Modi climbdown

It was quite a climbdown for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to agree to hold negotiations with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. The move is a welcome gesture so long as it helps lower simmering tensions in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the appointment of the interlocutor — a former director of India’s Intelligence Bureau — has generated its share of controversy as well. Given that the problem in the Valley is a political one, most observers feel that the interlocutor (Dineshwar Sharma) is not well versed enough in diplomatic and political negotiations to resolve protracted disputes as New Delhi’s special representative. The appointments also shows that Modi is willing to look at Kashmir through the prism of security only. Still Modi’s government says it will give Sharma a free hand to decide who to engage with and there would be no political interference whatsoever. But the question on most people’s minds is, “can Sharma be expected to understand the legitimate aspirations of the people in Jammu and Kashmir and that too as a government representative?” Modi has shown no such inclination judging from the fact that his government had avoided all kinds of interaction and dialogue so far on the decades-long insurgency in the region.

It is clear that New Delhi is hoping that Sharma can reach out to Kashmiri youth or a whole cross section of them and communicate the stance of the state government and the centre.


New Delhi’s haste in naming its interlocutor for dialogue with the Hurriyat indicates that Modi is more interested in showing to the world his keenness to bring down Kashmir tensions than actually doing so. And this only because Delhi is finally convinced that the use of brutal force to suppress Kashmiris’ demands for greater autonomy will not work. To resolve the issue in the long term, New Delhi needs to take various stakeholders, including Pakistan, into confidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2017.