KASHMIRIS: INDIA NOW HOLDS ALL THE CARDS, BUT WILL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 NEW DELHI 005925 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/26/2015 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER MOPS ECON ASEC PBTS IN PK SUBJECT: KASHMIRIS: INDIA NOW HOLDS ALL THE CARDS, BUT WILL IT PLAY THEM? Classified By: Political Counselor Geoff Pyatt for Reasons 1.4 (B, D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: A survey of Kashmiri political opinion in Srinagar, Jammu, and Delhi indicates a consensus that India is in a magisterial position right now: our contacts assess that India's strategic stock is secure and rising on the heels of the PM's visit to Washington; they agree the mood of people in the Valley has swung against terrorism and violence; the Kashmir economy (including tourism) is booming; they view the political scene in Kashmir as fragmented; the unceasing terrorism in the Valley is viewed by an inured public as manageable and has lost its shock value and consequent political impact; and, Pakistan, as viewed from J&K, is on its back foot after the London blasts, Ayodhya attack, and American pressure. These observers told us Kashmiris can see the handwriting on the wall: India's might is waxing, but Pakistan is vulnerable, increasingly isolated, and facing its own internal demons. As a result, our contacts believe Delhi is in no hurry to draw the Hurriyat or any other Kashmiris into a dialogue on meaningful political autonomy, nor does it feel pressed to make a quick deal with Pakistan, no matter how much the latter parties may be ready to talk. Moreover, one MP and another senior GOI Kashmiri official say the PM and Sonia Gandhi do not seem to want to make deals in Kashmir because they may fear they are vulnerable to BJP accusations that they are selling out the country. Kashmiris are happy that the bad days are fading into memory, but they do wish Delhi would be magnanimous and throw them (and Pakistan) a face-saving bone to justify all the deaths and suffering of the past 15 years. END SUMMARY. WE'RE RESIGNED TO CASTING OUR LOT WITH A RESURGENT INDIA -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) D/Polcouns visited Srinagar and Jammu July 18-21 to test the pulse of current Kashmiri thinking about the insurgency, India, and political dialogue. Everyone we spoke to, from senior police officials to moderate Hurriyat types to journalists to educators to businessmen to MPs, said the biggest news in the Valley is the sea change in the popular mood. Long gone and faded into bitter memory are the heady days of 1990 when the Valley was awash in green signs demanding independence, violence was pervasive, India was reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Empire, and prominent Kashmiris were handing each other Ambassadorships for a new independent Kashmiri country. Instead, Kashmiris now say that the mood has profoundly turned. Kashmiris are casting their lot with a return to status quo ante and the good old days when peace prevailed and life was normal. They stressed that this was in no way a vote for India; rather, it was a vote to be left alone to lick their wounds and rebuild their lives. However, they also acknowledge that India's economic strength and solid political position also made it clear that Kashmiris only have one real option for now: continued existence within India. Arjun Joshi of the Hindustan Times in Jammu said the changed mood reflects the awakening of Kashmiris to new global realities; "the flirtation with extremism," he said, was over, and innate moderation was re-asserting itself. Joshi said voices of moderation silenced by terrorism are proliferating, and even an extremist such as Ali Shah Geelani spoke of autonomy, not independence, when he visited Pakistan. Mehbooba Mufti, the Chief Minister's daughter, and herself head of the governing PDP party, said people everywhere are optimistic and are no longer swept away by slogans. INDIA HOLDS A ROYAL FLUSH, PAKISTAN HAS THE JOKER -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) India, many opined, is in great strategic shape right now. Manmohan Singh's splashy Washington trip was noticed as much for the nuclear deal as Washington's low-key handling of Kashmir. Pakistan, Kashmiris told us, is in a vulnerable position; the Ayodhya attack happened right before Gleneagles and Manmohan took full advantage of it, standing side-by-side with Blair and the President. The London tube attack then drove home India's argument that Pakistan was riding a tiger of its own making. National Conference President Omar Abdullah told us Kashmiris can see the handwriting on the wall: India's strength is waxing, but Pakistan is vulnerable, increasingly isolated, and facing its own internal demons. Abdullah also said the rise in infiltration, as had happened in Gurez sector as we spoke, revealed Pakistani desperation. Political scientist Amitabh Mattoo of Jammu University told us that India "holds all the cards" right now. J&K Police Chief Director General Gopal Sharma predictably echoed this sentiment. Hurriyat leaders Bilal Lone and Professor Abdul Ghani Bhat insisted the Pakistani establishment is ready to impatient to work a deal with India, but would not ascribe such eagerness to desperation. WHY A PASSAGE BACK TO INDIA? RESIGNATION; BUT CASH, TOO -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) After 15 years of bloody violence and dashed political dreams, Kashmiris told us they are realizing that Pakistan and India will never allow the area to be independent. Professor Bhat said even the most zealous such as Geelani now realize independence is a mirage and talk only of autonomy. Moreover, Kashmiris realize that Pakistan has been just as fickle and manipulative in its dealings with Kashmiris as India had historically been, stooping to assassinate prominent Kashmiris whenever they deviated from the party line dictated from Islamabad. Bilal Lone spoke particularly bitterly about what he called the Geelani/Pakistani role in his father's death. In addition, the elites and common people now understand that India is not going to cut and run, no matter how bad the violence gets. At the same time, prominent banker A.Y. Khan explained to us that as people hunkered down for the long years of violence, they sent their sons and daughters to school in every part of India, opened shops and businesses in Himachal, Delhi, Rajasthan, Bangalore, and Punjab, and, ironically, prospered mightily. Here's how he explained it: the already-rich elites in Kashmir had been taking money from India (the RAW and the IB) for a long time. Then, money started flowing in from Pakistan. In addition, radical Islamic money flowed in from all over the world. The end result was a situation where cash was abundant in Kashmir, and much of that cash was invested where it was safe: in businesses and factories and educations in an India that was finally beginning to prosper economically. One symptom of this cash boom, said educator Vijay Dhar, is that prices of real estate in the Valley have increased 50-60 percent per annum since the violence began, and there is no end in sight. The rows of small mansions on the road from Srinagar airport bear witness to this phenomenon. Another symptom, said J&K Agriculture Secretary Khursheed Ganai, is that Kashmiris, whose horticultural products are renowned, invested heavily in less efficient Himachal orchards that are closer to the Delhi market, and they now make a killing in the north Indian fruit market. A third consequence, noted Dhar, is that Kashmiris' children received blue-chip educations at elite Indian schools and are now productively employed in the Indian corporate sector. Finally, two businessmen told us Kashmiri handicrafts salesmen moved their shops and inventories directly into the rest of India and the world, eliminating the middlemen and boosting sales. EVEN TOURISM IS FLOURISHING IN THE FACE OF CONTINUED TERRORISM -------------- -------------- ¶4. (C) We were surprised to see all flights to Srinagar and Jammu sold out. Poloffs' flight was packed with businessmen, hippie backpackers, government workers, and Hindu pilgrims. The fancy hotel in Srinagar was gleaming, and full of government types, diplomats, and well-heeled North Indian pilgrims to Hindu shrines. Srinagar streets were thick with cars from all over North India, and one businessman told us the Indian tourists are spending a million dollars a day on local goods and services. An hotelier said the boom times are back, and added he was spending a lot to refurbish and expand. We met a lower-middle class-looking chap ("I'm a betel nut salesman") with his wife and son who told us he had spent $2500 (a large sum for an average Indian's holiday) on a two-day helicopter trip to see a Hindu shrine in the Himalayas outside Srinagar. There were so many more like him, perhaps not as well-heeled. Even in the best of times, tourism represented only fifteen percent of the Kashmiri economy, said banker AY Khan. That sector, so visible as a barometer of economic prosperity, has taken off with a vengeance. We heard estimates that as many as 600,000 tourists may visit J&K this year. While well-heeled Westerners have still not returned, the Indian presence has marked a strong resurgence for a Valley where, for ten years, not a tourist was to be seen. The net effect for Kashmiris is a sense that the good old days are starting to come back, albeit tinged with bitter memory. Everyone from cab drivers to Shikara boatmen had a big smile about tourist cash. For India, it means that 15 years of holding on -- no matter what -- have started to pay off, and the downhill stretch, albeit bumpy with repeated terrorism, now looms. Like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem residents, Indians have a long acquaintance with terrorism in their cities, and they understand its random nature; this may contribute to their appetite for tourism to J&K despite the almost-daily litany of throats slit, grenades thrown, shootouts in bazaars with troops, and car bombs. DIVIDE AND RULE HAS SUCCEEDED MAGNIFICENTLY -------------- ¶5. (C) Another reason for Kashmiri's change in mood is the realization that neither India nor Pakistan had any intention of allowing a legitimate Kashmiri leader to emerge to fulfill their national aspirations. Even Hurriyat members acknowledged that their political strength was geographically-based, with each member perhaps able to secure a handful of seats in the J&K legislature, were they to contest elections. Bilal Lone acknowledged that his Hurriyat faces an uphill battle to get Kashmiris to unite. Everyone we spoke to complained that nationalist leaders who had captured the public imagination and earned its respect ended up either bought or dead. Neither India nor Pakistan had the slightest interest, they said, in seeing a true leader evolve. The result, these analysts and practitioners told us, is a political geography that is splintered. One journalist, Saleem Pandit of the Times of India, said none in the Hurriyat spoke for Kashmiris; they merely spoke for themselves. Omar Abdullah of the National Conference said that there are two competing Hurriyats (each of which is itself fragmented),several violent rejectionist groups, many parties coopted into government, Hindus (themselves splintered),Sikhs, and Buddhists, and, of course, the apolitical. Others lamented that the days when Farouq Abdullah's father could command the respect and votes of virtually the entire Valley are gone forever. WE HAVE BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO THIS LEVEL OF VIOLENCE -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) Perhaps the saddest thread of explanations we heard for this change of mood came from natives to the Valley who told us that the area was safe and crime-free for many decades, but now has become accustomed to violence. Kashmiris from old families said that, when compared to the bloodshed they passed through in the mid-1990s, today's violence is almost unremarkable. We saw this for ourselves: when a suicide bomber killed four soldiers in a government neighborhood in Srinagar on July 20, daily life in other parts of the city continued without stop. The only people who were rattled were students and parents at a school close to the explosion. When we passed the scene an hour later, traffic flowed and clean-up was well underway. Kashmiris lamented that this acceptance of violence means that violence as a political means has lost its effectiveness. The people no longer are shocked by it, they do not support it, and it has now become bad for the tourist business. Thus, India, which had always demonstrated it would ride out whatever the terrorists threw at it in order to keep Kashmir, feels even more secure in coping with the weekly onslaught of low-intensity warfare directed against it. As a result, said Police Chief Sharma, the one remaining lever Pakistan had in Kashmir is now manageable. In fact, said Sharma, the terrorists are undermining their own cause with all their senseless violence. SO WHITHER THE POLITICAL DIALOGUE? WILL IT WITHER? -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) Kashmiris were divided over the direction and speed of the political dialogue with Delhi. The Hurriyat, including Professor Bhat, Yasin Malik and Bilal Lone, still starry-eyed over their meetings with Musharraf, insisted that they could deliver the Pakistanis and, by consequence, end the terrorism in the Valley. Others, such as Police Chief Sharma snorted with skepticism and said the terrorists were out of Pakistan's control anyway and the Pakistanis would use the Hurriyat just as cynically as they had used other Kashmiri political leaders. Amitabh Mattoo agreed that since Delhi held all the cards for now, it was in no hurry to send the Hurriyat in all its variegated hues any engraved invitations to take tea with the PM, especially after offending Delhi with their sashaying around Islamabad. Hurriyat leaders such as Lone and Yasin Malik said that the longer Delhi lets them twist, the more vulnerable they become to skeptics who say the only thing they will get out of Manmohan Singh is "tea and samosas." GOI Kashmir confidant Wajahat Habibullah told us that he has been urging the PM to reach out to the Hurriyat now, taking advantage of India's current strength. Yet, police contacts, perhaps reflecting the dominant GOI view, dismissed Hurriyat complaints, saying they are fragmentary, unelected, unable to deliver, and besides, the PM had already told them they were free to come to Delhi anytime they wanted. Omar Abdullah insisted the Hurriyat does represent the aspirations for autonomy that still linger in Kashmiris, but he doubted Delhi would be magnanimous; Home Minister Shivraj Patel had snubbed them during his July visit to Srinagar. Moreover, said Omar, if he, as a proven loyal Indian, couldn't get Shivraj to return his calls for the past six months, what could the Hurriyat expect? We left Srinagar with the impression that the political dialogue between Delhi and Srinagar is subservient to the dialogue between Delhi and Islamabad, and many in Kashmir felt the dialogue between Delhi and Islamabad is currently moving slowly as the GOI waits for Pakistani action to restrain a surge in terrorist activities in north India. Consequently, most folks in the Valley are in wait and see mode. SOME WONDER IF MANMOHAN'S HEART IS IN IT -------------- ¶8. (C) One argument we heard again and again from senior politicians -- including Kashmiri National Conference MP AR Shaheen -- was that they doubted that PM Singh and Sonia Gandhi want to do much with Kashmir. In the best of times, journalist Ved Bhasin said, Kashmir is "a pimple on the Indian elephant," sending only 6 MPs to the 585 seat Lok Sabha. Nowadays, Kashmir is less of a front-burner issue than ever for the reasons stated above. Moreover, the PM and Sonia -- one a Sikh bureaucrat, the other an Italian -- are vulnerable, Omar Farooq told us, to charges from the BJP and others that they would "sell out" India if they made any deals to cede some autonomy to Kashmir. Yasin Malik, himself an ex-terrorist, said Vajpayee and Advani, ironically, would have been in better shape to be magnanimous, but he doubted Congress' desire to engage in the Kashmir minefield even though he felt a deal could be struck. Nowadays in Delhi, Kashmiris also opined, nobody senior seems to be "running" the Kashmir account. The RAW and IB have gone back to their old ways in Kashmir, the Home Ministry seems not to care, and there is nobody in the PMO who focuses on Kashmir, residents of the Valley say. Theirs is an issue without a Delhi address in this administration, they believe. Yasin Malik thought NSA Narayanan might be managing the dossier in Delhi, but was risk-averse. SO WHAT DO KASHMIRIS WANT? PEACE WITH (SOME) HONOR -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) Amitabh Mattoo, Arun Joshi, Ved Bhasin, and Bilal Lone said India, as the senior and powerful player, could afford to appear to "lose" a little tactically to Kashmiris and to Pakistan in order to win strategically. All Kashmiris seem to want after their long ordeal is some face-saving way out to justify all the sacrifice. Not one family in the Valley has been unaffected. Human rights group estimate 30-35,000 have died. Fifteen years of violence had taken a toll. If India, our contacts argued, would throw Kashmiris a bone, then, the people of the Valley would accept status quo ante with resignation. When pressed, they suggested that some measure -- even symbolic -- of enhanced autonomy would be key. Moreover, Kashmiris asked that India should expand their ability to travel to, and trade with, Pakistani Kashmir and the rest of Pakistan. Troops should withdraw from the daily life of the people and hew to the frontiers. The J&K police should be the primary security service. More Kashmiris should occupy senior positions across the J&K civil administration. These measures, they said, would be very cheap for India and would allow peace with some measure of honor. They wondered, however, whether India had any motivation at this juncture to make such a deal. COMMENT: WHERE DO US INTERESTS LIE? -------------- ¶10. (C) COMMENT: Kashmiris seem to believe some outline of a deal may be within grasp, but a resurgent India distracted by other political worries may not want to pay even a relatively low price for this. If a lasting political settlement in Kashmir encourages soft borders and blunts Pakistani exports of terror, it could in time help ease the Pakistani establishment's traditional preoccupation with Kashmir and help to drive further normalization of Indo-Pak relations. In that sense, a Srinagar-Delhi deal is in our interests. Our challenge will be convincing the PM's advisors to invest any time on an issue so fraught with risks, so easily disrupted by terrorism, so linked to the temperature of Indo-Pak relations, and yielding so few readily-apparent domestic electoral rewards. END COMMENT. Minimize considered. BLAKE