PM's Modi's Pakistan policy is a giant mess: Why Masarat Alam must be celebrating

Narendra Modi’s Kashmir policy is in tatters, characterized by U-turns and chronic indecisiveness in tackling the Hurriyat and its sponsors like America and Pakistan. CIA played a key role in Hurriyat’s birth in 1993 to browbeat India on the nuclear front. Pakistan is just a Washington proxy – the cat’s paw, as it were. And Swami Agnivesh, to be honest, is only an “item girl” in a rapidly unfolding thriller called Kashmir. My sincere advice: Don’t take your eyes off Masarat Alam whose arrest is being touted by the BJP as the biggest achievement after the 3: 67 humiliation in Delhi at AAP’s hand. Masarat, to be sure, didn’t go to jail kicking, screaming and crying. He had a song on his lips as re-imprisonment immediately earned him a place of honour in the separatist pantheon. Ailing and 84-year-old Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s mantle has just passed to Masarat, 44 – a precursor of more trouble in paradise. Masarat’s biggest backer, mind you, is not LeT’s Hafeez Saeed but a nuclear-armed nation with the largest army in the Muslim world called Pakistan, whose Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tasnim Aslam, has been singing paens to Masarat from the moment he was arrested. [caption id=“attachment_2202598” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Masarat Alam. AFP.[/caption] There are many in Kashmir who jump up and down with Pakistani flags and are hoarse from shouting aazadi slogans. It might be a good idea not to touch them as cuffs turn them into heroes. Not arresting Asiya Andrabi for singing the Pakistani national anthem last month was a sound decision. She was booked – and forgotten. It’s Modi’s love for tamasha that’s belittling a great country like India. He talks too much! Did he really have to boast about his 56-inch wide chest? He declared that he would bring Pakistan to its knees and Kashmir would automatically fall in line. Nothing remotely resembling that scenario has materialized in 11 months. Today India’s Kashmir policy is in a mess because of three reasons. Modi’s failed Mission 44 - the campaign to win 44 of Kashmir’s 87 legislative assembly seats. Apart from that, one has to take into account his failed bid to stop the decades-old practice of the Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India as well as Pakistani dignitaries visiting New Delhi holding meetings with Hurriyat leaders. And finally mocking the Pakistani military over cross-border firings. BJP tried capturing power through Hindu consolidation and appointing a Hindu Chief Minister in India’s only Muslim-majority state. But BJP failed to win a single seat in the Kashmir Valley despite Modi’s entreaties at multiple rallies to repose faith in him. BJP also drew a blank also in Buddhist-cum-Shiite Ladakh region. After Mission 44 fell flat on its face, BJP quietly agreed to play second fiddle to the wily Muftis father-daughter team Interestingly, Nawaz Sharif had acceded to Modi’s request not to meet Hurriyat leaders when he came for Modi’s swearing-in. Modi, sans experience of dealing with sovereign nations, mistook Sharif’s gesture as surrender. So in August, India warned Pakistani High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, that if he did not cancel his scheduled meetings with Hurriyat leaders, then Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh would call off her Islamabad visit. Basit didn’t blink – and bilateral talks froze. When America pressured India and Pakistan to revive the stalled dialogue, Islamabad refused to give up what it called its diplomatic privilege to engage with the Hurriyat. Ultimately India had to back off. Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar flew to Islamabad in March without any assurance from Pakistan that it wouldn’t interact with Hurriyat. And true enough, since then Basit has been meeting Hurriyat leaders as and when he feels like. On Pakistan’s National Day, March 23, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, V. K Singh, arrived at the Pakistani High Commission wearing a green sleeveless jacket to take part in celebrations attended by the Hurriyat crème de la crème. Significantly, People’s Democratic Party may be perceived as pro-Pakistan even by the BJP - its coalition partner - but Islamabad nurses no such illusions. Pakistan drove the point home in February by denying PDP leader Naeem Akhtar a visa to visit Islamabad. His visa application was rejected to send the message that Pakistan considered only the Hurriyat as representatives of Kashmir. Those who boast often end up eating humble pie. In September and October, India’s armed forces gave a befitting reply to the Pakistani military which had resorted to unprovoked cross-border firing. When guns speak for themselves, there was no need for Modi to declare: “Pakistan has learnt a lesson it deserved. Our jawans have shut their mouth.” He made those unnecessary remarks while campaigning in Maharashtra. As it turned out, Modi had spoken too soon. At the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, Modi shook hands with Sharif on November 27. What was remarkable about the handshake was that it was preceded by an audacious attack on Indian Army bunkers that very day in Arnia sector of Jammu & Kashmir on the India-Pakistan border which left 12 dead — three Indian soldiers, five Indian civilians and four militants. But Modi didn’t sulk or fly into a rage; there was no finger-wagging. Modi was probably introspective as he pumped his Pakistani counterpart’s hands despite the meticulously-planned strike which was so deadly that battle tanks had to be ultimately used to blast bunkers where attackers were holed up after killing Indian Army men. Kashmir’s problems seem unending. On Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping is flying to Islamabad to announce a $46 billion investment in an economic corridor connecting Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port near Karachi through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir which is essentially Indian territory Pakistan has been illegally controlling since 1947. A Chinese communication network running so close to Indian Kashmir is bound to aggravate New Delhi’s strategic worries and rub fistfuls of salt in India’s wound. The escalating unrest in Kashmir which has suddenly sucked in Swami Agnivesh, and ominous developments across the Line of Control highlight Modi’s inability to deal sensibly with India’s No 1 political-cum-military challenge.