The media hype surrounding the flagging of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus route would have gullible readers believe that humanitarian issues have finally started counting in policy circles. The ‘pigheadedness’ of conflict, so it was projected, had given way to people-centric foreign policies by India and Pakistan. But we know very well the way in which the news media preyed upon the sentiments of family members during the IC-814 hijacking by Pakistani terrorists in 1999. That was also portrayed as a ‘humanitarian issue’, which ultimately caused more human loss and misery.
The question we have to ask as interested parties in long-term solutions is whether building ‘Aman-Setu’ (peace bridge) is the way forward for bringing about peace and an end to cross-border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir. Mufti Muhammad Sayeed has used his typical bluster to call the bus route Delhi’s best gift to Kashmiris. Does he know how many ‘Kashmiris’ reside in Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir? Aman-Setu is an interesting bridge that brings Pakistani Punjabi-dominated POK into daily contact with Muslim Kashmiri-dominated J & K. A recipe for furthering separatism of the Hurriyat kind, in short.
Indian apparatchiks are congratulating themselves that this is a masterstroke that might be able to ward off Pakistan’s claims for territorial rearrangement and finalise the LoC as an international ‘soft’ border. The attacks of terrorist jihadis on bus passengers, undoubtedly organised with ISI consent, are clear signs that buses cannot eradicate the madrassa’s hate education. They also make clear that Islamabad keeps the gun option open while allowing Aman-Setus. By allowing terrorists to criticise and threaten the bus inauguration, General Musharraf has sent an unmistakable signal to his constituents among the mujahideen that he will never give up annexation of J & K as a goal of state policy. In other words, people-people-contacts are a façade covering Islamabad’s Janus-face.
Unifying families emotionally sounds like a Bollywood sentimental blockbuster theme, a populist cause that will no doubt give Mufti room to outmanoeuvre his political opponents. But will it bring peace with justice? Kashmir Herald emphasises peace with justice because no serious attempt has been made in 15 years to unify Kashmiri Hindu families who have been scattered outside their ancestral homeland, the valley. Human rights dogmas have been so selectively employed that the world has been made to believe that Kashmiri Muslims, the dominant community that enjoys a stranglehold on power in J & K, are the sole oppressed and separated lot. No solution to the Kashmir problem can be lasting if the human rights of POK Kashmiris and religious minorities in J & K are also put on the table.
Bus rides can go home to roost. Kashmir will continue to burn.
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