“Rasool's cricketing career nearly ended in 2009 when the Bangalore police interrogated him after a device picked up traces of explosives in his bag at the Chinnaswamy stadium. But the lad from Jammu and Kashmir's Bijbehara went on to make a mark in domestic cricket after he got a clean chit from the police,' writes Vinod Sharma, in the Hindustan Times ('Only Fair Play Can Solve this Crisis': February 18)

Not Rasool alone - perhaps even more striking is the case of Kupwara's Shah Faesal, who topped the civil services' examination in 2012 - the two 'worth a study by those who formulate or influence India's Kashmir policy', says Vinod Sharma.

'Both are in their 20s and they symbolise hope: all is not lost in the Valley where a generation of youth (including the Kashmiri Pandits) had a traumatised childhood. They grew up amid violence that made democratic India appear to a section of them a colonising force.'

A colonising force? This shocking phrase brought to my mind the Balochistan scene, where students and youth of Balochistan university openly proclaim to Pak run TV channels — 'I am a Baloch, not a Pakistani'. The Balochi leaders are in a state of open revolt against what they proclaim to be Pakistan’s rule in Balochistan to be colonialism at its worst - brutal loot of Balochistan's vast resources of oil & gas and minerals, outstripping British colonialism.

How can Indian developmental role in Kashmir – even though modest - be labeled a colonising force?

Yet, we may choose to forget, at another end there have been plenty of misdeeds of Indian political parties in Kashmir. Not only the extremity that BJP represents, but the Congress too, in alliance with the National Conference: crass corruption and maladministration; even worse, rigging of elections one after another, in the first two decades after Independence. Clubbed with the presence of the army in large parts of the state, to perpetuate their dominance. This is seen by sections in Kashmir to be a variety of colonising. The army’s dominant presence compounds the situation, for one must remember, army dominance inevitably leads to excesses of the worst type. It is this dismal scenario that buttressed the separatists – and alienation.

But before the point of no return, there was a pull back from the precipice. The turn came in the Narasimha Rao days with search for a political solution within the framework of the Indian constitution – a partial self-rule. “As far as autonomy goes, the sky is the limit,” said Narasimha Rao. Later, there was cleansing of past misdeeds to commence a new chapter of peace and development in Kashmir. Hope was again gaining ascendancy in Kashmir, with a sequence of state elections that bore the impress of genuine democracy – with a massive popular participation, the climax of which came with the panchayat elections.

The Afzal Guru episode – secretive and sudden hanging even when the proclaimed killers of Rajiv Gandhi and Chief Minister Beant Singh are still untouched – has come as a major set-back to the process of amity, normalcy and development in Kashmir. Is it the beginning again of the chapter of alienation? Is there no way out of this darkness?

Yes, there is, says Vinod Sharma in the above-referred article in the Hindustan Times. He writes:

“The biggest challenge the political class faces now is to assimilate the alienated Kashmiris in the mainstream. What followed in the aftermath of Maqbool Bhatt’s 1984 hanging isn’t easily replicable. It might be too optimistic a view. But the Pakistan of the 1980s – that saw Benazir Bhutto’s return from exile – is today a story of despair.”

“The fatigue factor in the separatist movement might not be overwhelming. But it’s there and affords policy makers, including the regional parties, the National Conference and the Opposition PDP, an opening to harness and creatively deploy the Valley’s invaluable human resource.”

Further: “Over six lakh educated youth in J & K, a big chunk of which is in the Valley, are without jobs. Freedom from joblessness is a bigger question for them than freedom from India.”

Then there is the contrast with material and political conditions in Pak occupied Kashmir. “Slogans for ‘azadi’ of a different kind were heard by Indian journalists who visited POK’s Muzaffarabad in 2004: ‘Freedom from the clutches of agencies of the host country’ ‘I want to return home. I’d have greater freedom there to air my views,’ Maqbool Bhat’s brother Zahoor Ahmed Bhat told me. His J&K National Liberation Front supported the ‘third option’ of freedom from India and Pakistan. Together with hundreds of others, he sought amnesty at that juncture as the movement was ‘losing control’ to mercenaries. Scores of them were ended up in jails on being trapped by their minders while on a rebellious return journey to J&K.”

“The situation hasn’t altered over the years. It has turned from bad to worse across the LOC. The Valley is much better off and must be presented as such. A good way of winning back trust would be to create jobs and pursue a policy against persecution. The programme backed by a national consensus must have four prongs: socio-political, developmental and law and order in addition to the external dimension resolvable only through an honest dialogue initiative.

“The guiding theme has to be equitable justice, not actions borne out of retribution as the Guru episode has come to be rightly or wrongly perceived. Given that Kashmir is integral to the political discourse, it’s incumbent on mainstream parties to keep the debate civil.”

In conclusion: “Only a secular India committed to justice and fair play can win over Kashmir. We need to be all-persuasive to convince the Valley’s alienated people that the promised pastures of freedom on the other side are all burnt out and barren……..The Kashmiris will listen if made equal stakeholders in the progress of India. The key to it is statesmanship, not crass militarism or an intelligence culture thriving on distrust.”