New Kashmir govt has difficult task ahead

New Kashmir govt has difficult task ahead

By Clarence Fernandez

SRINAGAR (Reuter): Kashmir's first elected state government in nearly a decade has little time to celebrate as it moves to tackle separatist sentiments and bring promised autonomy to the region, analysts said on Wednesday.

The moderate National Conference party has made inroads into Hindu and Buddhist regions of the mainly Moslem state on a promise to restore to the Himalayan Jammu and Kashmir state wide executive powers eroded by New Delhi over the years.

But Farooq Abdullah, the party's chief minister in waiting after the first local polls since 1987, would find it difficult to prise autonomy out of New Delhi's hands, analysts said.

The charismatic Abdullah's success was crucial if the Indian government was to meet Kashmiri aspirations, they said.

"I think poor old Farooq may have bitten off more than he can chew," political analyst Rashid Talib said.

"What (he) has to do is secure a situation in which only defense, communications and foreign affairs are vouchsafed to the center."

Under the Indian constitution adopted in 1950, Kashmiris had charge of all their affairs except these three. But since 1952, New Delhi has gradually encroached on the other areas as well. Kashmiris now look to Abdullah to reclaim them.

Abdullah was chief minister in 1990, when New Delhi dismissed his government after an Islamic separatist revolt flared, saying the state government was soft on separatism.

Police and hospital sources say more than 20,000 people have died in the insurgency-related violence.

Abdullah's aides said they could not see the way clear to reconciling the separatists, but hoped to find a solution.

"Through dialog we shall decide that," Saifuddin Soz, the party spokesman, said. "It is not that we have a magic wand and all separatism will go.

Soz said his party would have to boost economic activity, crippled by violence. "We must from day one create an impression that so many things are important in life -- a good road, electricity, employment to our youth."

On autonomy, Abdullah might draw hope from the fact that Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda's government was keener on decentralization than the previous Congress government.

Abdullah's party refused to participate in parliamentary elections held earlier this year, saying that the Congress government of then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was not committed to meeting his party's autonomy demands.

But after Deve Gowda assumed power in June, his center-left United Front coalition pledged "maximum autonomy" to Kashmir. The National Conference decided to participate in last month's local assembly polls anticipating an autonomy package.

But the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party has vowed to oppose any attempt in parliament to grant a special status for Kashmir.

"It is up to Abdullah to make the changes," said Mohammed Maqbool Shah, a former civil servant. "It is only the commitment that makes his party relevant. If he fails, then the party becomes irrelevant."

"New Delhi has always broken its promises to Kashmir in the past," said Manzoor Anjum, editor of the Urdu language daily Uqab. "But this is a new government and it knows it will alienate Kashmiris if it doesn't give us autonomy."

Talib said Farooq would play for time. "I don't expect any genuine improvement," he said.

But the Kashmiri demand for autonomy would affect Indian politics, Talib said. "Kashmir may prove to be a catalyst in moving the Indian polity towards a genuinely federal structure."