While Dineshwar Sharma’s appointment as the Central government’s special representative to hold peace talks with all stakeholders in J&Kis not the first such attempt, his focused endeavors in the past two months have kept peace hopes afloat.
Sharma’s appointment came as a surprise initiative by the fag end of the year on October 23 when the Durbar, the seat of the state government, was gearing up to shift from the summer capital to the winter capital of the state. Between May and October, when the Durbar functions from Srinagar, Kashmir has begun to remain in trouble during the past decade. The longest-ever unrest for nearly six months was witnessed last year.
During the past two months since Sharma began his first J&K visit on November 6, he has shown keen interest and met a cross section of people to understand the situation at the grass-roots level. Apart from meeting peoples’ delegations in Srinagar and Jammu, Sharma has walked an extra mile as he visited the north and south Kashmir districts of Kashmir. His visit to Anantnag and Pulwama, the epicentre of the 2016 unrest, where he met a large number of youth, has given greater importance to his peace efforts. The educated and other unemployed youth, who suffered the brunt of the 2016 violence, mostly shared their experiences and craving for peace and normalcy in the region.
However, on the separatists’ front, the ice is yet to be broken. These leaders — Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, heading the two Hurriyat conglomerates, and Mohammad Yasin Malik — having constituted the Joint Resistance Leadership in the aftermath of last year’s unrest, rejected the offer of talks. The traders and civil society here also stayed away from the dialogue process, though Dineshwar Sharma, since his first visit, has been of the view to “try his best” to meet separatists.
The hopes have not died yet.
Govt’s special representative Dineshwar Sharma keeps hope afloat
