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Sense prevails in Kashmir

Ever since Independence, India’s enemies in Jammu and Kashmir have sought to engineer a communal chasm that would sunder Hindu from Muslim — and thus realise what is sometimes called the unfinished business of Partition. Yesterday’s dramatic eleventh-hour compromise between the Congress and the People’s Democratic Party has avoided bringing that nightmare one step closer. In essence, the deal has been made possible by the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board’s announcement that it does not intend to use the land granted to it by the Jammu and Kashmir government. Instead, the government will itself provide logistical support for pilgrims, until a final arrangement acceptable to all parties is forged. Jammu and Kashmir’s new Governor, N.N. Vohra, who also heads the Shrine Board, deserves credit for his behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the dialogue that enabled the principles to arrive at a negotiated settlement. Mr. Vohra’s compromise proposals, which were first reported in this newspaper on Friday, allowed all parties to declare victory. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti has been able to say that the announcement was made in response to her party’s decision to walk out of the coalition government. Congress leaders, sensitive to the concerns of their mainly-Hindu constituency in Jammu, have been spared the embarrassment of having to formally revoke the now-redundant land-grant order. It does not really matter who walks away with the credit as long as the violence ends.

Does this mean the challenge in Jammu and Kashmir is now behind us? Not quite. One of the more dispiriting characteristics of the Shrine Board affair has been its monumental irrationality. Reason, the foundational principle of dialogue, has been banished from public discourse by communal ‘sentiments’ and ‘perceptions.’ In Jammu, many otherwise reasonable people refuse to recognise the reality that the Amarnath Yatra has often been hijacked by Hindu chauvinists for communal ends. No criticism is countenanced of the provocative behaviour of pilgrims linked to Hindutva groups. Conversely, in the Kashmir valley, many otherwise reasonable people will not accept that it is paranoic to cast the use of 39.88 hectares to locate prefabricated shelters for two months a year as a demographic threat to the Muslim majority in Jammu and Kashmir. The challenge before democratic leaders in the State is to restore secularism and reason to their rightful place in society. Before Independence, the Dogra monarchy used religious patronage as a means of social control, dispensing grants to mullahs and mahants to bolster its legitimacy. The practice has continued after Independence, with awful consequences. What Jammu and Kashmir desperately needs now is the political sense to get the government out of religious affairs.

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