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| The dialogue which ended as monologue | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Nov 1: After a long debate on fairness and credibility of electoral exercise in Jammu and Kashmir, the 2002 elections were held under a surcharged hype linked with the dialogue process and restoration of peace in the strife torn state.
In their tacit pre-poll alliance (which was made public only after results), the Peoples Democratic Party and the Congress projected these elections as a turning point in history of Jammu and Kashmir and sought votes for settlement of outstand issue. It was in this backdrop that the ‘peace process’ was listed as first priority in their Common Minimum Program of governance by the coalition government.
Item number one on the CMP thus read: “the goal of the coalition government is to heal the physical, psychological and emotional wounds inflicted by 14 years of militancy, to restore the rule of law in Jammu and Kashmir, to complete the revival of the political process which was begun by the recently concluded elections and to request the government of India to initiate and hold, sincerely and seriously wide ranging consultations and dialogue without, without conditions, with the members of the legislature and other segments of the public opinion in all the three regions of the state, to evolve a broad based consensus on restoration of peace with honour in the state”.
How much peace and with what amount of dignity has been restored in the state is evident from the prevailing events in almost all parts of the state, more particularly in Kashmir Valley. Interestingly, Dr Manmohan Singh, who two years later took over as Prime Minister of India, was architect of the Common Minimum Program of the Jammu and Kashmir coalition government.
If the events of past five year, particularly on the peace process, are looked at one can conclude that a desired outcome never arrived. However, a largely mainstream dialogue between New Delhi and people of Jammu and Kashmir really made some headway these years.
The first modest step in this direction was initiated by the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee with appointment of New Delhi’s all-time favourite retired bureaucrat NN Vohra (who took over as state’s Governor when the coalition government had almost collapsed) as Center’s interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir issue.
Two years later Manmohan Singh government kicked off a series of path-breaking roundtable conference which was more or dialogue with the self. The separatists, who have been keeping the Kashmir issue boiling, did not participate. As only outcome of this dialogue process, five working groups were constituted to study various issues concerning people of Jammu and Kashmir.
Four of the five working groups submitted their recommendations but their implementation remained halfway and the coalition government went off the scene. Fifth and most important working group on Center-State relations is still in deadlock as parties have once again returned to the people for fresh mandate. While Center’s chief interlocutor NN Vohra’s progress on the dialogue was yet to be made public that he took over as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir in June this year. |
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