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| But Kashmir is not State of J&K | | 'Good Friday solution' | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Aug 11: A think-tank Juggi Bhasin has come out in support of NC president Farooq Abdullah and his son and party vice-president Omar Abdullah. He has said that Ireland solution could be replicated in Kashmir to resolve the conflict. He asserted that that if the "Good Friday Agreement", brokered 25 years ago, could end the centuries old conflict between London and Ireland, why can't a similar agreement be thought about to end the 70-year-old conflict in Kashmir. "If the Irish could achieve peace what bedevils Kashmir", he asked, and claimed that the "similarities between the conflict in Northern Ireland and Kashmir are surprisingly but real". At the same time, Juggi Bhasin said: "We cannot shut our eyes away from the reality that a religious divide has emerged in Kashmir. The idealism of Kashmiriyat now sounds like a fable once told. On ground zero, Kashmiri Hindus have been forced to leave their homeland. We cannot turn our eyes away from the reality that a religious divide has emerged in Kashmir. The idealism of Kashmiriyat now sounds like a fable once told. On ground zero, Kashmiri Hindus have been forced to leave their homeland. The strands of a Wahabi-inspired Islamic counter-culture is making inroads in the Kashmir Valley". Notwithstanding these three admissions by the think-tank and Kashmir-watcher, Juggi committed a grave blunder by equating Kashmir with the entire State of J&K and giving all to understand that meeting aspirations of Kashmir will be the same as fulfilling the needs and urges of the state's two other regions - Jammu and Ladakh. Jammu and Ladakh, which constitute 89 per cent of the state's land area and houses the state's over 40 per cent population, mostly Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Christian, are intensely pro-India. The people of these two regions seek regimes independent of Kashmir, asserting they can't have any kind of truck with those leaders in Kashmir who stand for autonomy, self-rule, Indo-Pak joint control on J&K, demilitarization, dual currency, soft borders and porous LoC, Azaadi and Pakistan.
The ground realities in the State of J&K and Northern Ireland are not similar. One, J&K State is as diverse the Indian State itself. In a way, J&K State is mini-India housing diverse population with different political perceptions and conceptions. Two, J&K had never been an organic political entity ever since its formation in March 1846.There has never been an emotional integration between the state's three regions and the people they house.
To replicate Ireland in the State of J&K would be only to further complicate the already rather complex situation in the state. It was not for nothing that the former President of India and Congress veteran R Venkataraman asked Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to Give Ladakh UT, grant statehood status to Jammu and deal with Kashmir separately". That was the time when Hindus had not quit Kashmir. They migrated in January 1990. Their migration has added a new dimension to the whole issue of J&K, as they have been demanding bifurcation of the Valley and creation of UT within Kashmir and as they are unyielding. The solution has to be such that is acceptable to Jammu, Ladakh, Kashmiri leaders and internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus. There is no other way. |
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