Fayaz Kabli/ReutersOmar Abdullah.The warm months are quickly coming to an end in Kashmir, with the leaves expected to soon change colors around Dal  Lake in Srinagar, signaling the onset of the cold Himalayan winter. This year, the Kashmir Valley enjoyed a second consecutive peaceful summer, following a turbulent period between 2008 and 2010 when stone-throwing protesters clashed with Indian security forces amid angry demonstrations for Kashmiri independence.
Last week at his residence in Srinagar, Omar Abdullah, the youthful chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, met with Jim Yardley and Hari Kumar for a wide-ranging discussion that touched on the bumpy introduction of gram panchay ats into the state; the current tranquility in the region; the political aspirations of the state; and the broader political calculations at play in India today.
In Baramulla District, a place with a long history of militancy and bloodshed, there have been two murders in recent weeks that have spread fear among the newly-elected members of the village gram panchayats. One victim was a deputy sarpanch in Nowpora Jagir. The other was the sarpanch in Palhallan. What is the state of the investigation?
Our inquiries are pointing in a particular direction. What is becoming increasingly apparent is these were not militant attacks.
There seems to be more of a personal rivalry, for various reasons which at this point in time I can't go into.
Is that a change? Weren't you initially pointing at Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen?
That's what it looked like initially, because our initial reaction was based on the fact that militant organizations rushed in to claim it.
Who claimed it, exactly?
I think the Hizbul Mujahideen claimed one. The Lashker-e-Taiba has been involved in issuing threats in other areas. As the investigation has gone on, we've been able to establish links, in one case, to a surrendered, rather a released militant who had served his term in jail and had certain linkages with the deputy sarpanch.
But as I said, the investigation is still ongoing.
The two killings are not connected?
There is nothing to suggest the two killings are connected at this point.
Was the militant hired by a third party?
We haven't been able to establish whether he was hired, or wh ether some inducements were offered or whether it was his own sort of initiative. But there has been involvement of a released militant and certain over-ground workers of the Hizbul Muhajideen group. But the motive doesn't seem to have been militancy. The motive is other than that.
If you put it into context, unfortunately everything that happens in Jammu and Kashmir gets, I mean it just looks much larger than anywhere else.
It is important to understand that there is a large section of people that don't want these panches and sarpanches to succeed. Among them, first and foremost, are the separatists, because they've made an issue out of elections in Jammu and Kashmir, across the board, whether Parliament or assembly or otherwise. The people who they defeated in the election obviously don't want to see them succeed. In fact, they would be more than happy to see them resign since there would be a by-election and they can probably come and try to win that seat.
The people who stayed away from the election process, out of fear or whatever other reason, would also not like to see these people succeed. There is a vested interest among the establishment that is also uneasy with this new class of public representatives.
Is that vested interest political or bureaucratic?
Both. Both. Let's understand that you have not had a functioning panchayat system here for more than three decades. So an entire generation of political and administrative leadership has grown up without having to work with this group of elected representatives. Clearly, they would much rather not have to deal with them.
So when you factor all that in, yes, there will be efforts made to sort of intimidate and scare and stuff like that. Now how much of that is genuine militancy and how much of it is down to a vested interest from this section of people â€" that remains to be seen.
These elections were accompanied by much fanfare. It does seem like the political order is being shaken up. Many people have pointed out that this shake-up has nothing to do with the larger Kashmir problem. Why do they say that?
We've always maintained that elections are not a substitute for the resolution of the problem of Jammu and Kashmir.
I have reservations and issues when the foreign minister stands up in the United Nations and says that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have time and time again shown which side they want to be on by participating in India's democratic process. You are in effect converting an election into a referendum, which strengthens the case of those people who want to see those elections boycotted.
The fact of the matter is that people participate in elections for, in this case, local self-government, or for the state government.
We noticed tangible p rogress in Nowpora Jagir, including new drains, water pumps and pipelines.
Look, these areas, especially where the attacks have taken place, are a little shaken up. That is bound to be the case. But I believe these panchayats will start functioning again. That confidence is based on the fact that only 52 elected representatives have actually submitted a written resignation, in a formal manner, to the block development officer.
Everybody else has done it in a newspaper or standing up in a mosque. And let's face it: That doesn't count.
And if you add those informal gestures, how many representatives have submitted resignations?
Nine hundred, plus.
That's out of…
Thirty something thousand, or out of 13,000 in that exact region.
One woman we spoke to complained that the panchayats must pay a bribe to the block development officer in order to get access to funds for development projects.
It's precisely to ensure that this sort of system gradually disappears that the third tier of governance was introduced into this state.
Let's face it, it's impossible to monitor every single project, even at the district level. That's why local stakeholdership was sought to be developed, by having panch and sarpanch elections.
It's unfortunate that this sort of corruption is built into the system. It will take a long time to weed it out. But I believe this is the model that has a maximum chance of success.
The last time the outside world was looking so intently at Kashmir was in 2010, when you were under a lot of criticism from Delhi. The entire city, the whole region was shut down. Today there are tourists everywhere. Â What has changed?
In 201 0, a series of events resulted in the sort of protests that you saw on the streets, and the origins of that lie in the fake encounter that took place on the line of control in North Kashmir in a place called Machil, where the army or a unit of the army took three people and killed them as terrorists, infiltrating the area, when they had absolutely nothing to do with that.
The three were from an area in Baramulla called Rafiabad and that provoked a lot of anger, which did not manifest itself on the streets immediately, it simmered under the surface. But what it did do was it allowed the separatist leadership, particularly Syed Ali Shah Geelani, to start a campaign of protests â€" what he called the “Quit Kashmir†program. He started issuing calls for protest on Fridays after prayers. The intensity of the protests was not very large, but every Friday we had protesters coming out from the mosques and then engaging the security forces in stone-pelting sessions.
During the course of one of those protests, a tear smoke shell hit a young man. Now, the police continue to maintain that he was part of the protests. The general opinion is that he was an innocent bystander, but he died as result of the tear smoke shell.
During his burial, another youth was severely beaten by the CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force], he was in the hospital for a while and subsequently died in hospital. During his funeral, some youngsters tried to set a police vehicle on fire. To defend themselves, the security forces opened fire, then you had another death and basically that spiraled. So, every death resulted in more protests and more deaths and the area of protests just spread. You reached the point where virtually every corner of the valley was seeing protests on a regular basis.
To some extent these protests were sustained because we had the American president visiting that year in October, and I think there was this belief that if Kashmir is kept on the boil until such time, you could possibly see the American president making a statement about Kashmir that would be contrary to what India would have wanted to hear from him. That did not happen.
I think somewhere the realization dawned that - what are we protesting about, a hundred plus people have died, what has changed on the ground? We are no closer to the solution to what one calls the Kashmir issue.
A certain sort of agitation fatigue had also crept in.
Some of the separatists would argue that there is a sort of rage, which is different from the Pakistan-supported militancy of the past. It is a more of an indigenous anger with Delhi for not dealing with the situation.
There is a desire for a political solution to the Kashmir problem - Â it does not always manifest itself in an expression of rage. Sometimes circumstances arise that allow for the rage to build up and show up as it did in 2010.
But it is not constantly simmering under the surface. If it were, why is it not visible today? Why was it not visible last year?
We have still had incidents which have caused trouble. We have had situations where the security forces have made mistakes. You had incidents where either during a militant engagement there has been crossfire and innocent people have been killed. But it has not resulted in the sort of mass protests that we saw in 2010.
So I think it is very simplistic on the part of the separatists to suggest that this rage is constantly boiling under the surface.
Do you think the center has any interest in pursuing a meaningful effort to reach some sort of lasting solution on Kashmir?
I do think they have the interest, I just don't think they have the political capital to do it right now. Any sort of political solution is going to involve some amount of give and tak e and I am not talking about territorial.
Who is the give and take with?
Well obviously between the state and the center. Different parties have taken different positions vis-Ã -vis where they see the solution to this problem lie. The party I belong to says that your solution lies in the pre-1953 Kashmir Accord where the government of India was only responsible for currency, communication, defense and foreign affairs. Everything else was the domain of the state.
The Supreme Court of India had no jurisdiction over Jammu and Kashmir, the Election Commission of India , the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Indian Administrative Services, the Indian Police Services, none of these institutions had jurisdiction over Jammu and Kashmir.
Now â€" this is our point of view â€" clearly a solution will lie somewhere between what we are asking for and what exists today. I will be the first person to tell yo u that there are institutions that benefit the people of Jammu and Kashmir: the CAG, the election commission, the Supreme Court. So why deprive the people of those institutions?
Do we have any reason to believe that Pakistan is acting any differently? It seems that the militancy is pushed against the wall these days. Some say Pakistan is far less interested in stirring up Kashmir than in the recent past. Is that true?
Well, they are keeping the pot boiling. Actually boiling would be too strong a word. They are keeping it simmering.
From time to time there are attempts to push people through. Infiltration is something we are continuing to deal with. So it is not as if they have completely given up, but are they making as much effort as they have in the past? Certainly not.
The army will tell you the intent is still there. It may possibly be the case, but are they acting on the intent, to the exten t that they used to? I don't believe that they are. How much of this is down to international pressure, how much is it down to their inability to do so because of the sort of measures we have taken on the line of control and how much of it is down to the fact that they just can't for various domestic reasons - I would not be able to apportion proportions to this. But I think it is a mix of all these factors.
Turning to national politics, we are seeing an era where regional leaders are taking on more and more power. What is your take on the state of politics now? Is the rise of regional leaders a problematic trend?
It is not a trend that bodes well for the country. Like it or not this country has done better when we have had a stable and stronger government at the center.
Our worst governments have been the governments made up of regional parties. So we have a situation where the Congress is at the re ceiving end of so much criticism. The BJP for its own reasons is unable to capitalize on the problems of the Congress. And the vacuum is being filled by regional parties, all of them with their own national ambitions. It does not bode well for a country that is dealing with the sort of problems we are dealing with.
One can only hope that the Congress is able to turn this around. We will continue to deal with coalitions, but it is in our interest to have coalitions which are not dependent on the whims and fancies of one ally.
Is the Congress Party going to make it to 2014?
I believe so. Because at this point I can only think of two political parties that would probably be interested in an early election, the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress.
(Malavika Vyawahare transcribed the interview.)
