“Many people in the United States – and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much – have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? They deserve a straightforward answer.”

This was one of the  sentences of President Barack Obama  when he unveiled New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan  in March last year.

Although many in  Prime Minister  Manmohan Singh ‘s government may  simply say  that it’s ridiculous to compare Kashmir with Afghanistan  or  Pakistan, yet  there is a genuine question in the minds of the people: what’s government of India’s policy on Kashmir .

They deserve a straight answer as well.

It is because it matters to them.  When they watch TV  channel and  read newspaper reports  about trouble in the Valley , they ask: why it so there. These questions  expand: why the Kashmiri youth and women are holding protests and pelting police and paramilitary forces with stones, why there are demonstrations  in the middle of night, why children and youth are getting killed  in firing by security forces. And more importantly, they want to  know  truth about Kashmir.

Unfortunate, as it is, the Indian people have been misled.  Not only by the government  but by media as well. The government   is  a  culprit. It has  never tried to grasp the whole truth about the situation , because its eyes and ears are  the men and women who have their own individual agenda. There is worst sort of competition among these eyes are ears, that the only truth that emerges out of that is that they kill the spirit of truth.

The Indian media  is  a bigger culprit. In  the media where men and women love hearing own their noises and  are dominated by  self-publicity seeking  individuals. They think that the whole pain of Kashmir has been summed up by their walk down the curfew-bound  lane or two in Srinagar. Then, there are taxi time  experts. This set of sponsored individuals become   specialists on Kashmir in 15-20 minute drive from airport to their hotel room, from where they  rarely step out. These experts  write articles in the newspapers  as if they are  the  final word on Kashmir, some time they don’t have an idea where Lal Chowk is.

On thing that should be clear to men in South  and  North Block  that most of them would say what their masters would like them to say. They are  singers whose lyrics  change with their masters  They are not important.

It’s the people who are important. Their leaders have time an again shown a tendency to support and then thwart the dialogue.  Engaged , as they are, in  politics of competition , to grab power, they have spoken about their ambitions , camouflaging them as aspirations of people.

While turning the pages of recent history of Kashmir,  certain facts came to light. Those read something  like  this . 

In 2000, when a direct dialogue between Hizb-ul-Mujahadeen and the Government of India opened,  some one sabotaged  it by sending journalists and photographers to  the  Nehru Guest  House at Chashma Shahi, where  first round of talks, which incidentally became the  last round too,  had begun. The whole area is  out of bounds for commoners. No one could venture there without the official permission. If there was a laxity  on the part of the security guards,. Who patronized that. It was the Farooq Abdullah government that time, and  the dialogue was taking place against the backdrop of the  autonomy resolution  passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly having been thrown  into dust bin by the National Democratic Alliance government. The National Conference government  in Jammu and Kashmir was fuming  with anger of this. It was a revenge moment. 
PDP-Congress alliance came to power in 2002. The then Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed  told a gathering  in Ganderbal  then the constituency of giant  killer Qazi Muhammad Afzal wh had defeated the then National Conference president  and chief ministerial candidate Omar Abdullah, and  who  now stands consumed  by the Amarnath land row agitation of 2008, had asked militants to give up guns. He had promised them that he and  other  “ elected representatives” would talk on their behalf. Anyways, the dialogue between  separatists, known as moderates  led by Mirwaiz  Muhammad Umar Farooq started in 2004. It lasted till the NDA government lasted. It’s rather ironical that when PDP’s ally Congress came to power at the Centre with other  parties, known as UPA, the dialogue got buried for  18 months. And when it was resurrected, by that time  Mufti Sayeed and Ghulam Nabi Azad were locked in a game of  retaining, and  gaining power  respectively. The  dialogue was nowhere on the  agenda. 
Then came the Azad government, which promised to transform the developmental landscape of Jammu and Kashmir. It ended  with  setting the state on fire.  It also went  into a fancy of Round Table Conference,  trumpeted as  a unique idea to resolve the Kashmir issue. Three Round Table conferences were held, two in New Delhi and one in Srinagar. The reports were submitted a long ago – the days have passed into weeks, weeks into months and months into years, but nothing has  happened to  pick up the reports and  study the recommendations or implement them. Nothing at all. The same is the status today as well – one wonders if the Government of India  has any intentions to find answers – it should  make a sincere effort to do  because  the flames left behind by the Azad government in Kashmir two years ago are leaping higher.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 9 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST