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| Process must go on | | | It is indeed encouraging that both New Delhi and Kashmiri separatists are willing to take forward the peace process despite sabotages and warnings from the hawks –including militants and hardliners who are hell bent vitiate the process. Commitments coming from both sides after attack on moderate separatist leader Fazul Haq Qureshi are promising. Qureshi’s condition is stated to be serious and we hope he pulls through to return to his political moorings. He had identified in recent times with the moderate Hurriyat section led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Unlike certain other separatist leaders, he is not a product of the militant movement that rose to its peak in 1989, and he never dealt in the currency of armed warfare. His antecedents as an ideologue of Kashmiri identity go back to 1972, but he never took arms training or went to Pakistani camps to establish his bonafides. A simple living, gentle, figure, he was known as the "dervish" who shunned the lure of money and government security. This made him an oddity in Kashmir’s political environment. The idea of dialogue between Kashmiri separatists and New Delhi had received a setback in the aftermath of the Lone assassination seven years ago. It remains to be seen if the attempt on Mr Haq’s life will push to the background home minister P. Chidambaram’s efforts at "quiet diplomacy" with all sections in Kashmir that favour the political approach. What is noteworthy about Mr Haq is that even after the targeted killing of Mr Lone by pro-Pakistan gunmen who opposed talks with New Delhi, he was deeply involved in arranging talks between the Majid Dar faction of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Kashmir’s homegrown terrorist group which carried clout those days, and the Vajpayee government. On that occasion, it was Mr Dar who paid the price with his life when assassins of the rival HM faction attacked him in his own home. After that tragic episode, the idea of a serious conversation with New Delhi went to sleep. After a long hiatus, Mr Chidambaram’s idea of "quiet diplomacy" has reportedly aroused considerable interest in the Valley. But it is not clear if any of the present groups or leading individuals would be intrepid enough, as Mr Haq had been once, to forge ahead with the idea of autonomous interaction with New Delhi in the absence of Pakistani approval. This is a factor that the government would be obliged to contend with. In recent days, statements from Pakistan have tended to throw cold water over the idea of talks between Kashmir’s politicians and New Delhi. A recent observation of Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi harking back to UN resolutions of the late 1940s — which are technically infructuous now — has been noted in political circles in the Valley. The inference is clear: Pakistan wants to be at the table with India with only a minimal role for Kashmiri political articulation, if at all. This, of course, flies in the face of Mr Chidambaram’s efforts. Other than Pakistan’s discomfiture with the present Kashmir dialogue, it is not only the pro-Pakistan group of Tehreek-e-Huriyat leader Ali Shah Geelani in the Valley that opposes the dialogue. The Shabir Shah faction, technically a part of the Mirwaiz-led Hurriyat, is also hostile. This raises the level of complexity in an atmosphere into which political violence has once again been introduced.
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