There is bound to be a difference of opinion on the routes to be adopted to end the conflict. Kashmir, in particular, is a momentous challenge before the people of the Valley, the rest of the country, and of course, Pakistan. The conflicting viewpoints if aired with conviction and decency can help in finding a respectable and acceptable solution to the crisis. This leaves no scope for the double standard.
Unfortunately, however, more and more double standards are visible and audible that have complicated the issue and transformed it further from a crisis to the host of crises.
Whipping up frenzy on issues is no answer to any of the issue(s) confronting Jammu and Kashmir. It is important to have cool heads to think and decide which course is best for the people whose aspirations that the “leaders” claim to be representing. The word” leaders” is in quotes, because there are so many men and women claiming to be leaders and ironically Kashmir is a place without any leader at all. The “leaders” are not guided by their ideologies that they claim to be pursuing, but by their personal ambitions in which they don’t have respect for even those who brought them into the politics. It was the mistake of the elderly to have thought that their scions or the relatives could be trusted with the destiny of the people of the Valley. This is not a reference to the National Conference’s top leadership – President Farooq Abdullah and his son and party vice president Omar Abdullah or for that matter late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, it is about many others. This reference was necessary to explain that the ” leaders” in the frenzied pursuit of their ambitions have prevented a possible solution to the crisis.
Let it be put this way that when the individual ambitions start dictating the discourse,there is a tendency to deflect the real issues by raking up the contentious issues. It is a known fact that Kashmir issue cannot be resolved by the infrastructure development, employment packages and flow of funds from the Centre. But should the people be denied of all these opportunities and access to the development, just because a political issue is looming large. The governance and development cannot be isolated from the politics of articulating the political aspirations. When the real-time development is interrupted by peddling and widening the idea of conflict, nei5her development works, nor the politics works. the net result is violence and bloodshed, for which the ” leaders” blame Delhi’s ” adamancy” in not addressing the issue.
Turn few pages of history and pick up the chapter of the National Conference rule under Farooq Abdullah. When Farooq Abdullah took over as Chief Minister on October 9, 1996, apart from the challenge of the militancy and the rise of the counterinsurgents, there were few other problems too – education system was wrecked by the menace of mass copying. Ali Mohammad Sagar, who after few months as minister of State for Home, was made Public Works Minister, had to deal with the flood of requests to reconstruct the bridges, buildings that had been gutted during the initial phases of militancy in which burning bridges and buildings was considered as an act of bravery. The Farooq Abdullah government devoted money, machines and resources in reconstruction of the infrastructure.
Ask Sakina Ittoo, how she felt when it took days to take body of her father Wali Mohmmad Ittoo, a former speaker to her native village. This was an excruciating experience for her family as well. That time, a question confronted everyone, how come the private properties were being constructed all across the Valley, but the public properties were being destroyed or burnt. Why? The public properties too belonged to the people of Kashmir – the fact that Syed Ali Shah Geelani made clear to the agitating and aggressive street protestors in 2010.
The `leaders’ are talking about solution to Kashmir crisis, and they have their own papers or non-papers. National Conference is talking about the autonomy, PDP- Self Rule, separatists right to self-determination and few others are asking for the third party intervention from the West and China. Two things need to be clarified, whether the ” leaders” and their parties have discussed these issues threadbare within their own party forums, and if so, have they attempted to discuss with other groups. They have not. Except for the National Conference in 1990s, no other party has deliberated seriously on the issue of the autonomy, and after 2000, the party has used this catch phrase without much substance and appeal. PDP’s self-rule document is a Xerox copy of former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s four-point formula- irrelevant borders between J&K and Pakistan administered Kashmir ; self governance ; demilitarization from both sides of the Line of Control and joint mechanism to govern the whole of the State.
Separatists have reflected in contradictory terms, demanding right to self-determination under the UN Security Council resolutions – what are they and what are the conditions that India and Pakistan have to fulfill and most importantly whether these resolutions passed under Chapter 6 of the UN SC are enforceable ? There is no clarity on any of the issues and each of the ” leaders” and parties want to keep it confined to their constituents, forgetting that the resolution would have to be sought for the whole of the state on both sides of the LoC, and any attempt to make it a preserve of one particular place is a self-defeating proposition. Unless there is a clear roadmap, nothing will appeal to the people within the Valley or outside of it.
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