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| Confused Delhi complicating situation in J&K | | Two Reports On One Issue | | Rustam
Jammu, Nov 19: Those ruling India are systematically complicating things in Jammu & Kashmir. It appears they have gone totally confused. They do not what to do and how to tackle the Kashmir issue. Things in the state were, in fact, never inspiring. However, things assumed alarming proportion after May 2004, when AICC president Sonia Gandhi appointed Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. Before becoming Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh had contested election to the Lok Sabha only once and suffered a massive defeat at the hands of Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the BJP. But this is not the issue. Any thing can happen in India. After all, we have a democratic system, Indian-style.
Immediately after assuming the office, the Prime Minister started taking steps aimed at restoring peace in the state. He constituted five working groups in 2005 to look into various issues facing the state and suggest measures which could help restore normalcy in the state. He also convened three round table conferences, one in Srinagar and two at his official residence in New Delhi, 7 Race Course. Four working groups submitted their reports to the Prime Minister during the third and final round table conference. The fifth group, which was headed by Justice Sagir Ahmad and was mandated to look into centre-state relations, submitted its report much later. It submitted its report to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. It was an extraordinary step in the sense that the secretary to the fifth group did not submit the report to the one who had constituted the working groups.
As expected the Chief Minister constituted a high-powered cabinet sub-committee to examine the recommendations as contained in the Justice Sagir Ahmed report and give concrete shape to what they would want the state government as well as central government to do. The issue is still under the consideration of the cabinet sub-committee, which consists of NC and Congress ministers. Justice Sagir Ahmad had, it was reported, recommended some sort of autonomy - a recommendation that had caused commotion in the nationalist camp in the state.
It was hoped that the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government would wait for the cabinet sub-committee to complete the job, but it didn't. His government appointed three interlocutors in October 2010. Their mandate was to look into the causes responsible for the turmoil in the state and suggest measures designed to end unrest in the state and harmonize centre-state relations. In other words, they were charged with the responsibility of looking into the areas Justice Sagir Ahmed-led working group had looked into. There was no need for the Prime Minister to appoint three interlocutors and waste crores of rupees on them, but he did it without suggesting that he had accepted or rejected the Justice Sagir Ahmad report. The interlocutors have submitted their report to the Union Home Minister. They submitted the report exactly after one year. They have recommended meaningful autonomy for the state.
So, there are two reports which are at present under official consideration, one under the consideration of the state government and the other under the consideration of the central government. No one knows which of the two reports would be accepted or rejected. You have two reports on the same subject and both are the byproducts of the efforts of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team of advisors. It's all confusion.
As if this confusion was not enough to further complicate matters in the state and cause alarm among the nationalists, the central government is now toying with the idea of engaging Kashmiri separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Reports suggest the central government could start negotiations with separatists to find what could satisfy them.
What is all this going on? The Prime Minister would do well to clear the air. He should confound the confusion. He should tell the country what exactly he has in his mind as far as the political future of Jammu & Kashmir is concerned. He must remember that an overwhelming majority of people in the state is opposed to what the Kashmiri leaders have been striving to achieve. In other words, any move on his part that is aimed at widening further the already rather wide gulf between the state and the centre would only boomerang. One can only hope and pray that he would recognize the gravity of the situation and act accordingly. The best thing for him to do would be to tell the Kashmiri leadership to reform itself and not do anything that is calculated to undermine the authority of the Indian State failing which stringent action would be taken. |
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