HAIDER
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- May 21, 2006
- Messages
- 33,771
- Reaction score
- 14
- Country
- Location
May 9, 2007
OPEN LETTER
Fmr. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
Dear Atalji,
In public life, from time to time, it becomes necessary to communicate one's perceptions, concerns and apprehensions to others in public life on the pressing issues of our time in an open and frank manner. It is in this long tradition of public communication between individuals and in a spirit of honesty and frankness, that I address your good self through this open letter.
Of recent, I have observed with much distress that your good self along with your colleagues, through your public comments, might have started adopting a changed approach towards the ongoing peace process on Kashmir. In this regards, I refer here to the letters that you and Shri Advani have recently written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raising public doubts and expressing disapproval. Then again, we have all observed Mr. Jaswant Singh's vitriolic disruption in the Rajya Sabha yesterday calling in to question Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's moves on the peace process and raising alarms about its direction.
No doubt, there is room for critique and discourse on the Peace Process. In fact, it is necessary and mandated. I too have very sobering and unaddressed concerns, which I would like to address herein - as a freedom-loving Kashmiri whose people have sacrificed and suffered and whose fate is directly to be determined by the direction and outcome that the peace process eventually will take. Kashmiris are still yet to be included in the peace process.
But my worry regarding the approach that you and your colleagues seem to be taking is that, at a time when visionary and courageous steps to further the peace process are already lacking from the present government in Delhi and are badly needed at this time, your behaviour as a leading opposition party of India may further curtail or decrease the possibility of such a necessary move to ensure that the peace process leads to a just resolution of the Kashmir Issue. As a seasoned and experienced statesman, you are well aware of how difficult it is to exercise political will and take visionary steps and, most importantly, how challenging the follow-through is to ensure. As the leading opposition party of India, the choices that you and your colleagues make have a direct bearing on the agility of the present government in Delhi to move forward in bold ways. You have an important role and great responsibility as opposition to build political will for the weighty decisions yet to be made on the peace process.
It is a fact, the present government in Delhi is yet to take the bold and decisive initiative to seize the present moment and move it towards a good faith public peace process that is institutionalized and includes all stakeholders in India, Pakistan, and the people of Kashmir â who are the primary party concerned. As leader of the leading opposition party in India you have a great opportunity to shape the course of events. I fear that domestic politics and a return to short-sided parochialism within India may once again be entering into the dynamic surrounding the Kashmir Issue. If so, it will be at a great cost to the people of South Asia who deserve a just and lasting peace for their future. From all sides, within India, Pakistan and Kashmir, we must not allow the present opportunity to be lost to the dynamics of domestic politics and the trivial diktats of playing to the gallery.
For this reason and with deep humility, I would like to encourage you to articulate, urge and support the type of visionary and bold move that is needed today from the present government in Delhi to ensure that the ongoing peace process moves forward, becomes institutionalized and inclusive and gains in seriousness. I have no reason to believe that such high expectations of statesmanship and of a constructive engagement are misplaced. I say this, with full awareness of your contribution and investment of time, thinking and exercise of political will towards the achievement of a resolution of the Kashmir Issue. Being deeply involved in the events surrounding Kashmir, I have myself experienced it first-hand and I am a witness to it.
Today, the people of South Asia are in need of precisely the type of visionary steps you have heralded in the past. While events often took unpredictable turns, throughout your tenure as Prime Minister you have consistently tried to create openings and take bold steps. Despite many upsets, you still persisted. From my side, I welcomed every instance where there was a serious initiative from India or Pakistan and I worked to achieve its success.
I recall your path-breaking bus journey to Lahore in February 1999 and the address you made to the people of Pakistan at the base of Minar-e-Pakistan in which you declared: "It is my dream and wish to resolve the Kashmir Issue." A year later, you made another attempt to directly engage Hizbul Muajhideen in a cease-fire and talks process in the Summer of 2000.
While that collapsed, a few months, later you declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Holy Month of Ramadhan and then publicly offered talks "under the constitution of Insaniyat". I immediately welcomed this move and addressed a press conference in Delhi in which I urged you to follow the visionary example set by Yitzhak Rabin in starting the Middle East peace process. At that time, I evoked Rabin's words to urge you forward: "Maybe my people will misunderstand me today, but future generations will judge and know what I have done for them to give them a peaceful and prosperous future." For 6 months, you directly engaged the then united APHC, under the Chairmanship of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, through your team including R. K. Mishra and Brajesh Mishra. At the start, R.K. Mishra conveyed the seriousness of your government to me and he quoted you, saying: "Before going from this world, I wish to resolve the Kashmir Issue." During this period, we in APHC had detailed discussions and we gave Geelani our full mandate to carry the dialogue forward. During this process I met high-ups in the Congress Party, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Haftullah (now your party colleague). We discussed your initiative to open serious dialogue and the overall Kashmir Issue in threadbare details for three hours. At the end of the meeting, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked me: "What do you expect from us?" I replied simply: "As opposition, support Vajpayee fully." Just after 24 hours, a Congress Party delegation including Manmohan Singh, Natwar Singh and Arjun Singh met you and the Congress Party openly endorsed your initiative to start a serious peace process. You may recall that you conveyed your message of thanks for my efforts through R. K. Mishra.
Atalji, I would like to recall your reflections during this period that you shared with the world from Kumarakom on January 2, 2001 in which you firmly committed yourself to finding a durable solution to the Kashmir Issue. Your comments that day openly declared the type of visionary statesmanship and courage that a solution will require. "We shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past. Rather, we shall be bold and innovative designers of a future architecture of peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian region". The people of South Asia, and especially the people of Kashmir, still await this type of exercise of political will and courage.
You persisted in your attempts to open a peace process on Kashmir and despite Kargil you invited President Musharaf for the Agra Summit in July 2001. It took two years more, but you were finally able to open a sustained peace process on Kashmir which started when you extended a historical handshake of friendship to Pakistan and Kashmiris on the soil of Kashmir, recalling the words of Kashmiri national poet Mehjoor: "Walo a Baghbano, Nau Baharuk Shan Paeda Kar." (Arise, O Gardener! And usher in the glory of a new spring.) This move that you took in April 2003 was the start of the current peace process.
I, on behalf of the people of Kashmir, responded positively in June 2003 launching a door-to-door signature campaign to support the peace process and involve the people of Kashmir in the decision-making that would entail. We evoked the couplet of the same poem of Mehjoor: "Who will free you, O 'bulbul', While you bewail in the cage? With your hands, work out your own salvation." Under the inspiration of these words, 1.5 million Kashmiris with their own hands penned down their endorsement for the peace process and demanded their rightful role in it. We put forward our efforts to build the momentum for the type of inclusive and public peace process that can only lead to a solution. We believed then as we believe now that only with direct participation of the Kashmiri people can the glory of new era for South Asia be ushered in.
On January 1, 2001 I addressed your goodself along with President Musharaf in an open New Years Letter urging you to seize the opportunity presented by the then SAARC summit in Islamabad and appealed you to move forward with the peace process. I would like to remind you of my appeal that day: "It is a matter of hope to me that I find in your respective public commitments a certain kindred urge for peace and a shared appreciation that a peace process on Kashmir will require statesmen-like resolve and new creativity. While there are extremist on all sides that may oppose such a bold move on your parts, I urge both of you to seize this opportunity to now translate your visionary words into visionary deeds. Given our firm stand that the people of Kashmir can only decide the future of Kashmir we have always opposed - and will always oppose - any attempts by India and Pakistan to decide Kashmir without the people of Kashmir. However, we have decided not to protest at this time with an eye towards giving peace a chance and in hopes of encouraging an opening between India and Pakistan for a broader peace process. I would like to convey a message of earnest support and convey my earnest request that you meet and resolve to undertake a peace process that will also effectively and meaningfully involve the people of Kashmir in finding an agreeable solution to all parties."
It was an act of good faith and expression of high expectations of your and President Musharaf's capacity for statesmanship that we, on behalf of all Kashmiris, tried to create a conducive atmosphere for a breakthrough. Five days later, you undertook an agreement and started the composite dialogue that is the basis of the current peace process between India and Pakistan. A few month's later, when you left power and entered as leader of the opposition, you entrusted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as custodian of all your efforts and legacy to achieve a beginning of a sustained peace process on Kashmir.
When Prime Manmohan Singh and President Musharaf took certain steps as Confidence Building Measures, I was afforded an opportunity to travel across the LOC, that divided our homeland, and also to visit Pakistan. When I met President Musharaf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in separate meetings, I put forward certain serious recommendations for an inclusive and public peace process. I urged that: 1) India and Pakistan must institutionalize the peace, 2) the opposition parties in both countries must be formally taken onboard, and 3) with utmost effort, I urged self-representation and inclusion of the people of Jammu & Kashmir in a good faith negotiation process. I also urged that your good self on behalf of the BJP opposition along with members of the Communist Party of India, A. B. Bardan and Prakash Karat should be invited to Pakistan before Prime Minister next visits Pakistan.
In February 2006, I conveyed exactly and precisely the same message during my meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. When I re-emphasized the recommendation of Kashmiri self-representation and inclusion in the process, I was pleased with the response from the Prime Minister: "We can not even think to exclude Kashmiris from the peace process."
You are directly responsible for the current peace process and the credit goes to you for the present opportunities that are yet waiting to be seized by the governments of India and Pakistan are its result. In 2007, the people of South Asia are still waiting for the type of exercise of political will, creativity and courage that you once urged. Kashmiris are still hoping and waiting for those bold and off the beaten track steps from the two governments.
At this time, the type of statements and signals you and your colleagues have been giving are not at all conducive and will not help. This peace process is your baby and you can not call it an illegitimate child. I still hope that you, along with your colleagues, will rise above the pulls and pressures of domestic politics in India and play the role of the elder statesman of South Asia. If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has declared the current peace process "irreversible", then bold steps are inevitably needed â sooner rather than later. Knowing your persistence for peace and your desire for a solution to the Kashmir Issue, it is not unrealistic for me to expect that you will build political will in India and publicly urge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seize this opportunity and move forward creatively and boldly with the current peace process.
Yours Sincerely,
Yasin Malik
Chairman, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front
Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir
http://www.hinduonnet.com/nic/yasinmalik.htm
OPEN LETTER
Fmr. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
Dear Atalji,
In public life, from time to time, it becomes necessary to communicate one's perceptions, concerns and apprehensions to others in public life on the pressing issues of our time in an open and frank manner. It is in this long tradition of public communication between individuals and in a spirit of honesty and frankness, that I address your good self through this open letter.
Of recent, I have observed with much distress that your good self along with your colleagues, through your public comments, might have started adopting a changed approach towards the ongoing peace process on Kashmir. In this regards, I refer here to the letters that you and Shri Advani have recently written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raising public doubts and expressing disapproval. Then again, we have all observed Mr. Jaswant Singh's vitriolic disruption in the Rajya Sabha yesterday calling in to question Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's moves on the peace process and raising alarms about its direction.
No doubt, there is room for critique and discourse on the Peace Process. In fact, it is necessary and mandated. I too have very sobering and unaddressed concerns, which I would like to address herein - as a freedom-loving Kashmiri whose people have sacrificed and suffered and whose fate is directly to be determined by the direction and outcome that the peace process eventually will take. Kashmiris are still yet to be included in the peace process.
But my worry regarding the approach that you and your colleagues seem to be taking is that, at a time when visionary and courageous steps to further the peace process are already lacking from the present government in Delhi and are badly needed at this time, your behaviour as a leading opposition party of India may further curtail or decrease the possibility of such a necessary move to ensure that the peace process leads to a just resolution of the Kashmir Issue. As a seasoned and experienced statesman, you are well aware of how difficult it is to exercise political will and take visionary steps and, most importantly, how challenging the follow-through is to ensure. As the leading opposition party of India, the choices that you and your colleagues make have a direct bearing on the agility of the present government in Delhi to move forward in bold ways. You have an important role and great responsibility as opposition to build political will for the weighty decisions yet to be made on the peace process.
It is a fact, the present government in Delhi is yet to take the bold and decisive initiative to seize the present moment and move it towards a good faith public peace process that is institutionalized and includes all stakeholders in India, Pakistan, and the people of Kashmir â who are the primary party concerned. As leader of the leading opposition party in India you have a great opportunity to shape the course of events. I fear that domestic politics and a return to short-sided parochialism within India may once again be entering into the dynamic surrounding the Kashmir Issue. If so, it will be at a great cost to the people of South Asia who deserve a just and lasting peace for their future. From all sides, within India, Pakistan and Kashmir, we must not allow the present opportunity to be lost to the dynamics of domestic politics and the trivial diktats of playing to the gallery.
For this reason and with deep humility, I would like to encourage you to articulate, urge and support the type of visionary and bold move that is needed today from the present government in Delhi to ensure that the ongoing peace process moves forward, becomes institutionalized and inclusive and gains in seriousness. I have no reason to believe that such high expectations of statesmanship and of a constructive engagement are misplaced. I say this, with full awareness of your contribution and investment of time, thinking and exercise of political will towards the achievement of a resolution of the Kashmir Issue. Being deeply involved in the events surrounding Kashmir, I have myself experienced it first-hand and I am a witness to it.
Today, the people of South Asia are in need of precisely the type of visionary steps you have heralded in the past. While events often took unpredictable turns, throughout your tenure as Prime Minister you have consistently tried to create openings and take bold steps. Despite many upsets, you still persisted. From my side, I welcomed every instance where there was a serious initiative from India or Pakistan and I worked to achieve its success.
I recall your path-breaking bus journey to Lahore in February 1999 and the address you made to the people of Pakistan at the base of Minar-e-Pakistan in which you declared: "It is my dream and wish to resolve the Kashmir Issue." A year later, you made another attempt to directly engage Hizbul Muajhideen in a cease-fire and talks process in the Summer of 2000.
While that collapsed, a few months, later you declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Holy Month of Ramadhan and then publicly offered talks "under the constitution of Insaniyat". I immediately welcomed this move and addressed a press conference in Delhi in which I urged you to follow the visionary example set by Yitzhak Rabin in starting the Middle East peace process. At that time, I evoked Rabin's words to urge you forward: "Maybe my people will misunderstand me today, but future generations will judge and know what I have done for them to give them a peaceful and prosperous future." For 6 months, you directly engaged the then united APHC, under the Chairmanship of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, through your team including R. K. Mishra and Brajesh Mishra. At the start, R.K. Mishra conveyed the seriousness of your government to me and he quoted you, saying: "Before going from this world, I wish to resolve the Kashmir Issue." During this period, we in APHC had detailed discussions and we gave Geelani our full mandate to carry the dialogue forward. During this process I met high-ups in the Congress Party, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Haftullah (now your party colleague). We discussed your initiative to open serious dialogue and the overall Kashmir Issue in threadbare details for three hours. At the end of the meeting, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked me: "What do you expect from us?" I replied simply: "As opposition, support Vajpayee fully." Just after 24 hours, a Congress Party delegation including Manmohan Singh, Natwar Singh and Arjun Singh met you and the Congress Party openly endorsed your initiative to start a serious peace process. You may recall that you conveyed your message of thanks for my efforts through R. K. Mishra.
Atalji, I would like to recall your reflections during this period that you shared with the world from Kumarakom on January 2, 2001 in which you firmly committed yourself to finding a durable solution to the Kashmir Issue. Your comments that day openly declared the type of visionary statesmanship and courage that a solution will require. "We shall not traverse solely on the beaten track of the past. Rather, we shall be bold and innovative designers of a future architecture of peace and prosperity for the entire South Asian region". The people of South Asia, and especially the people of Kashmir, still await this type of exercise of political will and courage.
You persisted in your attempts to open a peace process on Kashmir and despite Kargil you invited President Musharaf for the Agra Summit in July 2001. It took two years more, but you were finally able to open a sustained peace process on Kashmir which started when you extended a historical handshake of friendship to Pakistan and Kashmiris on the soil of Kashmir, recalling the words of Kashmiri national poet Mehjoor: "Walo a Baghbano, Nau Baharuk Shan Paeda Kar." (Arise, O Gardener! And usher in the glory of a new spring.) This move that you took in April 2003 was the start of the current peace process.
I, on behalf of the people of Kashmir, responded positively in June 2003 launching a door-to-door signature campaign to support the peace process and involve the people of Kashmir in the decision-making that would entail. We evoked the couplet of the same poem of Mehjoor: "Who will free you, O 'bulbul', While you bewail in the cage? With your hands, work out your own salvation." Under the inspiration of these words, 1.5 million Kashmiris with their own hands penned down their endorsement for the peace process and demanded their rightful role in it. We put forward our efforts to build the momentum for the type of inclusive and public peace process that can only lead to a solution. We believed then as we believe now that only with direct participation of the Kashmiri people can the glory of new era for South Asia be ushered in.
On January 1, 2001 I addressed your goodself along with President Musharaf in an open New Years Letter urging you to seize the opportunity presented by the then SAARC summit in Islamabad and appealed you to move forward with the peace process. I would like to remind you of my appeal that day: "It is a matter of hope to me that I find in your respective public commitments a certain kindred urge for peace and a shared appreciation that a peace process on Kashmir will require statesmen-like resolve and new creativity. While there are extremist on all sides that may oppose such a bold move on your parts, I urge both of you to seize this opportunity to now translate your visionary words into visionary deeds. Given our firm stand that the people of Kashmir can only decide the future of Kashmir we have always opposed - and will always oppose - any attempts by India and Pakistan to decide Kashmir without the people of Kashmir. However, we have decided not to protest at this time with an eye towards giving peace a chance and in hopes of encouraging an opening between India and Pakistan for a broader peace process. I would like to convey a message of earnest support and convey my earnest request that you meet and resolve to undertake a peace process that will also effectively and meaningfully involve the people of Kashmir in finding an agreeable solution to all parties."
It was an act of good faith and expression of high expectations of your and President Musharaf's capacity for statesmanship that we, on behalf of all Kashmiris, tried to create a conducive atmosphere for a breakthrough. Five days later, you undertook an agreement and started the composite dialogue that is the basis of the current peace process between India and Pakistan. A few month's later, when you left power and entered as leader of the opposition, you entrusted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as custodian of all your efforts and legacy to achieve a beginning of a sustained peace process on Kashmir.
When Prime Manmohan Singh and President Musharaf took certain steps as Confidence Building Measures, I was afforded an opportunity to travel across the LOC, that divided our homeland, and also to visit Pakistan. When I met President Musharaf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in separate meetings, I put forward certain serious recommendations for an inclusive and public peace process. I urged that: 1) India and Pakistan must institutionalize the peace, 2) the opposition parties in both countries must be formally taken onboard, and 3) with utmost effort, I urged self-representation and inclusion of the people of Jammu & Kashmir in a good faith negotiation process. I also urged that your good self on behalf of the BJP opposition along with members of the Communist Party of India, A. B. Bardan and Prakash Karat should be invited to Pakistan before Prime Minister next visits Pakistan.
In February 2006, I conveyed exactly and precisely the same message during my meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. When I re-emphasized the recommendation of Kashmiri self-representation and inclusion in the process, I was pleased with the response from the Prime Minister: "We can not even think to exclude Kashmiris from the peace process."
You are directly responsible for the current peace process and the credit goes to you for the present opportunities that are yet waiting to be seized by the governments of India and Pakistan are its result. In 2007, the people of South Asia are still waiting for the type of exercise of political will, creativity and courage that you once urged. Kashmiris are still hoping and waiting for those bold and off the beaten track steps from the two governments.
At this time, the type of statements and signals you and your colleagues have been giving are not at all conducive and will not help. This peace process is your baby and you can not call it an illegitimate child. I still hope that you, along with your colleagues, will rise above the pulls and pressures of domestic politics in India and play the role of the elder statesman of South Asia. If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has declared the current peace process "irreversible", then bold steps are inevitably needed â sooner rather than later. Knowing your persistence for peace and your desire for a solution to the Kashmir Issue, it is not unrealistic for me to expect that you will build political will in India and publicly urge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seize this opportunity and move forward creatively and boldly with the current peace process.
Yours Sincerely,
Yasin Malik
Chairman, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front
Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir
http://www.hinduonnet.com/nic/yasinmalik.htm
