Mean business: India should insist on the agreement reached at the Ufa Summit.

THE year 2016 was tumultuous in the Kashmir valley. The gunning down of Burhan Wani, a terrorist who built his image by imaginative use of social media, was accompanied by an unprecedented, but imaginatively crafted agitation, using stone-pelting youths to confront the security forces. The winter snows restricted such enthusiastic and carefully financed and planned pelting. The planners, sitting in comfortable surroundings in the PoK and Pakistan, did, however, achieve their objective of getting wide media publicity, even if it involved disrupting and sacrificing the lives of young Kashmiris. Not surprisingly, the Hurriyat Conference, receiving instructions from ISI handlers, did its bit in inflaming public sentiment.With the Himalayan snow set to melt in the coming weeks, India will have to prepare for yet another summer of disruption and stone-throwing. The ISI will ensure that those Kashmiri youngsters, who crossed the LoC, will be joined by new jihadis from the LeT and JeM to serve as cannon fodder for fulfilling ISI ambitions. Enough funds will be provided to get unemployed youth to resort to  pelting and getting killed or injured in the return fire by the security forces. Social media will be used for incendiary messaging, crafted to stoke passions. In the meantime, a propaganda blitz will be launched by Pakistan calling on the world to intervene and compel India to resume the sterile ‘composite dialogue process’. Why does Pakistan place so much emphasis on this so-called ‘composite dialogue process’? The answer lies in the fact that this dialogue process, initiated in 1997, was the outcome of one of the worst blunders in Indian diplomacy, matched only by our diplomatic ineptitude during the Sharm-el-Sheikh fiasco. In this process, primary importance is given to what Pakistan wishes to discuss, including J&K, Siachen, Sir Creek, and hydel/ river water projects in J&K, which Pakistan likes to block. Shockingly, ‘terrorism’ features only towards the very bottom of this list. Terrorism was rendered even more marginal by coupling it with ‘drug smuggling’. This is a format that suited Pakistan as it could unleash terrorism across India and then insist that terrorism could be discussed peripherally, alongside issues like cultural ties and visas!The strike by our Special Forces on terrorist staging areas across the LoC on September 29 had more than mere symbolic importance. It signalled a readiness by India to strike across the established borders, if and when needed, at a time and manner of its choosing. The likes of Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim should not ever be allowed to feel secure from such Indian retribution. To achieve this, the entire ‘composite dialogue process’ should be discarded. There is no need for a ‘structured’ dialogue process with Pakistan. We merely need to convey our readiness to discuss all issues when the time is appropriate.To start with, India should insist that in accordance with the agreement reached between Prime Ministers Modi and Nawaz Sharif at the Ufa Summit, the DGMOs of both countries should discuss specific measures to seal the borders and end infiltration and terrorism. The levels of such meetings could be raised to meetings between the Indian Army’s Vice-Chief and Pakistan’s Chief of General Staff. There could even be meetings between the two army chiefs. While one cannot expect significant change in the strategic aims of the Pakistan army, its present army chief, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, does not appear to be afflicted by megalomania, like his predecessor.The entire dialogue should be exclusively security-oriented and also involve meetings between chiefs of the BSF and Pakistan Rangers. Meetings could be considered between the chiefs of R&AW and the ISI. Meetings between foreign secretaries, and at political level, should commence only if our concerns on terrorism are seen as being addressed in an irreversible manner. India should continue to back moves by Bangladesh and Afghanistan to keep SAARC in coldstorage, while promoting links with our eastern neighbours through forums like BBIN and BIMSTEC.Given its domestic situation, Pakistan does not appear able to deliver meaningfully on issues of terrorism. Sharif is under siege domestically, because of a Supreme Court inquiry into his properties and wealth abroad. Pakistan is being torn apart by sectarian Shia-Sunni and Wahhabi-Sufi rivalries and violence. The army is now deployed virtually across the country, fighting insurgencies in Balochistan and the Pashtun tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Islamabad is being repaid in kind by the Afghans across the disputed Durand Line, both in Balochistan and the Pashtun tribal areas. Sectarian violence has reached Punjab and Sindh. India needs to ensure that it extends unstinted moral, material and diplomatic support to Afghan efforts to deal with ISI-sponsored terrorism.While the security and diplomatic efforts to deal with terrorism continue, New Delhi will also have to consider measures internally to signal that it means business in dealing with those encouraging, supporting and inciting youths to take to stone pelting.  South Block has for too long looked rather benignly on the Hurriyat Conference and its role in inciting and supporting violence. There is evidence against many Hurriyat leaders of money laundering and other charges. People like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who take the lead in inciting violence, based on instructions from across the LoC, need to be charged, moved out of the Valley and tried. Even Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is said to receive benign treatment, is given to inciting crowds regularly, especially after prayers he leads. Those inciting and distributing money to youngsters should be immediately put behind bars.The state government and its police, including the Special Operations Group, should be activated to take the lead in restoring normalcy, with the Army’s backing. Terrorists have been emboldened to threaten the lives of family members of police officials. The Punjab Police reacted very strongly when their families were similarly threatened. There is no reason why the J&K Police cannot be similarly motivated. Moreover, far more proactive measures are needed to curtail and even disable facilities for the use of social media in the Valley. Most importantly, the ruling coalition partners should set aside differences, with the Mehbooba Mufti-led government taking the lead in ensuring that the education of children is not held hostage to the diktats of separatist leaders and their patrons across the LoC.