that a process has begun. A process whose dynamics are stillemerging.It will require dollops of insaniyat to give meaning and substance to this process. This requisite empathy must come not just from emissaries of the government and Kashmiri groups, but also from the nation's political and chattering classes. It is evident that not only has Vajpayee comprehensively appropriated the mantle of the elderly statesman guiding India's destiny, but that it is only he, in conjunction with his party, who can construct a strong enough consensus to arrive at a political settlement of the Kashmir tangle. Political pointscoring a legitimate pursuit of any party, whether in power or in opposition too must be put through the insaniyat test; under no circumstances must political exchanges endanger a process that could deliver us from a decade-long vicious circle of terrorism and counter-terrorism armed activity. Indeed, why just Jammu and Kashmir; insaniyat must inform all of this country's endeavours.
