In the backdrop of improved India-Pakistan relations, not to mention vigorous Track II diplomacy, J&K politics has undergone more fundamental changes than the mere advent of circumspection.
There are new political alignments, even a new way of politics: in power is a new chief minister, reluctantly supported by his predecessor; there's a Journey of Freedom on (akin to the Rath Yatras undertaken by Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani), led by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik, to persuade India to include 'Kashmiris in the negations on Kashmir'; the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, the umbrella organisation of separatist parties, which has threatened to split for a long time has finally split... and the old order has yielded place to the new, with Dr Farooq Abdullah and Mufti Sayeed more or less simultaneously turning 'patrons' to their political parties, handing over the reigns of National Conference and People's Democratic Party to son and daughter, respectively.
Image: Former state chief minister Farooq Abdullah with his son Omar Abdullah, president of the National Conference, attend the third Round Table Conference on Jammu and Kashmir at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's home in New Delhi, April 2007.
Photograph: Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: 'Everybody knows the solution'
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