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| Reducing trust deficit between Jammu and Kashmir | | Separation - The Way Forward | | Neha
JAMMU, Mar 24: The J&K Assembly yesterday witnessed a fierce debate on what could reduce the trust deficit between Jammu and Kashmir, between Kashmir and Ladakh and between the State and New Delhi. The PDP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Muzzaffar Hussain Baig criticized those who have opposed the reported decision of the New Delhi-appointed interlocutors to recommend pre-1953 politico-constitutional status for the State: The revival of the offices of an elected Sadar-e-Riyasat and Wazir-e-Azam, end of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, Comptroller and Auditor-General and Election Commission and withdrawal of the Central laws introduced in the State after August 1953. On the other hand, he endorsed the reported move and suggested that the "local Governor could be of great help in removing the trust deficit between people of Jammu and Kashmir and India and within three regions of the State and strengthening regional bonds."
In other words, Baig expressed the view that the elected Sadar-e-Riyasat would act as a bridge between the regions and between them and New Delhi. His suggestion that the revival of the office of committed Sadar-e-Riyasat would reduce the trust deficit is as ludicrous as it is misleading. How would the elected Sadar-e-Riyasat, who would be no more than a constitutional figurehead or who would hold the office so long as he enjoys the confidence of the State Legislature (in this case the Kashmiri ruling elite), reduce the trust deficit? The primary cause of trust deficit between the regions is the concentration of all powers in the hands of the Kashmiri leadership and the discriminatory policies it has evolved and ruthlessly implemented to deny the people of Jammu and Ladakh legitimately deserve in the State polity. Yet another cause of trust deficit between the regions is the insistence of Kashmiri leadership on demands ranging from greater autonomy to self-rule or on a dispensation outside the political and constitutional organization of India. The people of Jammu and Ladakh do not want what the Kashmiri leadership wants. They hate it from the core of their bleeding heart. Their two specific lynchpins are: Full political empowerment and complete merger with India. They have been fighting to achieve these twin objectives ever since 1947, when the State acceded to India. There are not prepared to accept anything short of this.
What Baig demanded or supported or suggested is utterly unacceptable to the people of Jammu and Ladakh. There should be no doubt about it. Those who think that they would accept such divisive and communal solutions are living in a fool's paradise. They are simply overlooking the harsh realities in the State. The fact of the matter is that what Baig suggested has further widened the already rather wide gulf between the regions and once again established that there is no meeting ground between the people of Jammu and Ladakh and the Kashmiri leadership.
BJP MLA Ashok Khajuria was absolutely right when he debunked those hailing the interlocutors' reported recommendations. In fact, what he said in the Assembly is what the people of Jammu and Ladakh religiously believe in.
But Baig was not the only Kashmiri leader who put forth a solution that is neither acceptable nor practicable. CPI-M legislator from Kulgam (Kashmir) Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami also put forth almost an identical solution. He said: "Restoration of limited sovereignty to the State as envisaged under the Instrument of Accession will serve as a bedrock for working out practicable solution to the long standing Kashmir issue and bring stability in south Asia." The Instrument of Accession nowhere talks of limited sovereignty or full sovereignty. It only talks of accession as per the law governing accession. He also said: "Pakistan and India have to become stake-holders in the resolution of the Kashmir problem…unless that happens the dream of peace will continue to elude as the State is sandwiched presently between the two countries suffering due to their competitive claims".
Both Baig and Tarigami, like other Kashmiri leaders, left none in any doubt whatever that they will never ever repose their faith in the Indian political system or in the Indian Constitution and that they, like all other Kashmiri leaders, would want India to quit Jammu and Kashmir.
Is this the way to reduce the trust deficit between the regions and between the State and New Delhi? This is not the way forward. What, then, is the way forward? The way forward, in the words of former President of India Late R Venkataraman, is: "Give Ladakh what it wants. Give Jammu statehood. Deal with Kashmir separately." Or, the way forward, in the words of former Home Minister and the Late CPI General Secretary Inderjit Gupta, lies in the "trifurcation of the State." Remember, he had made this statement when he was the Union Home Minister. In fact, in the separation of Jammu and Ladakh from the all-powerful and over-fed and over-pampered Kashmir lies the solution to the issues afflicting different people inhabiting different regions of the State. —Early Times Report |
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