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| Will it be an amalgam of autonomy and self-rule? | | Political solution to Kashmir problem | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Jammu, Dec 11: The announcement of the Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, that the contours of political solution to the Kashmir problem were expected to emerge within a few months has set in motion a chain of public debate and discussion within and outside Jammu and Kashmir. What political solution to the Kashmir issue was being hammered out? This has become a million dollar question when Chidambaram seemed to be quite confident on the emergence of a political solution to the Kashmir problem.
Well during the last couple of months the central Government has carried out number of experiments on winning the hearts of people in Kashmir. And these experiments were in the shape of sending an All Party delegation to the state for the purpose of interacting with a cross section of politicians and people. This was followed by an eight-point initiative on Kashmir which was succeeded by setting up a three-member team of interlocutors for trying to find out a solution to the ongoing civilian strife and general discontent. The team has submitted two reports to the Union Home Minister and the recommendations in these reports seem to help the Government in confidence building measures.
And these measures include identifying jobs in the state and the central Government departments for the unemployed youth in Jammu and Kashmir, release of detained people, especially those against whom no serious charges had been framed, increase in the investment in the industrial sector in the Kashmir valley. Already an expert team led by Dr C. Rangarajan has been constituted to formulate a job plan for the state. This and other measures, including the plan to amend the AFSPA and to reduce the deployment of troops and paramilitary forces within the civilian areas, were aimed at confidence building measures.
In any case these measures were not a substitute for a political solution to a political problem of the nature of Kashmir. If Chidambaram talks about contours of political solution to the Kashmir problem emerging shortly what type of the solution the union Home Minister had in mind. It seems too early to predict it as Chidambaram has asked the three-member team of interlocuters, led by Dileep Padgaonkar, to find the political solution to the Kashmir issue.
One thing is certain the political solution that was being given birth to could neither be right of self-determination to be given to the people of the state nor Azadi as was being demanded by the Kashmiri separatists. Knowledgeable circles are of the opinion that the political solution could be an amalgam of autonomy, as demanded by the National Conference, and the self-rule, which has been conceived by the PDP. It can also be a modified form of autonomy.
These circles say that the political solution, about which Chidambaram has dropped a broad hint, could be based on regional autonomy with separate regional councils without altering the existing bicameral system of legislature. Either of these political formulations could be buttressed with measures for upgrading the economic structure in the state with emphasis on resolution and removal of regional discrimination.
Either of these two arrangements could be an ideal political solution though none of these measures could satisfy the separatists who have started raking up the question of grant of right of self-determination and Azadi for the state. Even if the separatists continue to remain on the other side of the fence majority of people in the Kashmir valley could have the satisfaction of having achieved a new political solution to the problem that would keep the special status of the state intact. |
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