Veils And Daggers

Neither Saeed’s sentiments nor the proclamation of war were a surprise;despite the fact that the Lashkar-e-Taiba is proscribed in Pakistan, and itsparent political organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, claims that it has no linkswith the terrorist group, the Muridke-based organisation has spewed venom –and terrorism – against India at regular intervals.

What did surprise observers was the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s choice of chiefguest: the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader, MohammadYasin Malik. Ever since the JKLF renounced ‘armed struggle’ a decade ago,after its decimation at the hands of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Malikhas repeatedly asserted on more than one occasion that he is committed to theprinciples of Mahatma Gandhi. Malik has also claimed the JKLF’s struggle is‘secular’, despite its past involvement in attacks on the Kashmiri Panditcommunity, while the Lashkar-e-Taiba makes no secret of its loathing for Hindus,Jews and other ‘unbelievers’.

In recent weeks, J&K’s political life has been thrown into uproar byanother surprise: news that, just three weeks after the Lashkar rally, Malikalso secretly met with the man India has entrusted with making sure the jihadfails: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. At his February 1, 2006, PressConference, the Prime Minister said that he had met with Malik as part ofhis ongoing dialogue with secessionist leaders in J&K. When the JKLF leaderresponded with an irate denial, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued aclarification that Dr. Singh had in fact been referring to meetings held whilehe was in the Opposition.

For the most part, Indian newspapers have reported the event as aninconsequential spat over facts. Bar the entertainment drawn from the PMO’sspin-doctors tying themselves up in polemical knots, the Malik-Manmohan Singhmeeting has been represented as being of no intrinsic value. In reality, though,the affair illustrates serious problems in the structure of India’s engagementwith secessionist groups in J&K. Little noticed, New Delhi’s search forpeace is being reduced to a series of covert machinations which could createproblems more serious than those they were intended to solve.

Just what might these problems be? And why should policy-makers in New Delhiand Washington be thinking about them seriously?

Hidden behind veils of secrecy, India has for several months been pursuing anenergetic secret dialogue on J&K, involving interlocutors from the state andUS-based members of the ethnic-Kashmiri Diaspora. On January 25, The Hindubroke news of these meetings. Malik, who authoritative sources say had beendriven to the PMO under Intelligence Bureau (IB) escort, was the mosthigh-profile participant so far in a covert peace process being conducted byIndia’s National Security Advisor (NSA), the former IB chief M.K. Narayanan.

Neither the PMO nor Malik publicly responded to The Hindu’s report,although sources say the JKLF leader registered his protest with the NSA aboutthe leak in no uncertain terms. When Prime Minister Singh was asked by ajournalist about the India-Pakistan détente process at the Press Conference,though, Singh volunteered the information that Malik had been among those he hadmet. According to a Press Trust of India report, Singh said that, "aftercoming to office he had interacted with a number of separatist Kashmirileaders such as Yasin Malik and Sajjad Lone" [emphasis added].

Incensed by this assertion, Malik promptly called a Press Conference inSrinagar. He accepted that he had met with Singh in 2001 and 2003, but insistedthat "talk of our [secret] meeting circulating in the media is nonsense."Asked why the Prime Minister had then said that a meeting had taken place, Malikblamed "New Delhi-based NGOs." "When we don’t meet them," he claimed,"they come up with such things." Soon after the JKLF leader’s pressconference, the PMO affirmed Malik’s assertion that he had only met with Singhprior to the Prime Minister assuming office.

In the absence of a transcript, a final assessment of what the Prime Ministersaid is impossible. It is, after all, plausible that several reporters who filedsimilar accounts misunderstood what he said. What hasn’t been denied, though,is that secret meetings have in fact been taking place. In January 2006, forexample, Narayanan met with Farooq Kathwari, a US national who is a significantcontributor to Islamist organisations, to the Asia Society and to mainstreampolitical groups. Prime Minister Singh himself held a meeting with the US-basedKashmiri Pandit leader, Vijay Sazawal.

Other signs of energetic back-channel movement aren’t hard to come by. InDecember 2005, for example, the Union Government reversed years of policy andissued travel documents to the hardline Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.With the foreknowledge of India’s covert services, Geelani used the cover ofthe Haj pilgrimage to hold extended discussions with the HM’s Pakistan-basedleader, Mohammad Yusuf Shah aka Syed Salahuddin, as well as the US-basedIslamist leader, Ghulam Nabi Fai. Most observers believe the HM hopes to useGeelani as its representative in future talks with India.

But why, it can reasonably be asked, are these secret meetings a problem –particularly since their aim is to bring about reconciliation between apparentlyimplacable enemies? It is well known that covert services worldwide conductnegotiations where the political principals find it impossible. Israel’slong-running secret talks with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, or theCentral Intelligence Agency’s Cold War dialogue with the Soviet Union’sCommittee for State Security, the KGB, are often cited as successful examples.India’s former spymaster, A.K. Verma, and the Director General of Pakistan’sInter-Services Intelligence, Hamid Gul, are also known to have heldmoderately-successful negotiations to restrict urban terrorism in the course ofthe Khalistan movement in Punjab.

In the course of the conflict in J&K, India’s covert services havemaintained secret contacts with both political secessionists and members ofterrorist groups. Indeed, one of the first exercises conducted by Narayananafter he took office as N.S.A. was to audit expenditure on India’s covertcontacts in J&K, and prepare an inventory of what had been achieved – along overdue stock-taking exercise. In some senses, the ongoing dialogue inJammu and Kashmir is the fruit of these contacts, although they have sometimesappeared a waste of both energy and hard cash.

What has now happened, though, is a conflation of political and covertprocesses, both of which are contained in the body of the NSA. While critics ofthe NSA have claimed that Narayanan’s conception of his role is overweening,this critique is misdirected. The real problem lies in India’s leadershipvacuum. Where the present Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singhpresided over the execution of the policy objectives in Punjab, or the lateRajesh Pilot engaged secessionists in J&K, the ruling United ProgressiveAlliance (UPA) has no-one who seems interested in playing a similar role today.Instead, New Delhi’s conflation of covert dialogue and political interventionholds out serious risks for policy-making on J&K.

India’s spies have thus stepped in where its politicians have failed. Malik’scase, though, provides excellent illustration of kinds of consequences this canhave. The JKLF leader’s decision to share a platform with the Lashkar, a moveintended to protect his person, violated Indian law on association withterrorist groups. In the interests of enabling his secret meeting, however, noaction was taken. As a result, others under credible threat, like theAll-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, have beengifted an excuse to appease Pakistan and the terror groups it chooses topatronise. Second, and more important, these moves undermine the credibility ofthe legal framework against terrorism. While covert contacts with figures acrossthe political spectrum might indeed be useful, the decision not to prosecuteMalik signals that the Indian state is willing to bargain away its commitmentsto punish terrorism. Third, and most important, contact at the level of the PMOleaves no room for failure. If dialogue involving the Prime Minister of Indiafails, New Delhi will be left with no alternative medium through whichnegotiations with secessionists in J&K might credibly be conducted.

Washington needs to be paying close attention to these facts, for the covertdialogue is principally intended for audiences in the US. Discussions withfigures like Kathwari are intended to meet demands from the US that New Delhihelp President Pervez Musharraf demonstrate that he is making progress inJ&K – put bluntly, payback for the US pressure on Pakistan to de-escalateviolence. As President George Bush’s visit to New Delhi draws closer, thepressure on New Delhi will, most likely, intensify.

Just why such pressures are misguided is well-illustrated by the decision toengage with Kathwari, whose organisation, the Kashmir Study Group, has advocateda communal division of J&K. Until 1999, when the intervention of thenResearch and Analyis Wing Chief A.S. Dulat enabled him to meet with several keypoliticians, Kathwari’s Islamist affiliations had even led to his being deniedpermission to visit India. Whatever status and influence the millionairebusinessman’s wealth lends him, a meeting in the PMO – as opposed, say, in adiscreet hotel room in New York – sends out the appalling signal that hisideas are open for discussion.

Put simply, Washington is ill-advised if it believes that it can sustain adistinction between ‘authorised Islamists’, and those that wage war againstthe US and India. Indeed, part of the reason why secessionists in J&K, aswell as groups like the Hizb ul-Mujahideen are so reluctant to bring seriousproposals the table is that they believe that US pressure on India will let themsecure a better deal in the future. New Delhi, for its part, is equallyill-advised if it believes that secret deal-making is a substitute for realdialogue. Either way, a process intended to help prepare the ground for peace isactually stalling it, by shifting focus away from the principals – the peopleof J&K and those they have chosen to represent them through the electoralprocess.

Is there a way out? Yes – but only in the unlikely event that thehidebound, dissent-allergic intellectual establishment that informs policy onJ&K demonstrates will and vision. Even as it allows covert processes toproceed, the Union Government could, for example, give N.N. Vohra, its chosenofficial interlocutor, a mandate and agenda for the consultations he has beenholding in J&K. It could also ask Union Water Resources Minister SaifuddinSoz to begin a state-level dialogue on autonomy with all major groups. The UScould, for its part, make clear to Pakistan that no level of support forterrorism is acceptable; that it must let go the strings that let it guide thecourse of the jihad in J&K.

For this to happen, though, both New Delhi and Washington D.C. will have toabandon their evident conviction that history can be manufactured behind closeddoors, and at a tempo laid down by bureaucrats. Covert processes do have aninvaluable and necessary role in policy execution, but cannot be a substitutefor political policy-making. One of the things the troubled history of Jammu andKashmir teaches us, after all, is that secret deals are of only so much valueoutside of the rooms where they are sealed.

Praveen Swami is Deputy Editor and Chief of Bureau, Frontline Magazine,New Delhi. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal