Who are to blame for the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is not yet possible to determine. Still the jury is out. There is no doubting the inept handling by the government of India and its advisers. Religious ferment is the consequence of what has happened in the two regions, not the cause. The cause is the lack of political will and the inadequacy of successive governments at the centre to take decisions when it should have.

Influenced by the hawkish bureaucracy and ill-informed intelligence agencies New Delhi has failed to appreciate the depth of people’s alienation in the valley on the one hand and the widening gulf between Kashmir and Jammu on the other. The Muslim-majority Kashmir and the Hindu-majority Jammu had been going apart for some years. Yet the government did very little to reverse the trend by balancing the share of both in governance or the economic development.

The valley’s estrangement with the rest of the country has been visibly increasing since 1990. The statements like “the sky is the limit,” were never concretized, either during the talks with the Kashmiri leaders or by transferring all the subjects except Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communications to the state unilaterally.

Some well-meaning persons are suggesting that India should quit Kashmir. They do not realise that Yasin Maliks and Umar Farooqs will be pushed out in no time and the valley will be taken over by the Taliban or terrorists. The unfortunate part is that the Kashmiryat, akin to Sufism, has got burnt. Kashmir has become avowedly Islamic and Jammu avowedly Hindu. Very little grey area is available. New Delhi, still clueless, knows only one way: the use of force.

Whatever can be retrieved from the ashes of decimated Kashmiriyat is valuable. This will be important for tomorrow’s democratic, pluralistic India which needs to prove its secular credentials. Democracy is a constant dialogue. But it is yet to be appreciated by the 61-year-old nation which is still in the making. It lacks patience and perseverance.

India’s ethos of pluralism has been hit the most. What effect the stand taken by the valley, more Islamic than Indian, would have on the polity is difficult to say. But secular forces in the country have been weakened.

There is still no effort to talk to the Kashmiri leaders though interlocutors of the government say that they had done most of the job. What have they done so far is what people want to know. New Delhi would be well advised to issue a white paper on Kashmir, containing talks with the Kashmiri leaders and the Pakistan government.

I still believe that the talks with the Hurriyat leaders may reveal that they are not for secession but for their separate identity which was guaranteed when the state joined the Union of India. But the religious elements and the intelligence agencies have exploited the situation to such an extent that people can’t see the wood for the trees. The problem is political and needs deft handling.

The pressure of events may force the Pakistan government to take a stand, not only because of the smouldering situation in the valley but also because of the voice that the “Azad Kashmir,” the Pakistan’s preserve, may eventually lend support to the concept of azadi.

The tragedy at this time is that the governments in both the countries are in no position to discuss azadi. The Gillani government at Islamabad is yet to attain stability. The withdrawal of the Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League has reduced it to a minority. The Manmohan Singh government has no verdict from the Indian electorate to change the country’s borders. The latter is left with only six to eight months from its five-year tenure. Even if it were to hold talks with the Hurriyat, it would not be able to reach anything concrete because it cannot prejudge what formations would come to power after the Lok Sabha elections.

The temperature in Kashmir has already reached the boiling point. Even if the Hurriyat leaders were to think of waiting till after the polls, they would find it hard to convince the people to defer the agitation. The threat that the terrorists would take over from the Hurriyat leaders is a superficial reading of the situation. Were the movement to take that direction, the security forces would use all the force to crush insurgency. The world is watching at this time how the democratic India deals with a peaceful defiance. A violent uprising, with an Islamic edge, may have no takers.

My fear is that the demand of secession may give a handle to the BJP which has been looking for an emotive issue after the Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi dispute or the Sethu Bridge in the sea down South. The nation is not prepared to have another partition and that too on the basis of religion. It is difficult to imagine the fallout in the country. The northeast too is watching the developments in Kashmir. Manipur is in ferment and the communities like the Nagas are demanding the right of self-determination.

Fundamentalists in Pakistan may be happy over the developments in the valley. The ISI may want to fish in the troubled waters. But they should realise that the azadi holds as much good for Kashmir under Pakistan as for Kashmir on the Indian side. Islamabad has opposed the independent status of Kashmir in the past. There is no indication that it has changed the policy.

However, there is no time to waste. New Delhi should hold talks with the Kashmir leaders to assure them of independent status, minus Foreign Affairs, Defence and Communications. Kashmir can have a UN seat as Ukraine in the Soviet Union had.

In the meanwhile, New Delhi must attend to the fears of the Muslim community in India. It feels insecure and helpless. In recent days I have traveled to some parts of the country and talked to many people, including the well-placed Muslims. I have found them complaining against the authorities, particularly the police. The community knows that the happenings in Jammu and Kashmir have polluted the atmosphere. But it believes that the arrests of the young among them are not because of Kashmir. Their concern is that on the pretext of curbing activities of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), scores of Muslims are picked up. Even if they are released after a few days, the tag of terrorism sticks with them.

What is most disturbing is that the Muslim community finds the pluralistic ethos in India is weakening and the sense of tolerance lessening. This means that even after 61 years of independence, the nation has failed to establish a secular polity. It is, indeed, disturbing.