MANTLE PASSES: The NC is banking on Omar's clean image

Omar Abdullah is a suave, forceful and articulate person. These skills were evident when India's youthful minister of state for external affairs communicated the country's concerns on cross-border terrorism by Pakistan to the international community in the past year. He is also a skilful negotiator. Last week, with his Chief Minister father Farooq Abdullah in tow, Omar visited important addresses in Delhi, including 7 Race Course Road, to work out a swap deal. As newly elected president of the National Conference (NC), he moves to Srinagar to take over as chief minister while Farooq gets a plum cabinet post.

The Nation

INTERVIEW: SHABBIR SHAH "If Delhi wants an ad-hoc CM, it might as well continue with Farooq" JKDFP chief Shabbir Shah is emerging as a rallying point for moderate separatists in the Kashmir Valley. He says he is responding to Delhi's overtures simply for the sake of peace in South Asia. Excerpts from an interview with Special Correspondent lakshmi iyer: Q. Why are you insisting on a dialogue before polls? A. I am not against elections but participating in the elections cannot be a precondition to a dialogue. Q. The Government feels the separatists must first establish their representative character. A. We are not averse to elections if during the course of dialogue, an election emerges as one of the means to resolve the vexed Kashmir issue. Q. Does that mean you are averse to elections? A. I'm against the policy of adhocism. If Delhi wants an ad-hoc chief minister, it might as well continue with Farooq. I have nothing against Farooq. There is no need to make a Mir Qasim (the Congress chief minister who laid down office after the 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord) of him. Chehre ko badalne se kya faida (What's the use of making a cosmetic change)?

While the Abdullahs were negotiating the exchange, separatist leader Shabbir Shah, known as Kashmir's Nelson Mandela for having spent over 20 years in detention, flew to Delhi to meet former raw chief A.S. Dulat, who is now officer on special duty in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) for Kashmir affairs. Shah is not the only one. To ensure that the October assembly polls have a broader participation, the PMO is taking pains to involve Kashmiri leaders in talks. Many moderate separatists-who went into a shell after Hurriyat Conference leader Abdul Ghani Lone's assassination in May-are veering round to talk to the Government. South Block's next visitor is tipped to be Hurriyat chief Abdul Ghani Bhat.

However, such tete-a-tetes may not yield any significant result unless the basic point of contention is resolved. Shah, who broke away from the Hurriyat in 1997 to float his Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, feels the Government is taking an ad-hoc approach. He feels the Government must initiate a dialogue with the separatists before conducting elections. Others agree. "What is so sacrosanct about holding elections in October? The state was under Central rule for six years between 1990 and 1996. First talk to us," points out Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party chief M. Hashim Qureshi.

Shah says that if during the dialogue an election emerges as a means of resolving the Kashmir issue, he would certainly participate in it. "I don't aspire to be the chief minister. Mehbooba Mufti or Ghulam Nabi Azad can become chief minister. I only want a solution to the issue."

On the other hand, the Government feels no need to formalise a dialogue. "A dialogue has been taking place in the past three years since the Hurriyat leaders were released," points out a PMO official. Delhi feels the separatists must participate in the elections if it is to hold any talks with them. But he does not rule out the possibility of Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee meeting separatist leaders when he visits Kashmir.

PMO'S POINTMAN

Dulat is talking to the separatists

Meanwhile, the urge for peace and international pressure for normality is so overwhelming that even hardliners are giving up their positions. After Syed Ali Shah Geelani's arrest last month, a Jamaat-i-Islami functionary wrote to the Srinagar divisional commissioner clarifying that his organisation was not the political wing of a militant group, namely the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. The Jamaat, he added, sees nothing wrong in participating in elections if their aim was to set right the state's governance.

On its part, Delhi is trying to remove the impediments standing in the way of smooth elections. For one, many in the Valley feel that the polls cannot be free and fair if Farooq continues as chief minister. That has been taken care of with Omar's "coronation" as NC president and Farooq's imminent shift to Delhi. But opposition leaders like Abdul Rashid Kabli, ex-MP and former BJP chief in Kashmir, and Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the mainstream People's Democratic Party, want President's rule in the state before elections. "When Omar has the administration under his control he can do anything he likes," says Mufti. "If President's rule is not declared, there is no reason to invite separatists for polls because they have no trust in the present set-up," adds Kabli.

The NC is now banking on Omar's clean image in the state. Besides, he is young and can travel extensively during the election campaign. His election as NC president has, however, sparked fears that senior party leaders might be given a golden handshake. In fact, sons of over a dozen NC ministers are ready to take over from their fathers.

As for Shah, he is being seen as the Centre's latest ploy to attract the separatist elements to the hustings. "Shah is emerging as an alternative leader of non-Hurriyat separatists. Those who had parted company with him, like Naeem Khan and Babar Badar, have returned to his fold. Moderates within the Hizb are rallying around him," says Supreme Court advocate Ashok Bhan who has been helping in the Centre's efforts to speak to Kashmiri leaders. Some other separatist groups have joined hands with Shah. Farooq's estranged brother-in-law G.M. Shah, who has become a rallying point for disenchanted NC cadres, has also struck a rapport with him.

But the most important factor why Delhi wants to deal with Shah is that though he is pro-azadi he is not pro-Islamabad. He is secular and committed to Kashmiriyat. He parted ways with the Hurriyat on the question of including Jammu and Ladakh regions in the demand for an independent Kashmir. "In fact upon his release from detention in 1995, Shah first visited the Kashmiri Pandits living in camps," recalls Bhan.

Officials admit that the Centre has no concrete Kashmir policy at the political level. In fact, the PMO and the Home Ministry sometimes end up competing with each other in talking to the separatists. After Lone's assassination, Home Minister L.K. Advani sent Ram Jethmalani as an interlocutor to the state. Though he did not take any formal action on Jethmalani's recommendations, Advani okayed moves to get Shah to Delhi to formally interact with the Government. Originally, Advani was to meet Shah. But the PMO seized the opportunity and OSD Dulat held a two-hour meeting with the separatist leader.

However, the success of the October polls will be defined not by how many separatist leaders participate in them but by ensuring that Pakistan does not throw a spanner in the works. Janus-faced Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has hinted at a resumption of infiltration and India needs to pre-empt any Pakistani misadventure. It must persuade the
US to extract an airtight commitment from Islamabad that it will not do mischief when the Kashmiri people choose their government in October.

-with Izhar Ahmed Wani in Srinagar