Background
CDR has been organising intra-region conferences on
Kashmir since 2003. In the state of Jammu and Kashmir, every region and
ethnic community has a grievance and suffers from a victimhood syndrome.
Many of these grievances are based on not just political but also social,
economic and administrative neglect over several decades. The CDR
conferences attempted to bridge the gulf between the regions, communities,
diverse political opinions and aspirations of people of the state. This
was the first initiative that brought the diverse groups from all of the
state’s regions into the dialogue process in order to discuss the
resolution of the Kashmir issue. Participants in the intra-region dialogue
were convinced that a common understanding had to evolve if they hoped to
resolve the Kashmir problem.
These dialogues not only provided insight into the depth
of people’s feelings across the three regions and different communities,
and their grievances and political differences, but also provided clues to
remedial steps that could be taken to bridge the gulf and reduce anger. As
people came together, shared their stories and listened to each other, it
became clear that these dialogues would play an important role in
developing deeper understanding and trust between diverse communities and
regions of the state. Any search for a sustainable solution for Jammu and
Kashmir would necessarily have to incorporate the hopes and aspirations of
all its peoples. While the gatherings encouraged people to express their
feelings and ideas, the final emphasis was on identifying factors that
would make a difference on the ground to improve the quality of life.
Participants also emphasised the need to reduce violence. Part of the
difficulty in tackling the violence in Jammu and Kashmir was that
different regions experienced the violence differently.
As participants began to have confidence in the group
sitting around the table, they began to come up with constructive,
practical suggestions and recommendations. These included the reopening of
all the old traditional internal routes, for instance, the Mughal road
connecting Poonch to Shopian and bus routes across the LoC between
Poonch-Rawalakot, Jhangar-Mirpur, Mendhar-Kotli, Jammu-Sialkot and
Skardu-Kargil, for travel and trade. The demand for reopening the
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road is, of course, several decades old. Ladakhis
wanted the Kailash-Mansarovar route between Ladakh and China to be
reopened. The reopening of these old routes would satisfy the aspirations
of divided families across an entire region who longed to meet their kin.
It would assuage their fears and anxieties and allow this trans-Himalayan
region to resume its cultural contiguity even as it improved economic
conditions through local trade.
Throughout 2004, participants in the intra-region dialogue
conferences expressed their desire to meet and discuss issues with their
counterparts across the LoC, in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. In January 2004
the leaders of Pakistan and India had launched the peace process at a
meeting held on the sidelines of the SAARC summit in Islamabad. This move
signalled that the two former adversaries were ready to become partners in
building peace between the two nations. The CDR’s dialogue conference
series ran parallel with this development.
In 2005 CDR launched its intra-Kashmir dialogue series
from Srinagar, which has enabled people from both sides of the LoC to meet
and discuss their political future. In the intervening years CDR has held
11 across-LoC dialogue conferences in different places, of which six were
held in Jammu and Kashmir and one in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
This Track II civil society dialogue process was well ahead of the
governments. As an outcome of these intra-Kashmir dialogue conferences, a
clear consensus, cutting across the political spectrum, began to emerge on
certain issues. These are:
Ø Violence is no more a tool for resolving the conflict.
Ø Fragmentation/division of the state should not be
allowed.
Ø The dialogue process must include people of all regions
and communities of the divided state. (This is already reflected in the
official peace process now.)
Ø The solution that evolves should be applicable to all
regions of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Ø The solution should be acceptable to all three parties –
people of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, Indians and Pakistanis.
Ø Kashmiris must be involved in the final decision-making
process and in deciding their own future. No solution should be thrust
upon them.
Ø There must be a ceasefire with the militants and the
honourable return of those stranded across the LoC.
Ø There must be an end to human rights violations and
calibrated reduction of security forces from civilian areas.
As the number of such gatherings and dialogues increased,
so did the participation of people from all regions and ethnic groups.
Participants carried the ideas that emerged during the conferences
throughout the divided state. They also held follow-up meetings and
discussions in their respective areas. Articles about issues discussed
during the intra-region dialogues and across-LoC intra-Kashmir dialogue
conferences have appeared in newspapers published from Jammu and Kashmir,
Azad Jammu and Kashmir, India and Pakistan. These have helped in building
support for the peace process and widening the peace constituency.
CDR has continuously brought to the notice of policymakers
in the government, issues that concern the stakeholders in all regions of
the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In some instances, it has succeeded in
getting government policies shaped to meet people’s specific needs and
aspirations. Such policy change was reflected in the Government of India’s
fresh proposals to Pakistan for the opening of travel and trade routes in
all three regions of the state. Some ideas have translated into confidence
building measures that are already in place: the opening of the
Poonch-Rawalakot route is a direct result of suggestions that arose during
CDR dialogues. Last year CDR also played a small part in expediting the
opening of trade routes between Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakot.
This went some way towards defusing tensions over the Amarnath issue.
However, the Amarnath crisis in the summer of 2008
threatened the consensus built on several issues and strained regional and
intercommunity relations that had been painstakingly built over a period
of time. Throughout the crisis and since then, during this past year, CDR
has worked to ensure that lines of communication were kept open with all
the participants in the CDR dialogues. Many of them played a constructive
role during this period.
Since the Amarnath crisis, and despite the massive turnout
in the assembly elections, it has been clear for some time that the
unresolved political issue of Jammu and Kashmir cannot be left
unaddressed. The pause in the Indo-Pak peace process, first due to the
political crisis in Pakistan and then following the Mumbai terror attack
last year, made Kashmiris very pessimistic about their future and unhappy
that they were being held hostage to Indo-Pak relations. New regional
developments also emphasised the need to engage the Kashmiris rather than
ignore them.
Srinagar conference
The recently held intra-Kashmir conference in Srinagar was
an attempt to bring people of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir
from both sides of the LoC together and to facilitate dialogue among them
to see how they wanted the dialogue process to go forward. The response
was indeed overwhelming.
Over 60 participants representing all communities and
regions of Jammu and Kashmir and Azad Jammu and Kashmir as well as India
and Pakistan participated in the conference held from October 9-11.
Representatives of different political parties and separatist groups,
members of trade bodies, the media, the legal profession, academics and
peace activists from Jammu and Kashmir and Azad Jammu and Kashmir had
rigorous discussions on various aspects concerning the resolution of the
Kashmir issue. The conference sessions were organised according to three
broad themes: a) What can help the dialogue process to move forward? b)
What confidence building measures can help in addressing the trust
deficit? c) How can economic cooperation across the LoC be expanded?
Not long after the Amarnath crisis had rocked the state
last year, trade across the LoC began in October 2008. One year later, the
value of goods traded so far is nearly 40 crore rupees. But despite this
expansion, trade is still conducted on a barter basis, without banking
facilities, proper infrastructure or telecommunication. As a result,
traders on both sides of the LoC are extremely unhappy. Last year CDR
played a small role in helping to expedite the opening of cross-LoC trade.
Since then it has worked very closely with members of the Jammu, Kashmir
and Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Furthering
this involvement, the cross-LoC trade issue was given special focus during
the conference.
At the conference the Working Group on Cross-LoC Trade
included members from the joint Federation of Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, set up last year during a visit by members of the
Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry to Jammu and
Kashmir. The group held that trade across the LoC has tremendous potential
not only to build up business prospects but also to contribute to a vast
constituency for peace and cooperation. Faced with constant obstacles,
cross-LoC trade has carried on against all odds and continues at a pace
that reflects the traders’ deep commitment to enhanced cross-LoC
cooperation. Thus the recommendations made by the working group are both
very practical and urgent in nature. Though traders and businessmen are
also working on a vision document aimed at generating a shared
understanding of the future prospects of trade and cooperation, at the
conference the group’s recommendations were limited to improving ongoing
cross-LoC trade.
The confidence building measures to promote travel and
trade across the LoC had a common goal, "making the LoC irrelevant" (as
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh formulated). Yet the shabby implementation
of these measures had devalued their importance and undermined the very
thing they were meant to achieve. Urgent steps were needed to strengthen
them. The conference urged both governments to ease travel restrictions
across the LoC and maintained that this should not be confined to divided
families alone as is the case today. The opening of telecommunication
links and all traditional routes for trade and travel on a priority basis,
development of tourism and sports potential, exchanges between the media,
educational institutions, artists and artisans, were recommended as
mechanisms for improving cooperation across the LoC.
The difficulties arising from the lack of
telecommunication links between Jammu and Kashmir and areas across the LoC
and in Pakistan were brought starkly home on the first day of the
conference when news of a suicide attack in his city reached a Pakistani
delegate from Peshawar. He was desperate for news of his wife and could
only get in touch with her via a relative in Dubai. Most Kashmiris shared
his anxieties, as they had known and suffered such moments themselves.
The Working Group on the Dialogue Process made two
different sets of recommendations on India-Pakistan and intra-Kashmir
dialogue. On the Delhi-Islamabad dialogue process, the group recommended:
1. There is a need for a focused, sustained and
uninterrupted dialogue process between India and Pakistan.
2. The peace process should not only be result-oriented
but time-oriented as well.
3. The dialogue should be multilayered.
4. In order to promote trust and confidence, different
civil society groups must work at different levels to reduce the trust
deficit.
5. The group strongly recommended that terrorism should be
delinked from the dialogue process and should not come in the way of its
immediate resumption. Further, the group also supported the Sharm
el-Sheikh statement in this regard.
6. The group condemned terrorism in all its forms and
manifestations, whether by state or non-state actors.
7. The back channel must be put on track.
8. Islamabad and New Delhi must constantly assess the
progress made in the peace process and take meaningful steps to move it
forward.
The group’s recommendations on the intra-Kashmir dialogue
process include:
1. A purposeful and focused dialogue process across and
within regions and subregions of Jammu and Kashmir must be carried
forward, considering conflicting opinions and positions on issues related
to the state.
2. The credibility of the dialogue process must be
ensured.
3. Different civil society groups i.e. lawyers, academics,
media persons, legislators and leaders of different political groups must
be involved in exchange programmes between and across regions.
4. Communications infrastructure must be set up, which is
important for deepening the peace process.
5. Soft institutions like universities and cultural
associations must open up branches for joint collaboration.
6. New Delhi should take immediate steps to resume the
dialogue process with all shades of political opinion in Jammu and
Kashmir.
The discussions in the plenary and smaller groups led to a
jointly accepted consensus statement that was released to the media. This
too was a significant achievement at this juncture, given the regional and
political diversity represented at the conference.
Support for the Sharm el-Sheikh statement reflected the
participants’ resolve to delink terrorism from the dialogue process
between India and Pakistan. Condemning terrorism in all its manifestations
and forms, whether by state or non-state actors, the participants urged
New Delhi to resume dialogue with all shades of political opinion in Jammu
and Kashmir.
Following the conference, some members of the trade
organisations held meetings amongst themselves in Srinagar and Jammu.
Similarly, discussions were also held with political leaders regarding the
continuation of the dialogue process. The conference received extensive
media coverage and succeeded in creating a positive environment conducive
to peace and dialogue.