Kashmir’s molehills
I’ve never doubted the BJP’s patriotism. What’s suspect is the wisdom it deploys to pursue national interest it tends to see through the prism of Hindutva.
Take for instance the party’s reaction to Kashmir interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar’s comment that a permanent solution of Kashmir isn’t possible without the involvement of Pakistan. Its spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman felt the remarks made “even as (the three interlocutors) are about to start their assignment is unnecessarily internationalizing the process.”
Sitharaman is an excellent spokesperson. She holds well her party’s brief. But her comments on Padgaonkar are a study in political exaggeration. One fails to understand how the veteran journalist has internationalized Kashmir by recognizing Pakistan as a party to the dispute?
Kashmir is internationalized when Islamabad takes it up in the United Nations, demands a plebiscite under the aegis of the UN or seeks third party intervention. New Delhi explicitly rejects UN resolutions as having been superseded by the 1972 Simla Pact that provides a bilateral route to settling the issue.
It’s for this reason that Pakistan tries to give bilateralism a bad name. We’d actually be playing into its hands if we refuse bilateral talks with it on Kashmir.
To pre-empt that eventuality, India keeps Kashmir on the bilateral agenda short of agreeing to a change of borders or accepting tripartite talks that will bring Kashmiri leaders to the same table as India and Pakistan. What we’ve witnessed sometimes is an attempt at three-way engagement: India and Pakistan talking to each other and with Kashmiris separately.
As the principal Opposition party, the BJP’s within its rights to play the watchdog. But it’ll serve its cause better if it does not come across as prejudging the interlocutors—including Radha Kumar and MM Ansari—that have a difficult job to accomplish.
Restrained and informed criticism is what one expects from the BJP. But the otherwise erudite Sitharaman came across as playing to the gallery when she linked Padgaonkar’s remarks with pro-Pakistan Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s utterances at a seminar in Delhi. She showed scant regard for her listeners’ intellect in going a step further to drag in Omar Abdullah (for his interpretation of J&K’s accession to India) and the support he received from Rahul Gandhi to continue as CM.
In 1947, smaller princely states signed what’s known as the instrument of attachment (loosely called merger) and the bigger one’s the instrument of accession. A detailed and serious discussion—not verbal sniper fire—is needed to help people understand the distinction between the two to see Omar’s comments in perspective.
The demand for the J&K CM’s removal had come from three quarters: the BJP, the PDP and the agitating mobs. I can understand the impulse of the last two named in asking for Omar’s scalp. But it’s hard to imagine how the BJP overlooked the fact that discrediting the CM would discredit Gen-X of National Conference—the most vocal and time-tested pro-India force in the Valley.
Likewise, haven’t Geelani’s aggressive opponents in Delhi actually helped propagate his agenda better and wider by first disturbing his meeting and then demanding that he be booked for sedition? Was Sitharaman’s party oblivious of his track record while in power at the Centre between 1998-2004?
Given the way the BJP looks at things while out of power, it’ll want Padgaonkar and company booked for treason if they turn up at the Hurriyat hardliner’s doorsteps.
About time the BJP realized that India’s interests wouldn’t be served in Kashmir by booking Geelani for sedition or sending Afzal Guru to the gallows. A democracy of our standing can live with such aberrations to keep others from compounding the trend.
While I was in Muzzafarabad in 2004, the late Maqbool Butt’s brother came calling on me for help in gaining amnesty to return to India. Why do you want to live in the country you left to fight with a gun? I asked. “Because I had greater freedom there to state my piece (of azadi from both India and Pakistan) than I have it here,” he replied. Let’s keep it that way Ms Sitharaman.
Hindustan Times



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Ashish Reply:
October 25th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
@Rajeev,
I totally agree with you (and with Vinodji).
We should also ask the Maoists to participate in the central government. With this in view, we should send Arundhati Roy and Gautam Navlakha as interlocutors.
Perhaps Kishenji can be PM of the government of national reconciliation.
Jai Hind!
[Reply]
Rajeev Reply:
October 26th, 2010 at 1:08 am
Absolutely..after all our contituition permits freedom of action and speech as long as it is not against the mighty dynasty and its darbaris.
[Reply]
anshu Reply:
October 26th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Congress Terror is the biggest challenge in this country.