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| Behind the scene talks to resolve Kashmir | | Sacrificing Jammu & Ladakh | | Rustam
Jammu, Mar 1: According to reports, the Congress-dominated UPA Government is trying its level best to start parleys with Kashmiri separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. It's true that Geelani and Mirwaiz have denied media reports to this effect for obvious reasons, but, still, there are some cogent reasons to believe these reports. For, reports to the effect that the "track-II actors", at the behest of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, are working overtime to open up dialogue with Kashmiri separatist leaders to break the deadlock have appeared in responsible leading newspapers.
These reports have suggested that while the Government of India is willing to enter into dialogue with separatists, the separatists want the government to first accept their pre-conditions. They want the Government of India to accept that Kashmir is a "disputed territory" and that the talks should be "tripartite" between New Delhi, Islamabad and Kashmiris, as there are three parties to the "dispute". Their other demands include release of "political" prisoners, repeal of laws like AFSPA and PSA, withdrawal of paramilitary forces and action against paramilitary forces responsible for the killing of "innocent" Kashmiris.
One cannot say at this point in time whether the Government of India would accept these pre-conditions. But one can surely say that given an opportunity, the Prime Minister, who has on occasions more than one indicated his desire to resolve the "Kashmir issue" by going several extra miles, would not mind conceding most of the pre-conditions laid down by the Kashmiri separatists. Our Prime Minister has publicly acknowledged that he would have resolved the issue during the time Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, had the latter been not forced by certain developments within Pakistan to quit the office as well as the country itself. He had said the solution was just a signature away.
It is hardly necessary to reflect on the foreign policy being pursued by New Delhi under the guidance of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as far as Pakistan is concerned. For the memory of what he did at Havana (Cuba), Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt), Thimpu (Bhutan) and Male (Maldives) is still fresh in our minds. Suffice it to say that the Prime Minister weakened the Indian case in Kashmir at all these places and also gave a dangerous respectability to terror tactics employed by Islamabad to further the Pakistani cause in Jammu and Kashmir. It is obvious that the Congress high command was, and continues to be, with the Prime Minister.
But the question to be asked is: Can the Congress-dominated UPA Government or the Prime Minister and the Congress high command ride roughshod over Jammu and Ladakh to placate Pakistan and its Kashmir-based agents and their supporters in New Delhi and elsewhere? The answer, paradoxically, could be yes. For, neither the Prime Minister nor the Congress high command has any regard whatever for the people of Jammu and Ladakh and various other religious and ethnic minorities in the state. They consider Kashmir and people of Kashmir professing a particular religion as the sole factors in the state's political situation, despite the fact that those who have been creating troubles for the nation in Kashmir are in a microscopic minority - minority known for its involvement in communal politics.
It would be no exaggeration to say that it is New Delhi and the "secular" formations like the Congress which have been consistently pampering and appeasing the secessionist groups in Kashmir completely overlooking the sensitivities of the people of Jammu and Ladakh and the larger national interests. They cannot go on acting like this. The people of Jammu and Ladakh have not given the mandate either to the Prime Minister or to the Congress high command to sacrifice them and their paramount interests in order to pander to communal and separatist politics in Kashmir. They must not forget that the people of Jammu and Ladakh are as they are and that they would not allow them to do what they are reportedly seeking to do to cultivate and befriend Pakistan and the Kashmiri secessionists.
If the Prime Minister and the Congress high command really wish to tackle the issues facing the state and forge a lasting peace there, they have no other alternative but to adopt a holistic and democratic approach. The best thing for them to do would be to first trifurcate the state into Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh States and bifurcate the Kashmir Valley to set up Panun Kashmir (Apna Kashmir) for the internally-displaced Kashmir Hindus and then enter into negotiations with the Kashmiri secessionists and other formations advocating greater autonomy and self-rule to find what could satisfy them, of course, subject to the condition that the agreement reached between New Delhi and the Kashmiri Muslim leadership would be strictly as per the basic structure of the Indian Constitution. |
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