From the archives, 23 Dec 2004

REVIEW: SPECIAL REPORT 121 OF UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

Wajahat Habibullah, 'The Political Economy of the Kashmir Conflict - Opportunities for Economic Peacebuilding and for U.S. Policy', http://www.usip.org/fellows/reports/2004/0427_habibullah.html>

 Wajahat Habibullah, a well-known Indian bureaucrat, is presently the Secretary of Panchayati Raj (local self government). He has had stints in the offices of Prime Ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and as head of the training academy turning out India's 'steel frame' - its Administrative Service. He acquired a well-deserved reputation for courage while serving as a senior administrator in India's troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir where he was required to conduct the enquiry into the infamous Kunan Poshpora incident and to negotiate with terrorists besieged in the Hazratbal shrine. Habibullah undertook the study on fellowship at the United States Institute of Peace while on sabbatical after his assignment at India’s embassy in Washington.

 

The report, otherwise customarily declaimed as the author's personal perspective, has drawn its bit of controversy with the opposition parties taking exception to a bureaucrat airing his views on national policy on foreign soil. This owed more to his known closeness with the Gandhi family than any major disagreement with the contents of the report. Though India has traditionally been prickly about external interest in its Kashmir predicament, of late its closeness to the US has enabled it to countenance the US as a ‘facilitator’, a position the report also forwards. 

 

His notable insight is that the underpinnings of the conflict in Kashmir, as also its solution, lie as much in the political sphere, as in the less obvious, and therefore largely neglected, economic one. He advocates an ‘honest broker’ role for the US owing to the ‘popular perception among Kashmiris being that the sporadic periods of near normalcy achieved in Jammu and Kashmir have been the result of U.S. efforts.’

 

The report is timely in influencing the nascent impetus to conflict resolution in the region. India and Pakistan are into the second round of 'composite dialogue' that has included the vexed issue of Kashmir. India is engaging the separatist Kashmiri leadership - the Hurriyet Conference - through interlocutors such as Habibullah, who commands wide credibility in the Valley. It is interesting to speculate how much weight does the Habibullah perspective – that of an ‘insider’ - carry within the Indian establishment and whether it is serving in any way as a driver in changing the conflict backdrop.

 

The report is primarily aimed at the US in identifying the manner it could urge the peace process along. The US has been more concerned with the nuclear dimensions of the Indo-Pak conflict dyad in wake of the prolonged crisis in 2002. As a consequence it is neglectful of the economic dimension of the conflict. The potential economic openings highlighted are watershed development, the timber industry, fruit processing, and power generation. The long-term sustainability of this plan is dependent on the US staying the course and the two governments ‘promoting infrastructure investment and development, which would then attract and sustain investment in industry by private investors’.

 

Habibullah diagnoses the ‘revolt’ of the people as one brought about, inter-alia, by the India's insular policy in Kashmir of keeping the state on dole and under corrupt regimes. The economy has been the sector most hit by the militancy. The HDI indices of Kashmir are not inspiring either. It has only 33% literacy, over one lakh unemployed, 6.5% GDP and over 20000 orphans. Presently it is a conflict economy with vested interests profiting in the disturbed conditions. An example Habibullah provides is of logging being indulged in by security forces for making ‘houses in Haryana and Punjab’!

 

He recommends the opening up of the economy to US lead multilateral foreign investment, albeit one channeled initially by the two central governments in respective portions of J&K. With youth absorbed in economic activity, there can be expected a decline in the prevalent 'gun culture'. Down stream benefits he is optimistic about include demilitarization, scaling down in mutual threat perceptions and subsequent democratization in Pakistan and a sub-regionally balanced economic trajectory for India.

 

His succeeds in redefining the conflict from being perceived as an inter-state one, involving territory and national identity, by focusing on people and the effect of the conflict on them. His advocacy of a program tackling post-traumatic stress disorder and psychiatric care is an instance of privileging the 'human security' paradigm, in refreshing contrast to the plethora of writings on Kashmir using the politico-military and state-centric approaches.

 

Criticism on whether his prescription of kick starting the economy, and that too with capital infusion from the US, is sustainable is credible. However, to bring in fresh thinking on a subject otherwise well flogged is to the credit of the author. His taking of a position at variance to what is perceived to be the line of thinking in the establishment only bolsters his reputation for plain speaking that Indian bureaucrats as a tribe could do well to emulate. In this context it is worth recalling that the report predates the national elections. Therefore it is not proximity to Mrs. Gandhi alone that compelled Mr. Habibullah to put his mind to paper.

 

A well-founded reservation to leaving the conflict dynamics in the region to the state parties involved is pointed out by a leading South Asianist, Stephen Cohen, of the Brookings Institute, "Based on past evidence, the (Indo-Pak) thaw will not last”. That the thaw has lasted a year is evidence that there is a need for the US to stay engaged since it has both parties competitively wooing it. In the words of the author, this involves “actively encouraging economic revitalization…(to) help the young people of Jammu and Kashmir, the fulcrum of the conflict, to create constructive lives for themselves and to eschew violence.”

 

Habibullah’s recommendation, based on insight born in a career of service in Kashmir, is that anti-Americanism is not incident in Kashmiri attitudes. Therefore American facilitation of peace building and conflict resolution is both possible and, under the circumstance of post 9/11 skepticism of American aims in the Muslim world, is also desirable. Addressing the drivers of terrorism - economic under development and perennial regional conflicts – is the best manner of waging the ‘war against terror’.