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| APHC reticent of happenings in POJK | | Kashmir solution | | Neha
JAMMU, Oct 20: The All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has been demanding "azadi" for Kashmiris for many years now. Interestingly, It has been reticent of what has been happening in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied-Jammu & Kashmir (POJK). It is time to ask those demanding "azadi" whether their framework of "azadi" also covers the people of Gilgit and Baltistan and POJK. It is also time to understand what the Resolution passed by the European Parliament on May 24, 2007 said about the plight of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan and POJK, which are legitimately Indian. The European Parliament Resolution had slammed the "domination" of officials appointed by Islamabad in the affairs of the POJK and noted that the 1974 POJK/so-called Azad Kashmir Constitution "forbids any political activity that is not in accordance with the doctrine of Jammu & Kashmir as part of Pakistan".
The European Parliament Resolution had further noted that while the "Gilgit- Baltistan region enjoys no form of democratic representation whatsoever", the State of "Jammu & Kashmir (administered by India) enjoys a unique status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, granting it greater autonomy than other States of the Indian Union".
In fact, the European Parliament resolution had denounced Islamabad for its failure to promote democracy in the POJK and Gilgit-Baltistan and accused it of denying the people of these two regions the right to shape and mould their own political and economic future themselves in the manner they liked. On the contrary, the European Parliament commended India saying it granted a special status to Jammu & Kashmir. In other words, while the European Parliament Resolution hailed New Delhi, it denounced Islamabad.
It is intriguing that New Delhi has not made any use of the European Parliament resolution to call the Pakistani bluff and educate the public opinion at international level. New Delhi needs to drive home these facts aggressively to the people of Kashmir as well as the international community. It need not be defensive about deliberately engineered violence in Kashmir Valley and elsewhere in the state.
At the same time, it should also address the concerns of the people of Jammu and Ladakh who have been struggling since more than six decades to obtain their legitimate due share in the Indian polity and economy as Indian nationals. They have suffered enormous political and economic losses during all these 65 years. Their patience is ending and ending very fast. They stand totally alienated from Kashmir and the Kashmiri-centric ruling elite. It would be in the larger national interest to strength the nationalist constituency in the state. Their demands are democratic and national. They simply want a dispensation that frees them from the Kashmiri yoke and empowers them to manage their own affairs themselves under the Indian Constitution, minus the separatist, communal, anti-people and anti-democratic Article 370. |
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