Ghulam Nabi Khayal
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sudden air dash to Lahore on December 25 took even his own India by surprise. This was indeed a great gesture of mutual understanding demonstrated by Modi, earning laurels for himself as a seasoned statesman and capable of any action he intends to take in a larger interest.
The wisdom demands that one should read much more beyond Modi having lunch with daal, saag, Kashmiri tea, his touching feet of Nawaz Sharif’s mother or Nawaz donning Modi’s present, a pink turban.
By and large, Narendra Modi’s 19-month-old rule has not gained any acceptability and popularity among Indian minorities and Muslims in particular. The reason is widely known to one and all.
Separatist parties in Kashmir have reiterated that representatives of Kashmir nation be made an essential party to any dialogue between India and Pakistan. This demand is quite genuine for Kashmir is the main sufferer of the unsolved dispute.
Sometime ago, Pakistan prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif expressed a different opinion saying that Kashmir was not third party to the dispute, but he added that people of Kashmir have stakes in the resolution of the tangle. It clearly means that Kashmiri representatives may not be invited to parleys that might officially take place between Islamabad and Delhi particularly on Kashmir. India has already, and categorically, rejected the idea of the Hurriyat Conference (HC) factions being accepted as third party.
Back home, the question of genuine representation from Kashmir has some loopholes to be plugged with realistic approach. No doubt, various factions of the separatist HC have overwhelming support of the masses and popularity of its leaders cannot be questioned. At the same time, members of those mainstream political parties who have been properly elected to the legislature by the electorate cannot be denied their genuine claim that they also represent Kashmir and should be treated equally as a party when decisive parleys on unresolved Kashmir issue are held.
This tricky matter shall have to be addressed much before claims and counter claims in this regard are made publicly. It would be appropriate that both claimants wait till Delhi and Islamabad arrive at some consensus keeping in view unprecedented sufferings of Kashmiri people right from 1947 when both India and Pakistan achieved their goal of freedom but Kashmiri nation remains almost enslaved for more than four centuries.
In my humble opinion, which alone can lead the parties concerned to a viable and permanent solution of this vexed issue, is that Kashmir must be treated as a separate entity. Ladakh be given a union territory status and Jammu be merged with Punjab or granted a separate statehood. It sounds pretty realistic proposition for, the problem essentially rallies around Kashmir, and Jammu or Ladakh are not involved in any demand.
One must voluntarily agree with Farooq Abdullah that Pakistani-administered Kashmir (PaK) be made part of Pakistan as against Ladakh and Jammu remaining with India permanently. This is an honest analysis of the existing situation which has not changed to the extent of even an iota during the last 68 years. Pakistan can never conquer Jammu and Kashmir and India also cannot go for an armed adventure to capture PaK.
As far as Kashmir is concerned, it has never reconciled with India politically on ground level. The obvious result is that killing of militants is responded to with observing general strikes and assassinated gunmen are eulogized as martyrs with thousands of mourners joining their funeral rites. India’s three important historical events, Republic day, Independence Day and 27 October (the day of landing of Indian army in Srinagar) are always declared as Black days in protest against Indian presence in Kashmir. It is also an established fact that Kashmir, in any way can not think of being part and parcel of India. One should, not live in fool’s paradise that in Kashmir some paid persons, illiterate and jobless, mostly females and street urchins of disrepute have become BJP activists. It is just their dirty and tricky act of opportunism to make hay while sun shines. Sooner or later, they will ditch their present paymasters and go back to their unnoticed life in oblivion.
The one and only solution of the problem is complete internal autonomy conceded for Kashmir, its identity maintained with its own constitution, flag, legislature and state subject law and withdrawal of all those laws from the union list imposed unilaterally by the Centre over the years. Kashmir’s defence and foreign affairs shall be prerogative of both India and Pakistan and, above all, borders made porous for easy and convenient travel in and out of Kashmir.
The State of Kashmir shall be formed on the basis of language and culture with non-religious considerations. Every person with Kashmiri language being his or her mother tongue shall be a bona fide state subject of the proposed State. This way Muslims, Pandits, Sikhs and all other Kashmiri speaking people shall form the autonomous State.
Simultaneously, India and Pakistan shall enter into a no-war pact with each other and in case any power including one of these two commits aggression against autonomous Kashmir the other signing party shall militarily fight out aggressor.
India or Pakistan shall have no mediatory right to intervene if Kashmir chooses to have its own executives and independent judicial powers.
In the larger interest of peace and a friendly atmosphere in the sub continent and generally in South Asia, Delhi and Islamabad shall have to abandon shouting the slogans: ‘integral part’ and ‘jugular vein’, and realise that the long pending issue of Kashmir is not only turning neighbours into foes but also hampering their economic advancement in many ways.
In case any other practicable solution is offered in place to this proposition, it shall be responded to with a cool mind and sincerely.
Let any friend come forward!
