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| Interlocutors votary of greater autonomy-self rule, beware of them | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Nov 3: Outspoken interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir Dileep Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar, who were rebuffed by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday and advised restraint, need to be watched very carefully. They cannot be allowed to have their way because their views on Jammu and Kashmir are almost similar to the ones as are being advocated by the Kashmiri separatists and the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leaders, including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and PDP leaders Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and hi daughter and Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Mehbooba Mufti. They may not recommend complete independence for the state considering the vehement opposition their "Azaadi" and "amendment-in-the-Indian Constitution-to-accommodate-Azaadi"-formulations have got in Jammu and elsewhere in the country. But they can suggest greater autonomy or self-rule as a solution to the so-called Kashmir dispute. This is not an exaggeration. This is statement based on hard facts.
It is not a secret that Dileep Padgaonkar was member of the controversial Kashmir Committee, headed by Ram Jethmalani, now representing the BJP in the Rajya Sabha. The Kashmir Committee was founded by Jethmalani himself during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime. There are reasons to believe that the Kashmir Committee was founded with the concurrence of the BJP-led NDA Government or at the behest of Atal Bihari Vajpayee who reversed the whole foreign policy as far as Pakistan and the United States were concerned in order to resolve the Kashmir issue taking into consideration the Pakistani concerns in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Remember, Vajpayee had declared that Kashmir issue could be resolved within the parameters of "Insaniyat."
The committee had as its members Padgaonkar and Ashok Bhan of the Congress - Bhan who did his best to persuade certain persons in Jammu to meet the interlocutors. It was not a coincidence that while Jethmalani publicly opposed the BJP's stand on what the interlocutors said in Kashmir between October 23 and 27, Bhan lobbied in Jammu through communication network to ensure meeting of certain persons with the interlocutors. The behind-the-scene activities of Bhan and the open support of Jethmalini for the interlocutors established beyond doubt that Padgaonkar, Jethmalani and Bhan continue to work in tandem and prepare ground for the implementation the former Pakistan President general Pervez Musharraf's four-point Jammu and Kashmir solution - demilitarization, self-governance, joint-mechanism and joint-control and porous Line of Control.
It needs to be underscored that the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC-M) of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and the PDP of the Muftis had extended their unflinching support to the Musharraf formula. The PDP continues to support it even today. It describes the Musharraf formula through its own terminology. It calls it self-rule, instead of self-governance. Its self-rule has five basic components - demilitarization, porous borders, greater autonomy or a system outside the Indian Constitution, shared sovereignty (India and Pakistan must enjoy co-equal sovereign powers in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir) and dual currency. Even a cursory glance at the self-rule formula of the PDP would be enough to draw a conclusion that there is no fundamental difference between what Musharraf advocated and what the PDP has been advocating as a solution to the Kashmir issue.
Anyway, the issue under scrutiny is the views of Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar. Padgaonkar is a well known protagonist of Musharraf formula. He publicly declared in Kashmir that earlier he had worked with Jethmalini, who accused the Congress party of sabotaging the agreement reached between the Kashmir Committee and the APHC-M when the interlocutors were there in Kashmir, and "now they have been appointed by the Government of India." His statement was quite meaningful in the sense that he thought it to appropriate to explain his credentials and viewpoint. That he did so in Kashmir, the trouble-spot, was an indication that he still believed in what the Kashmir Committee had strove to achieve. It is this that should alarm and caution those who believe in the unity and integrity of India and abhor the idea of India being partitioned again on religious lines.
Not only that he indicated his belief in what the Kashmir Committee had reportedly worked out as a solution to the Kashmir issue, he had umpteen times in the past expressed himself in favour of autonomy for the state overlooking the fact that the state consisted of three disparate regions, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, and that the contradictions in the political perceptions of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh were irreconcilable. There is nothing whatsoever in his formulations that could suggest that he had ever applied his mind or that he had ever cared to understand the nature of problem confronting the nation in Kashmir. (To be continued) |
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