When former prime minister Manmohan Singh visited Jammu and Kashmir in September 2017 as the head of a Congress delegation, he evoked some nostalgia about his tenure, a period during which a solution to the Kashmir issue had seemed within reach. Singh went about his activities in his familiar inconspicuous way. He chose to only listen and not issue any statement, nor talk to the media. But he struck a chord as a throwback to a time when centre apparently tried to be sensitive if not accommodative towards the issues facing J&K.

Singh’s ten years at the helm – 2004-2014 – had witnessed the most promising peace process between India and Pakistan which had nearly culminated in a resolution of Kashmir. At one point of time as the Kashmir solution seemed close at hand, Singh had famously talked of a time when people in India would be able to have “breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul”.

There was some public criticism of Dr Singh too. Some people argued that despite making attempts and starting many initiatives on internal and external fronts to resolve Kashmir, Singh had baulked at taking these to their logical conclusion. Besides holding substantive negotiations with Pakistan over the then Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s four point formula for Kashmir resolution, Singh had also set up five working groups and the three-member group of interlocutors to evolve a comprehensive response to the then state’s problems but........

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