Kashmir & Pakistan are separate issues

It is a positive sign that New Delhi is treating its current approach and stance towards Pakistan on a different footing from its revised position in relation to Kashmir. Whether this amounts to a new- and no-nonsense-chapter in India’s policy towards Pakistan will become clear as we learn in coming days of the nature and tenor of the effort this country mounts on the Balochistan question and push the envelope on insisting that Pakistan vacate Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). It will be interesting to see how the government’s idea of inviting guests from PoK for the Pravasi Bharatiya programme in January 2017 plays out.

The letter sent by foreign secretary S. Jaishankar to his Pakistani counterpart on Thursday does not stop at calling Pakistan the “prime perpetrator” of terrorism in the region, thereby affecting regional peace and stability.

It also makes the strong suggestion that India-Pakistan relations can progress only when Islamabad ceases to be in denial about its role in giving sanctuary to terrorists, promoting cross-border terrorism and meddling in India’s internal affairs.

New Delhi has said that it seeks a “result-oriented” (a phrase Islamabad usually throws at India in the Kashmir context) discourse on Islamabad vacating PoK. India has consistently reminded Pakistan and the world, including through a Parliament resolution of 1994 that PoK is part of the territory of J&K which acceded to India in 1947.

These are pointers that India-Pakistan relations are likely to be in a long freeze. It has now been officially announced that finance minister Arun Jaitley will not be visiting Pakistan for pre-summit discussions between Saarc finance ministers. Islamabad is hosting the summit in November.

New Delhi made it quite clear that Islamabad showed no inclination to discuss the Kashmir issue in its various aspects when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Rajnath Singh visited that country in the recent past.

Kashmir leaders generally desire calming of rhetoric and resumption of peace-oriented talks with Pakistan because they are direct victims of terrorism exported from Pakistan, but by now chief minister Mehbooba Mufti appears to be backing the government’s strategy as regards both Pakistan and Kashmir, and treating the two as separate.

After her first meeting with the Prime Minister on Saturday since the start of the violence in the Valley in early July, the CM urged talks even with the separatists, and squarely blamed Pakistan for the continuing troubles. As Kashmir gets ready to receive an all-party delegation in a few days, Ms Mufti reiterated in Delhi what she has been saying in Kashmir that only five per cent of people in the Valley were involved in instigating unrest which had taken so many lives and the overwhelming majority wanted to lead their lives in a tranquil atmosphere.