Manmohan Singh: Legacy of a peacemaker Premium

Former colleague of Murtaza Bhutto shares insights on India-Pakistan relations, highlighting Dr. Manmohan Singh's peace efforts and challenges faced.

“India should seize the present moment, as it will get the best possible deal from Pakistan, and time is running out,” Munir Chowdhary, a former colleague of Murtaza Bhutto, the assassinated son of Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto, told me at his house in Mirpur area of Pakistan controlled Jammu and Kashmir in January 2006. Mr. Chowdhary’s family was originally from the Chhamb area of Jammu & Kashmir, a part of which was given to Pakistan as a result of the delineation of the Line of Control (LoC), and they had migrated across the LoC during the 1965 war.

I paid little attention to his words, as I had a more important task: to make use of the rare opportunity that had come my way to do unhindered research and collect reports for this paper. Unlike the trips facilitated for Indians by the Pakistani establishment — or vice versa — as part of track-two engagements or otherwise, which are controlled and monitored, I had applied for the LoC permit and, surprisingly, got permission to visit Pakistan-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, and Pakistan. Pakistan had announced that with the LoC permit, one could travel anywhere within the country. This lucky opportunity to travel anywhere in Pakistan, which arguably hadn’t existed for several decades for an Indian journalist, came directly as a result of the 2005 Confidence-Building Measures (CBM) under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Manmohan Singh: Life and legacy of India’s reformist Prime Minister

Dr. Singh’s achievements in office including the progressive legislations such as the MNREGA and the Forest Rights Act, his deft handling of the economy — particularly during the U.S. financial crisis of 2008 — and his big breakthrough in the form of the U.S.-India nuclear deal have been well-documented. But his engagement on Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan has not been as discussed, perhaps because it didn’t come to fruition, as the 2007 lawyers’ movement in Pakistan, the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008, and the youth unrest in the valley after 2008 made it impossible for the momentum to continue.

Nevertheless, the importance of that phase cannot be discounted, as it serves as a reference point for the future, when the time is opportune, and for those invested in the difficult exercise of peacebuilding elsewhere. As a first-hand eyewitness to the unfolding realities on the ground during that momentous period of the first decade of the 2000s, my own conversations with Dr. Singh gave me a rare opportunity to comprehend and witness the complicated nature of peacebuilding in that phase. With the India-Pakistan relationship remaining unresolved and, given the presence of nuclear arms in the equation, it continues to be a subject of global interest.

I joined The Hindu’s Jammu & Kashmir bureau in 2001 as a colleague of the late Shujaat Bukhari, who was assassinated in 2018. That year changed the global landscape after 9/11, and its echoes were felt in Jammu & Kashmir. Within a few days of 9/11, the Srinagar Legislative Assembly was attacked on October 1, 2001, followed by the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. This led to Operation Parakram, a military buildup initiated by India along the LoC and the International Border. The following year was marked by another series of provocative terrorist attacks, such as the Raghunath Mandir attack in March 2002, and then the Kaluchak attack on the family members of Indian Army personnel at an Army camp near National Highway 1A on 14 May 2002.

Keeping in mind the fluid and violent context, there were fears of large-scale militant violence during the (then) upcoming 2002 Assembly elections. As Jammu & Kashmir headed into election mode, I met Dr. Singh at New Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC) in August 2002 at a fellowship event. He was the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Just before the event started, the hostess introduced me and the other fellows to Dr. Singh, who was the chief guest on the occasion. As we were standing for tea before the event, Dr. Singh took me aside and asked me a few questions about Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan. Dr. Singh had just been made the party in charge of Jammu & Kashmir by the Congress party. He listened to me patiently, asking follow-up questions, and wanting granular details. He then said it would be a mistake to reduce India-Pakistan relations to a flip-flop approach. He was referring to the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) Pakistan policy.