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| Sinha questions Delhi's Kashmir policy | | Kashmiriyat | | Rustam
Jammu, Oct 12: Former Jammu and Kashmir Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) SK Sinha yesterday took on the powers-that-be in New Delhi and asserted that they have no Kashmir policy. "India has no road map for resolving the Kashmir issue, beyond reiterating that Kashmir is an integral part of India and a settlement will be reached through dialogue," he said while delivering Dr KK Sinha memorial lecture at Patna on "The Kashmir Problem And The Way Ahead", and added that "We may agree to accept the LOC as international border but no other concession need be made". He, in addition, urged the authorities to "crush militarily the scourge of terrorism" and hailed "Kashmiriyat".
Gen Sinha only hit the nail on the head when he accused the authorities in New Delhi of mishandling the Kashmir issue. Indeed, it is New Delhi which has over the period created mess in Kashmir. As a matter of fact, it is New Delhi which has directly and indirectly promoted those in Kashmir who never considered Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of India. The ruling NC is one Kashmir-based outfit which has been exploiting the New Delhi's ambivalence and systematically driving the state away from the national mainstream. Leave aside the fact that in the process it has also been "trading autonomy" for the sake of power. One can site here many instances to prove that it was New Delhi that created for the nation problem in Kashmir out of nothing. A reference to just two examples in this regard would be in order. First, New Delhi took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations at a time when the Indian Army was about to get the Pakistani aggression vacated. Two, it incorporated Article 370 in the constitutions, thus making the international community understand that New Delhi didn't consider Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of India to the same extent as other states of the Union and that New Delhi also considered Kashmiri Muslims a race apart.
New Delhi would do well to appreciate Gen Sinha's views on Jammu and Kashmir and make it loud and clear that it will not give any concession whatsoever either to Pakistan or to the secessionist Kashmiri leadership. It will also do well to accept his suggestion that the "scourge of terrorism be crushed militarily". The Pakistani-sponsored terrorists cannot be allowed to dot the State's political scene with murder and mayhem. They have already cause enough of damage and disturbed the Kashmir Valley's socio-religious and political equilibrium by cleansing it of almost all non-Muslims.
However, to say all this is not to suggest that the Gen Sinha's all formulations needed to be considered and appreciated. For, some of his formulations are fraught with dangerous ramifications. Take, for example, his suggestion that the LOC be converted into an international border. Conversion of LOC into an international border would mean a spectacular victory of Pakistan and negation of the February 1994 unanimous Parliamentary resolution. The 1994 resolution mandated India to retrieve all the territories Pakistani occupied after loot and rapine. Similarly, no student of Kashmir history would appreciate his Kashmiriyat formulation. For, to many, including the internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus, Kashmiriyat means rigorous exclusion of the "Other". His assertion that Kashmiriyat stood for and stands for "secularism" and that it is "a valued tradition of Kashmir from the medieval period" is nothing but a distortion of sorts. Gen Sinha would do well to remember that the term "Kashmiriyat" was coined by a Jammu-based crony of Sheikh Abdullah in the late 1970s and his purpose was not novel. He had done so only to mislead the public opinion. |
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