Peace, not ceasefire

In fact, Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s poll boycott looked absurd. He was alone even in the separatist camp and the moderates had decided not to run an anti-election campaign. Still half a year away, the elections had become a popular topic everywhere. Unlike the 1996 and 2002 polls, the discussion was not about voter turnout but instead intricate analyses of the anticipated contests. Everything was going according to plan: the Centre had stopped mentioning the separatist leadership even occasionally. The peace process now revolved around government-sponsored working groups alone. Kashmir had even shifted away from the larger Indo-Pak discourse where the new Pak leadership had publicly abandoned the centrality of Kashmir to Islamabad’s relationship with New Delhi.

Suddenly, the situation in Kashmir was reminiscent of the turbulent ’90s. Interestingly, those protesting were not divided by class, ideology or party affiliation: they were just very angry young people. The stone-pelting, slogan-shouting first ranks were formed of young men between 15 and 25. Even larger protests — some of 50,000 people — took place in remote rural areas that had been quiet for years, including in places with a traditionally close relationship with the army.

What happened might be surprising, but not really unexpected. Everyone was positive about the situation on the ground: New Delhi, Pakistan and the state government. The moderate agenda of the Hurriyat and that of the PDP were beginning to overlap; the Congress was obsessed with “development”, and the 2008 polls were expected to provide closure. Moderate separatists had lost much relevance, waiting indefinitely for the invitation to a second round of talks after the big photo-op. The mistake lay in assuming that the declining credibility of the separatist leadership implied a decline in separatist sentiment as well.

... contd.