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| Jammu & Ladakh as important factors as Kashmir, says PM | | |
STARK REALITY
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 6: Has the attitude of the Prime Minister towards Jammu and Ladakh undergone some change? Has he finally realized that the solution to the “problems of Jammu and Kashmir” has to be such as is also acceptable to the people of Jammu and Ladakh? Has he come to the conclusion that the Kashmiri leadership has been exaggerating things in order to befool the powers-that-be in New Delhi to secure a dispensation outside the political and constitutional framework of the country and that accepting their demand would mean end of the Indian presence in Kashmir?
The answer to these straight and direct questions could be in the affirmative if one goes by what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said while delivering address on March 4 at the 3rd Convocation of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, at Zorawar Singh Auditorium, University of Jammu. "The problems of Jammu and Kashmir are complex and each of the regions —whether it is Kashmir, Jammu or Ladakh, have their own problems which requires specific attention…The Centre recognizes the genuine political, social and emotional grievances of the people of the State and is willing to discuss all issues that have a bearing on the peace, dignity and well-being of the people under a Constitutional framework…We recognize that there are genuine political, social and emotional grievances of the people and are making all out efforts honestly to address these issues…There is no way forward but sustained dialogue and the resolution of all problems under a Constitutional framework that I believe has the flexibility to accommodate honourable and durable solutions for all," he had, inter-alia, said.
What the Prime Minister said was indeed very significant. In fact, what he said indicated a major change in his attitude towards the State. The very fact that he talked about the “genuine political, social and emotional grievances of the people of the State” that he “is willing to discuss all issues that have a bearing on the peace, dignity and well-being of the people under a Constitutional framework” was in indication that he had come to believe that there exists in the state three distinct regions and that each region has its own specific problems.
It’s a welcome change considering the fact that the authorities in New Delhi had hitherto considered Kashmir and its people the sole factors in the state and that they had always concluded truce after truce with the Kashmiri leadership over the heads of the people of Jammu and Ladakh overlooking the fact that the bottom line in Kashmir is secession, based on purely religious considerations, as also overlooking the fact that there was nothing whatever that was common between Jammu and Kashmir and between the latter and Ladakh in politics, ideology, culture, language, ethnicity and so on.
The Prime Minister suggested that he was for a solution within the Indian constitutional framework. Fair enough. After all, no one in the country has the mandate to tinker with the Indian Constitution and compromise the Indian stand on Jammu and Kashmir in any manner whatever. Besides, no one in the country has the mandate to give any territorial concession to Pakistan or any other country because any such concession amounts to negation of the very idea of India and recognition of politics, based on religion. Those who say that the neighbours cannot be changed but the borders can be rendered irrelevant (just a line on the map) only befool themselves. No one in the country is prepared to consider any such dangerous formulation because everyone who knows something about statecraft knows the meaning and implications of such dubious formulations.
Now the question is: Will it be possible for the Prime Minister to devise a solution that is acceptable to the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh? It is just not possible because there two definite strands in the state – one that dominates the political scene of Jammu and Ladakh and the other that dominates the Kashmir’s political scene. The stand that dominates the political scene of Jammu and Ladakh is national, rational, secular, democratic, progressive and all-inclusive. As for the strand that dominates the Kashmir’s political scene, it is fundamentally bad, reactionary, backward-looking, exclusivist and rabidly anti-India.
It will be an extremely difficult task for the Prime Minister to work out a formula that is acceptable to the people of Jammu and Ladakh as well as Kashmiri leadership because there is no meeting ground. And, it’s not a secret. A peep into the history of relations between Jammu and Kashmir and between the latter and Ladakh would leave none in any doubt that it is nothing but a history of bitterness and animosity and that the three regions just cannot live under one unified political system. So, the Prime Minister would have to come out with a solution that split the state into three full-fledged states – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh – and that is also acceptable to those who left the Kashmir Valley in early 1990 to escape the wrath of the secessionists and communalists. As a matter of fact, this is the only rational solution to what the Prime Minister called the “problems of Jammu and Kashmir.” Remember, it was for the time that any Prime Minister of the country had ever said “problems of Jammu and Kashmir.”
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