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| Resolving K Issue | | J&K a complicated issue, says Padgaonkar | | Rustam
jammu, July 2: The Government of India-appointed interlocutors for J&K have, it seems, finally realized that it is extremely difficult to find a solution acceptable to all the people inhabiting this sensitive border state. This became quite evident yesterday, when chief interlocutor and consultant editor of The Times Of India Dilip Padgaonkar stated that "Kashmir (read J&K) is a complicated issue and serious steps needed to be taken to resolve it." He didn't specify the "steps" which need to be taken to resolve the "issue." He simply said: "To find a solution to the long standing Kashmir dispute it is necessary to take serious steps…Kashmir is a complicated issue…Before any decision could be taken 'it is necessary to think over it seriously.' Finding a solution might take some time. Decision in haste would be a futile exercise." These were significant observations.
Even more significant perhaps was his observation to the effect that "we are here (in J&K) only to assess the situation and talk to every section. The overall political settlement is in the hands of central government." This observation should be taken to mean that the interlocutors' visits to the state and interaction with cross-sections have made them somewhat wiser. In fact, what Padgaonkar said yesterday was not consistent with the line he and other interlocutors have been pursuing since October 13, 2010, when the Government of India appointed them. Till the other day, these interlocutors had been talking of Pakistan and making statements that had made the patriotic sections of the society suspect them and their intentions. For example, their statements like "Kashmir is a political problem"; "we would ask the Government of India to amend the Indian constitution to accommodate the Azadi demand of the Kashmiris: and "New Delhi has gone back on the promises it made with the Kashmiris from time to time." Yesterday, Padgaonkar didn't make any such statement. He only said the interlocutors are here to study the prevailing socio-economic and political situation.
However, to write all this is not to suggest that the attitude of the interlocutors to the state has undergone a total change. It has not undergone a total change. For example, Padgaonkar used the words Kashmir and Kashmiris rather loosely, thus creating an impression that Kashmir means the entire state of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh and Kashmiris mean the entire population of the state, including Dogras of Jammu province and Ladakhis. This is the approach New Delhi and all or almost all the policy-planners and think-tanks, official or otherwise or the so-called conflict-managers and peace-mongers, have been adopting ever since October 1947, when the state acceded to India. It is this approach that has led to an impasse.
Dilip Padgaonkar's statement that the "social, political and economic conditions of Kashmiris will be portrayed in the report to give voice to every section of the society" should clear all the cobwebs of confusion and establish that the interlocutors continue to consider Kashmir and Kashmiris as the sole factors in the political situation in the state. This approach needs to be discarded if a rational solution is to be found. In other words, the interlocutors would do well to recognize that J&K is not a homogeneous society; that the state has three politically, historically, geographically, ethnically, economically and culturally distinct regions; and that the political aspirations of the people of Jammu and Ladakh are different from those of the Kashmiri leadership. They would reach nowhere if they continue to consider Kashmir as the most important factor. They would also do well to acknowledge that the problem in Kashmir is patently communal and not political and economic. They are demanding secession and not empowerment. They are already over-empowered in every respect. Besides, the interlocutors should realize that it is the people of Jammu and Ladakh who have suffered immense socio-economic and political losses during all these years of independence both at the hands of New Delhi and the Kashmiri leadership and that it is they who need to be compensated and empowered to the extent that they become masters in their own respective houses. The sooner they recognize these stark realities in the state the better. |
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