The Chinar Blossoms...Painfully

IT will be with a measure of unease that Farooq Abdullah will celebrate his first year in office on October 9. As it is, the chief minister is being widely criticised for not delivering all that he promised.Now the week-long celebrations will be held under the shadow of the Pakistani attack on the border town of Kargil on September 29, which resulted in the death of 17 civilians. While the National Conference government would have liked to present a picture of normalcy, the skirmishes along the border and the intensified infiltration of mercenaries from Pakistan is being seen by many in the Valley as a message from across the LOC that there can only be at best a troubled normalcy in Kashmir.

There is a sense of shock and disbelief in Srinagar and villages in the Valley that a Muslim-dominated town had been selected for attack. When the bodies of some of the victims were flown down to Srinagar, relatives and friends who gathered at the burial were bitterly critical of the Pakistani attack on Kargil. Pictures of the victims splashed on the front pages of local newspapers clearly prove the point made by a professor of Kashmir University: "Seven years of insurgency has left us paralysed and we are just about recovering when you have Pakistan training its guns on innocent people."

At wayside tea stalls and in taxi stands the firing dominates discussions. No one quite believes that the firing was an accident. Neither do they give much credence to the theory that Kargil was targeted because it is dominated by Shias. The common perception is that Pakistan played foul. The sheer scale of the destruction and number of casualties has led to a widespread perception that it was a deliberate attempt to create tension. And the average trader, restaurant and houseboat owner sees a drop in business as the outcome of such incidents. They fear that skirmishes or militant activity send deterrent signals to tourists and those interested in investing in the Valley.

Such voices from the common citizenry were unheard of even six months ago. Of course, there is no denying that a section of Kashmiris has an unwavering sense of loyalty to Pakistan. Madhuri Dixit films are still seen on videotapes from libraries in Quetta. And on the streets, posters of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Javed Miandad are displayed more prominently by hawkers than those of Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Gan-guly. But the Kargil incident has cast doubts about Pakistan's intentions even among those not particularly pro-New Delhi.

The frequency of border skirmishes has been a cause for concern since April and is seen by the state government as a deliberate attempt by Pakistan to jeopardise its efforts to bring the militancy-torn Valley back on an even keel. Though his detractors point out that Farooq's return-to-normalcy plank has been a very urban phenomenon and is yet to reach the villages, everyone agrees that some sort of beginning has been made although not on the scale promised in the National Conference election manifesto.

Says CPI(M) leader Mohammed Yusuf Tarigami, who has been a very severe critic of Farooq: "There has been a change in the mood of the people. Things have started to work although they may not be working as well as they should. People have started attending work. The secretariat is functioning although there are far too many complaints about corruption. But the important thing is that it is operational. These are plus points. The unfortunate part is that Farooq is not using this historic opportunity to gain the confidence and trust of the people."

 The return to normalcy the state government's spin doctors have been working overtime to publicise is most visible in Srinagar. Security is not as obtrusive as it once was. Shops and restaurants remain open late into the night. Markets are teeming with people. A year ago there were only two hotels open in the city, now there are about 10. The Centaur Hotel on Dal Lake is gearing up to get back into business. Its restaurant and a few rooms have already opened.

More importantly, schools and colleges are clocking more working days than ever before. During the days of militancy, educational institutions functioned a few days a month. Now students are an enthused lot.At the Tyndale Bisco School on Residency Road, a very vibrant lot is celebrating their annual day after years.

Other manifestations of change are visible. The Kashmir Golf Club, closed since 1988, reopened this year. The annual Mens' Fourball Autumn Tournament got underway on October 2. There are now plans to reopen the bar at the club. On October 1 the Regional Passport office was reopened in Srinagar after seven years. The city will soon be on the pager map. STD booths have sprung up all over the city, a far cry from two years ago when outstation calls could only be made from the heavily guarded central telegraph office.

In an effort to attract industry and to prove that all is well in the Valley, the J&K government is organising a conference of leading businessmen from across the country at Srinagar later this month. The prime minister has been asked to inaugurate the event. A group of artists including Jatin Das and Bulbul Sharma are to participate in a camp for artists at Pahalgam. Such camps have not been witnessed in the past decade.

But does all this mean that the trouble in the Valley is over? Local support for militants has been on the decline. However, the bulletin from the headquarters of the J&K police on any given day seems to indicate that the fight against militancy is not quite over. Thus on October 1, two AK-56 rifles, one grenade launcher, 12 kg of RDX and 280 electronic detonators were recovered from militants in Srinagar alone. AK-56 rifles and explosives were also recovered from Baramulla and Kupwara. Army authorities say such seizures are directly linked to Pakistani infiltration from across the border.

Though militant attacks in towns like Srinagar and Baramulla are on the wane, villagers still bear the brunt of insurgent activities. Foreign mercenaries are known to camp in remote villages, seek hospitality, often at gunpoint, and then strike at soft targets. The presence of these "hired militants", as these gunmen are referred to, has vitiated the atmosphere in the rural areas.

Indeed, Farooq's failure has been in the villages. As a senior bureaucrat admits, the political-administrative healing process has failed to reach the villages. Slowly but surely a sense of frustration is building up which could very well be exploited by pro-Pak elements. Points out Tarigami: "Good governance means attending to the grievances of the common man. The people were patient enough to wait for a few months. But now a year is gone and development work has failed to take off. Employment was promised but not enough has been done."

 The 13 lakh workers who depend on the handicraft industry for their livelihood would like the J&K Handicrafts Corporation to do a lot more than it is at present. The corporation has only a small Rs 10 crore slice of the Rs 500 crore handicraft trade which has been taken over by private businesses, who are poor paymasters. According to Shafi Shaida, chairman of the Handicrafts Corporation, corruption has taken its toll on the government's participation and much work still needs to be done before his corporation can actively help the workers.

IN fact, as far as the National Conference government goes, the promises not kept far outweigh the promises fulfilled although everyone agrees that one year is too short a time frame to expect miracles from a regime which took over a strife-torn state. But then, Farooq had projected himself as a man who could deliver miracles and he has not lived up to expectations.

When he started out as many 26,000 jobs were promised to the unemployed. The scheme has already got mired in red tape and no more than 12,000 jobs have been created. Even these have gone to those recommended by MLAs. And getting a job via a legislator means paying a bribe. One does not have to go far from Srinagar to hear villagers complain that a member of their family was denied employment despite paying a bribe to their local legislator.

The common perception is that corruption is rampant in the government. At the secretariat, the people who queue up to meet officials speak of how much money has to be paid to get work done. Politicians, according to a senior bureaucrat, have not wasted much time in establishing a transfer and appointment raj in the state.

The scheme to bring Pandits back to the Valley has also come a cropper. A senior official says the government wants the Centre to allocate Rs 2,500 crore to rehabilitate migrants. Since the money is not forthcoming, the promised effort to bring back the migrants has been put in the cold storage.

As he moves into his second year, Farooq is faced with perhaps far more complex problems than when he assumed office. A year ago he was seen as a man who ought to be given the opportunity and the chance to set things right in the state. Now he will be assessed on what he delivers. For the chief minister, it is a tightrope. On the one hand, he has to keep infiltrators in check, for which he needs the support of the army. On the other, he has to ask his cabinet and his partymen to move from the confines of Srinagar and meet people at the grassroots level and address their problem too. But surely, he did not expect it to be a cakewalk.