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| Antony’s visit may reverse many a moves | | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, JAN 11: None of the parties or players involved in what Kashmir has turned out to be for past two decades are willing to change their positions even as both India and Pakistan are under intense US pressure to sort out their differences and look beyond Kashmir in order to bail out America from Afghanistan.
And as the situation has been obtaining in the wake of Washington’s diplomatic efforts, India is being driven towards becoming part of a regional initiative to sort out the Afghan problem along with Pakistan despite the latter has been opposed to this.
Thus, Kashmir figures in American scheme of things as an accord or understanding towards that on this with Pakistan may assuage Islamabad and make it relent to India’s entry in the process of a solution to ease an over eight-year-old battle in Afghanistan. Americans have been interested in a regional solution to the Afghan problem through involving the countries in its vicinity.
Last month’s withdrawal of about 30,000 troops from Jammu and Kashmir has been a part of the move to ease some of the tense situation in the border State. But recent showdown between two militants and security forces at Lal Chowk in Srinagar and a few other similar incidents elsewhere in the Valley now threaten to reverse the clock back.
This is more so after a Defence Ministry spokesman here announced that tomorrow the Minister AK Antony accompanied with the Army Chief and Defence Secretary would visit the forward areas in Kashmir to review the actual situation in the Northern State, indicating that the deployment level of troops is going to be reassessed in the light of recent happenings in the troubled State.
In the meanwhile, the former Research and Analysis Wing chief AS Dulat has indicated through a newspaper report published here today that the latest Srinagar attack after a lull of over two year in similar Fidayeen attacks was triggered off at the behest of JKLF Chief Sayed Salahuddin as he and his cohorts across the borders were feeling left out of the peace moves initiated by the Indian Government and to which certain separatists leaders on this side of the borders have been responsive too.
The moves that Dulat refers to have mainly been initiated by the Union Home Ministry whose one of the fallouts, according to him, has been an attack on moderate Hurriyat leader Fzal Haq Qureshi followed by militants’ fire in Srinagar. And both of these have been guided as per the former RAW boss from across the borders.
This has now brought the Defence Ministry that finds a reassessment of the situation necessary. Among other things it also threatens to reverse the peace moves set into the motion by the Union Home Ministry since the separatist Hurriyat leaders with whom the Home Minister P Chidambaram intended to do business with have been asking for reduction in the deployment level of troops in the Valley.
The Defence and Home Ministries of the Centre had already had different perceptions regarding the demand for lifting the provisions of Armed Forces Special Powers Act from Jammu and Kashmir. Since Defence personnel do not want to give away this shield in order to save them from being dragged to law courts in the wake of complaints of highhandedness against them from the locals, the Union Home Minister has been suggesting AFSPA’s withdrawal on a selective basis from areas where militancy has been showing signs of ebbing.
Now with Antony’s tomorrow’s visit to the Valley most Home Ministry efforts are stared with coming back to square one or at least they have become a subject for review.
Not just the Home Ministry, the Union External Affairs Minister SM Krishna has been critical of Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor’s recent statement that India should be prepared to take on both Pakistan and China. Krishna sees a setback because of this to diplomatic manoeuvres that have been on throughout South Asia, including India, its neighbourhood and upto Kabul as Americans are interested to involve all regional powers in finding an acceptable solution to the Afghan problem.
And, thus, since yesterday a seminar has been on here to discuss a roadmap for peace between India and Pakistan in which peace nicks from across the border like famed lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan is among the notable participants.
Somehow passions betook the better of the people at this seminar today when Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik started to speak. He braved pungent expletives from a group in the audience that allegedly comprised of Kashmiri Pandits. In the wake of this police intervened to end brief but scary interruption.
This again indicates deep set positions from which none are ready to budge, making Kashmir as difficult a question as this has been for over past two decades. Ironically, this started with Yasin Malik’s daring move to abduct the daughter of the then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Yet the fact is that muscle flexing by warring sides has not led them anywhere and the need to find a way out of daily skirmishes has been driving them to look for a new roadmap.
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