Separatists at sea

Early in October New Delhi lifted a ban in force since Independence to allow 16 Pakistani journalists to visit Jammu and Kashmir under the auspices of the South Asia Free Media Association.
The move was fraught with risks. But the government reckoned, correctly as it turned out, that the hostile propaganda aired by their media for well over five decades would yield place to at least a modicum of informed judgement.
Thus, for the first time ever, the journalists were able to see the wretched living conditions of Kashmiri Pandits in a migrant camp in Jammu and listen to their accounts of the suffering they had to endure in the wake of the insurgency which erupted in 1989.
None of this had figured in the Pakistani media. But Jammu had good news for the journalists as well.
Opinion and decision makers expressed their goodwill for Pakistan, called for freer exchanges of people and goods between the two parts of the partitioned state and declared themselves in favour of a peaceful and durable settlement of the vexed Kashmir issue.
It was another story altogether in Srinagar. The sight of deserted streets and of police and army personnel at every nook and corner reminded one visitor of the last days of Communist rule in Kabul.
The cries of azadi heard wherever the journalists went - at the Kashmir University, at the house of the avowedly pro-Pakistan separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, at the meeting of the Bar Association and in encounters with men and women in the bazaars - strengthened their conviction that the population of the Valley was hostile to India.
Human rights activists also told them stories they had heard before: about missing persons or about individuals who had been tortured or held in jail without trial for a number of years under the draconian anti-terrorist laws. On this score too their perceptions were reinforced.
But surprises were in store for the journalists as well. They found every one at sea when asked to define azadi.
While Geelani favoured the Valley''s accession to Pakistan, many voices called for the reunification of the partitioned state and the creation of an independent sovereign entity.
The journalists were told in substance: plague on both your houses. This they had not quite bargained for.
Equally revealing for the journalists was the acrimony bordering on hatred between the separatist groups. One leader went so far as to accuse Pakistan of splitting the APHC, of bribing its rivals and indeed even of getting moderate separatist leaders murdered.
The question suggested itself: given this degree of divisiveness, how on earth is one to choose the ''real'' representatives of the Kashmiri people when they are eventually brought into the negotiations for a durable settlement of the issue?
No such squabbling was in evidence during the group''s discussions with leaders of various political parties whose legitimacy is not acknowledged by Islamabad.
Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed''s defence of his government''s record on the question of human rights may not have cut much ice.
However, a cool and confident Omar Abdullah and a feisty and shrewd Mehbooba Mufti put across their points of view without resorting to rhetorical flourishes.
Two other developments seemed to trouble the journalists. Slogans about imposing Islamic rule in Kashmir heard here and there irked them since they have to contend with Islamic extremists back home.
The separatists also upbraided the visitors for coming to J&K on an Indian visa and for asserting that they weren''t there to wave a flag on behalf of any group or government.
Apparently all this was part of an Indo-Pakistani conspiracy to sell Kashmir down the drain. Such are the confused and confusing ''ground realities'' that the Pakistani media are now called upon to decipher.