Ministry of Home Affairs, government of India put out in
public domain the report of Interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir soon
after the budget session of Parliament was adjourned sine die. The
report is titled, New Compact with the People of Jammu and Kashmir. The
report has invited strong reactions and rightly so. It is clearly an
effort to negate all the sacrifices of the Indian soldier made during
decades of defending the motherland. The report is the continuation of
the shameful crime of sustaining separatism and terrorism in Kashmir
that is losing support across the globe including among the people of
J&K.
Not only the specific recommendations, but the language used is obnoxious and seditious. Report that was made public almost seven months after it was submitted by and large conforms to the leaked/planted news published from time to time.
Prior to analyzing the contents of the report it will be worthwhile to know something about these interlocutors particularly Dilip Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar. Both these persons have been in limelight for attending seminars on Kashmir organized by Gh. Nabi Fai, the jailed front man of ISI in USA. Influence of those anti India seminars is quite visible in the report submitted.
To further understand their views I quote from an interview of Radha Kumar published in Greater Kashmir, a known pro-separatism daily from Kashmir valley on 29th May 2012. She says, “Art. 370 flowed out of the instrument of accession. So it seemed very clear that the relationship between J&K and the Center was based on Art.370, which was therewith the natural starting point for discussion. I criticize the fact that India has always retained the word ‘temporary’ ahead of the Article. After all, that implies that the relationship would be reviewed in a couple of years. But we are 60 years down the road, J&K still has ‘temporary’ status, and nobody ever discusses it. It has left a terrible question mark over this relationship between state and center and allowed people to call for abandoning it altogether.”
To call it ignorance is to deceive the people of this country. It in fact reflects the mindset of a section of kept intellectuals and paid opinion makers who refuse to recognize the fact that the state of Jammu & Kashmir became an integral part of India by the deed of the instrument of accession and the divisive Article 370 was a concession fraudulently manipulated by two power hungry individuals by deceiving their colleagues and the country as a whole.
Coming back to the aforesaid interview Radha Kumar, under fire from valley based political elite for a suggestion to devolve power to discriminated regions of Jammu and Ladakh apologetically said, “They( interlocutors) are ready to do away with their suggestion of the creation of three regional councils- each for Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir- if people( read separatists) agree”.
The Report is extended over six chapters filling 120 printed pages besides six Annexes spread over another 50 pages. Although the report claims to be outcome of interactions with more than 700 delegations held in all the twenty two districts of Jammu and Kashmir but in reality it speaks for a small section of the population of Kashmir valley only. Opinions expressed by the vast majority including terror affected areas of Jammu region have been disgracefully disregarded. Interaction with JKVM that included the present author and centered around the radicalization of the secular institutions of state like Doordarshan, Radio and University also is reflected nowhere.
Interlocutors admit to this fact in the very first line of the second part of chapter one. “The political settlement we propose takes into full account the deep sense of victimhood prevalent in Kashmir valley”, they declare as if there is no victimhood in other parts of the state. They go further to state that, “It surely deserves to be addressed with great sensitivity.”
Interlocutor’s team keeps this promise of being over sensitive to the aspirations of separatists of Kashmir valley by not only recommending measures that pushes the state of Jammu and Kashmir further away from the constitutional mechanism of the Union of India, but also by terming Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir as Pak administered Kashmir and even as Azad Jammu and Kashmir at times. This is for the first time in independent India that any government related paper defines the occupied area in that fashion. It amounts to trouncing in one stroke all the efforts and sacrifices of the nation, security forces in particular, besides undermining the unanimous resolution of the Parliament adopted on February 22,1994.
After philosophizing in vague theories concept of freedom and believed consensus the panel recommends, “that a Constitutional Committee (CC) be set up to review all Central Acts and Articles of the Constitution of India extended to the State after the signing of the 1952 Agreement.” Now this again is a premeditated attempt of discounting historical truths.
First of all there is no Delhi Agreement of 1952 that exists. Had it been so it would have been published? Even an RTI application to get a copy of the so called Delhi Agreement by the author was not able to yield anything as MHA claims they have no record of such an agreement signed by the claimed parties. It is a myth intentionally recognized as a fact. Second even if there was something like a document called Delhi agreement that automatically stands redundant after 1975 Indira Abdullah Accord, signed by G. Parthasarthy and Mirza Afzal Beig and freely available in published form in public domain.
By recommending to once again constituting a committee to review Laws and Acts extended to the state after 1953 the objective of the panel seems to provide a new lease of life to the secluded, fragmented and discredited separatist movement in Kashmir.
It is imperative to note that a Cabinet sub-committee, headed by the then Deputy Chief Minister D. D. Thakur, during the chief ministership of none other than Sheikh Abdullah was constituted for the same very purpose. It had submitted two contradictory reports. One report was submitted by Thakur. The other was submitted by the Sheikh’s son-in-law G. M. Shah and Ghulam Nabi Kochak. The Thakur report recommended that no Central law should be withdrawn because all the Central laws had benefited the people of the state. On the contrary, the two members had recommended wholesale withdrawal of the Central laws and institutions on the ground that the extension of the Central laws to the state had deprived it of the special status it enjoyed under Article 370. Sheikh, himself an ardent believer in the concept of greater autonomy, virtually bordering on sovereignty, accepted the Thakur report in full and rejected the other. During his tenure several more laws were extended to the state.
Similar is the case with Article 370. The panel recommends making it permanent by replacing prefix temporary with ‘special’. It is sugarcoating of the bitterness of the intent. Panel has suggested putting curbs on the governor, in whose selection state has to have a say, making it compulsory for him to hold elections within three months of keeping the state legislature in suspended animation.
The proportion of officers from the All India Services, like IAS, IPS is also sought to be gradually reduced in favour of officers from the State civil service.
Laughable is the suggestion regarding the nomenclatures of Chief Minister and the state Governor. Proposal is to retain in English both the Governor and the Chief Minister and use Wazia-e- Azam and Sadar-e Riyasat in Urdu.
The report is a document of disintegration. It is continuation of the Nehruvian design of rewarding separatists and grueling nationalists in the state. It is not sufficient to merely reject the report. Real minds behind this mischievous blueprint of separating J&K from rest of the nation need to exposed and punished according to the law of the land.
Ajay Bharti
President
Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch, NCR Delhi.
Not only the specific recommendations, but the language used is obnoxious and seditious. Report that was made public almost seven months after it was submitted by and large conforms to the leaked/planted news published from time to time.
Prior to analyzing the contents of the report it will be worthwhile to know something about these interlocutors particularly Dilip Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar. Both these persons have been in limelight for attending seminars on Kashmir organized by Gh. Nabi Fai, the jailed front man of ISI in USA. Influence of those anti India seminars is quite visible in the report submitted.
To further understand their views I quote from an interview of Radha Kumar published in Greater Kashmir, a known pro-separatism daily from Kashmir valley on 29th May 2012. She says, “Art. 370 flowed out of the instrument of accession. So it seemed very clear that the relationship between J&K and the Center was based on Art.370, which was therewith the natural starting point for discussion. I criticize the fact that India has always retained the word ‘temporary’ ahead of the Article. After all, that implies that the relationship would be reviewed in a couple of years. But we are 60 years down the road, J&K still has ‘temporary’ status, and nobody ever discusses it. It has left a terrible question mark over this relationship between state and center and allowed people to call for abandoning it altogether.”
To call it ignorance is to deceive the people of this country. It in fact reflects the mindset of a section of kept intellectuals and paid opinion makers who refuse to recognize the fact that the state of Jammu & Kashmir became an integral part of India by the deed of the instrument of accession and the divisive Article 370 was a concession fraudulently manipulated by two power hungry individuals by deceiving their colleagues and the country as a whole.
Coming back to the aforesaid interview Radha Kumar, under fire from valley based political elite for a suggestion to devolve power to discriminated regions of Jammu and Ladakh apologetically said, “They( interlocutors) are ready to do away with their suggestion of the creation of three regional councils- each for Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir- if people( read separatists) agree”.
The Report is extended over six chapters filling 120 printed pages besides six Annexes spread over another 50 pages. Although the report claims to be outcome of interactions with more than 700 delegations held in all the twenty two districts of Jammu and Kashmir but in reality it speaks for a small section of the population of Kashmir valley only. Opinions expressed by the vast majority including terror affected areas of Jammu region have been disgracefully disregarded. Interaction with JKVM that included the present author and centered around the radicalization of the secular institutions of state like Doordarshan, Radio and University also is reflected nowhere.
Interlocutors admit to this fact in the very first line of the second part of chapter one. “The political settlement we propose takes into full account the deep sense of victimhood prevalent in Kashmir valley”, they declare as if there is no victimhood in other parts of the state. They go further to state that, “It surely deserves to be addressed with great sensitivity.”
Interlocutor’s team keeps this promise of being over sensitive to the aspirations of separatists of Kashmir valley by not only recommending measures that pushes the state of Jammu and Kashmir further away from the constitutional mechanism of the Union of India, but also by terming Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir as Pak administered Kashmir and even as Azad Jammu and Kashmir at times. This is for the first time in independent India that any government related paper defines the occupied area in that fashion. It amounts to trouncing in one stroke all the efforts and sacrifices of the nation, security forces in particular, besides undermining the unanimous resolution of the Parliament adopted on February 22,1994.
After philosophizing in vague theories concept of freedom and believed consensus the panel recommends, “that a Constitutional Committee (CC) be set up to review all Central Acts and Articles of the Constitution of India extended to the State after the signing of the 1952 Agreement.” Now this again is a premeditated attempt of discounting historical truths.
First of all there is no Delhi Agreement of 1952 that exists. Had it been so it would have been published? Even an RTI application to get a copy of the so called Delhi Agreement by the author was not able to yield anything as MHA claims they have no record of such an agreement signed by the claimed parties. It is a myth intentionally recognized as a fact. Second even if there was something like a document called Delhi agreement that automatically stands redundant after 1975 Indira Abdullah Accord, signed by G. Parthasarthy and Mirza Afzal Beig and freely available in published form in public domain.
By recommending to once again constituting a committee to review Laws and Acts extended to the state after 1953 the objective of the panel seems to provide a new lease of life to the secluded, fragmented and discredited separatist movement in Kashmir.
It is imperative to note that a Cabinet sub-committee, headed by the then Deputy Chief Minister D. D. Thakur, during the chief ministership of none other than Sheikh Abdullah was constituted for the same very purpose. It had submitted two contradictory reports. One report was submitted by Thakur. The other was submitted by the Sheikh’s son-in-law G. M. Shah and Ghulam Nabi Kochak. The Thakur report recommended that no Central law should be withdrawn because all the Central laws had benefited the people of the state. On the contrary, the two members had recommended wholesale withdrawal of the Central laws and institutions on the ground that the extension of the Central laws to the state had deprived it of the special status it enjoyed under Article 370. Sheikh, himself an ardent believer in the concept of greater autonomy, virtually bordering on sovereignty, accepted the Thakur report in full and rejected the other. During his tenure several more laws were extended to the state.
Similar is the case with Article 370. The panel recommends making it permanent by replacing prefix temporary with ‘special’. It is sugarcoating of the bitterness of the intent. Panel has suggested putting curbs on the governor, in whose selection state has to have a say, making it compulsory for him to hold elections within three months of keeping the state legislature in suspended animation.
The proportion of officers from the All India Services, like IAS, IPS is also sought to be gradually reduced in favour of officers from the State civil service.
Laughable is the suggestion regarding the nomenclatures of Chief Minister and the state Governor. Proposal is to retain in English both the Governor and the Chief Minister and use Wazia-e- Azam and Sadar-e Riyasat in Urdu.
The report is a document of disintegration. It is continuation of the Nehruvian design of rewarding separatists and grueling nationalists in the state. It is not sufficient to merely reject the report. Real minds behind this mischievous blueprint of separating J&K from rest of the nation need to exposed and punished according to the law of the land.
Ajay Bharti
President
Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch, NCR Delhi.
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