The long summer protest of 2016 had seen a surge in pro- Pakistan sentiment on Kashmir’s streets. Green was the predominant colour of closed shutters, an unambiguous statement in conjunction with the ‘India Go Back’ slogans painted on them and on road surfaces across south Kashmir. In the four months of agitation that erupted after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffer Wani, protesters had freely unfurled the Pakistan flags—even wrapping the bodies of protesters killed by government forces in them. Now with the protest season ebbing, the army and police are wiping away anti-India graffiti and paintings of Pakistan’s flag from walls and signboards on the streets.

The phenomenon was not surprising in itself, except the scale on which it occurred. What’s more interesting is how sentiments on the street affected the mainstream political parties: the rise of pro-Pakistan feelings on the ground has served to exert a kind of gravitational pull on the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its rival National Conference, drawing them to a new outreach towards Islamabad. And Islamabad has not been unresponsive towards their overtures either.

Away from the media focus, Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit held separate meetings with both Suhail Bukhari, media advisor of chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, and the NC’s chief spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu in Lucknow, on the sidelines of a conference organised by the Rajasthan Patrika Group on November 14. One session of the conference was about Kashmir and the Patrika Group had invited speakers from Jammu and Kashmir, including Mattu, Bukhari and Panthers Party leader Bhim Singh. Mattu lets on that Basit sought meetings with him and Bukhari after their keynote addresses.