Separatists talks with Pakistan: Some bitter truths

[SamantK]

Separatists talks with Pakistan: Some bitter truths - The Hindu: Mobile Edition



Updated: Aug 20, 2014 09:03 PM , By Anita Joshua

In this January 7, 2006 photo, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf meets Hurriyat leaders (from left) Bilal Ghani Lone, Abdul Ghani Bhatt and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Islamabad.
In this January 7, 2006 photo, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf meets Hurriyat leaders (from left) Bilal Ghani Lone, Abdul Ghani Bhatt and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in Islamabad.


Earlier interfaces between the two sides here and elsewhere have not always seen a meeting of minds.

Earlier interfaces between the two sides here and elsewhere have not always seen a meeting of minds.

Much heat has been generated in the national discourse over Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit inviting the Hurriyat leadership for talks ahead of the now shelved Foreign Secretary-level bilateral, but earlier interfaces between the two sides in India and elsewhere have not always seen a meeting of minds.

There have been interactions where the Kashmiri separatists gave the Pakistanis — inside and outside the government — an earful; driving home some bitter truths as did a delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) when it visited Islamabad in December 2012. And before that veteran advocate of secession Syed Ali Shah Geelani did some plain-speaking when he met former Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar during her visit to New Delhi in the summer of 2011.

Mr. Geelani told Ms. Khar that the self-determination exercise which Kashmiris have been demanding should also include areas under “Pakistan Occupied Kashmir” and thereby put it at par with what Islamabad refers to as “Indian Held Kashmir”.

And, interacting with foreign policy wonks at the Pakistan Foreign Office-backed Institute of Strategic Studies on December 19, 2012, the APHC delegation — chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Abdul Ghani Bhat and Bilal Lone — drove home the point that the ground realities in Kashmir had changed since 1947.

The Mirwaiz told the gathering that India had successfully created confusion between people’s grievances and people’s aspirations; projecting the redressal of the former as fulfilment of the latter. He repeatedly pointed to the lack of clarity in Pakistan on how to deal with the Kashmir issue while admitting to contradictions within Jammu & Kashmir.

“The Hindus of Jammu are not with us, neither are the Buddhists of Ladakh. All this has added to the confusion. Even within Kashmir there is no consensus.” Adding that Gilgit-Baltistan is on another tangent, he said the view of the entire J&K is fractured.

Asked why only three of them had come despite Islamabad sending out invitations to the entire Hurriyat leadership over six months in advance, he was blunt in his response: “Because there is no clarity in Pakistan on Kashmir.”

“Pakistan always says it wants Kashmiris to be involved in the process but the bigger question is what is the mechanism? And, who will represent the Kashmiris? Will it be the National Conference or the People’s Democratic Party because they have been elected or will it be the APHC,” the Mirwaiz said.

Appreciative of Pakistan’s support for the Kashmir cause, the Mirwaiz complained that Islamabad did not put enough weight behind the APHC and the need to engage with the Hurriyat. “It is not enough for the Foreign Minister/Foreign Secretary to come to India and speak to us just ahead of an engagement. That’s not going to work because Kashmiris are not getting the feel that we are part of the process. Yes, Pakistan’s support is there but this has to be channelized into policy which is missing. We are confused on where Pakistan stands on Kashmir today.”

Mr. Lone was even more forthright: “Allow us to take our own decision and work independently. We are not running away. Allow us to work… allow us that space.”

Responding to an observation from the gathering that the delegation sounded pessimistic, he said: “If speaking the truth is pessimism, then what can we do. You have glorified the Kashmiris. Our political space has been eroded. We are not trying to be negative but we are telling you the ground reality.’’

Venturing into a more personal space, he added: “My father was killed by our own people and not India. Same is the case with him and him… We just want suggestions. Nobody from Delhi or Islamabad should decide for us. We killed our own fathers and brothers, not India.’’

And, referring to the resolutions that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) passes annually on Kashmir at Pakistan’s prodding, he said: “What can the OIC do for us? It does not have legs of its own to stand on.”

During his visits to Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik has often questioned the growing radicalisation there. Last year, during a visit, he urged the Pakistan government not to act in haste with regard to the fate of death row Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in view of the demands for his execution following the hanging of Afzal Guru by India for the 2001 Parliament attack.

From The Hindu's archives

August 11, 2000: Opinion: Do not be a prisoner of the Constitution by Kuldip Nayar

January 4, 2001: Hurriyat wants passports for full delegation

January 8, 2001: Case-by-case clearance for Hurriyat leaders, says Govt.

June 28, 2001: Delhi not for Musharraf, Hurriyat meet, Pak. told

May 27, 2005: BJP opposes Hurriyat leaders' travel without passports

June 2, 2005: Opinion: Using the Hurriyat visit to build confidence

June 15, 2005: Media distorted my comments, says Yasin Malik

January 7, 2006: Hurriyat leaders call on Musharraf

March 27, 2007: Kashmiris should be involved, Malik tells Aziz

July 26, 2011: Hina meets Yasin Malik before India visit

December 11, 2012: ‘Centre clearing decks for Hurriyat delegation's visit to Pakistan’

Should clear a lot of doubts about our Kashmir

 

[SamantK]

The separatist itself consider GB as part of Kashmir and here Pakistan does not agree, makes one doubt if they are serious enough for the dialogues itself. @Bang Galore @illusion8 @arp2041 @Dillinger @SarthakGanguly @Syama Ayas @jbtg90

 

[VelocuR]

Why did Modi cancel talks with Pakistan?

Modi is the prisoner of his own image and ideology. He is so conscious of his image that he cannot think of making any unpopular decision, a decision which goes against his Hindu sectarian narrative.

This question has always been there right from the beginning: will Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi walk the talk? Will his huge electoral mandate be able to transform a Hindu sectarian leader into a national statesman? Will the early promises of out-of-the-box thinking usher in a new era of development in the Pakistan-India relationship?

The rhetoric never matches with reality. Words don’t match actions. Oratory is not a substitute for a vision. Modi has all the germs to be a great sectarian leader. He has proved time and again that he lacks the gene to be a leader that suits India’s mood and temperament.

The decision to cancel the foreign secretary level talks between India and Pakistan demonstrate this very clearly, not only the limitation of the new Indian leadership but also a limited mind-set that is going to determine the future bilateral relationship.

It has been more than a decade since Pakistan’s been holding parleys with separatist leaders from Kashmir. New Delhi based Pakistani envoy’s engagement with the Kashmiri leaders of all hues is not new or unknown. If New Delhi accepts that the Kashmir is the main issue between India and Pakistan, then it should have no problem if the Islamic Republic cultivates friendship with the separatist leaders. There have been so many instances in the past where Indian leadership has sent olive branches to these separatist leaders in the valley and held discussions with them to find a way out of the Kashmir imbroglio.

In Kashmir valley, Hurriyat leaders are not an enlightening force and not the voice of the mainstream Kashmiris; they have always been fringe elements and could not establish popular support in the state due to their extremist religious ideology and their proximity with the fundamentalist group, Jamaat-e-Islami.

The problem is not the separatists in Kashmir but the sectarian elements and mind-set in the Hindu right wing; Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in Delhi. They look at Kashmir from the prism of religion and see the people of the state as Hindus and Muslims. Therefore, they react very strongly when Muslim separatist leaders meet at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. By attacking Hurriyat leaders, the BJP is, in effect, targeting the special status enjoyed by Kashmir in Indian constitution. This has long been the project of Hindu radical forces and the cancellation of talks with Pakistan is aimed at this.

Contrary to popular perception, Modi’s government’s decision to call off the foreign secretary level talks sends a strong message to Pakistan. New Delhi’s move, however, is aimed at sending a very strong signal to its own hard-core Hindu constituency in Jammu and Kashmir, the state which is going to polls in a few months’ time. It is, therefore, not a foreign policy move but a local political move aimed at winning particular vote banks.

The larger repercussion of this move is that the worldview of the Indian masses gets further narrowed vis-à-vis Pakistan. An evolved leadership prepares his people to think in terms of long term national interest. Modi has a mandate to take a risk and make a leap in the future but he is the by-product of hard-core Hindu sectarian ideology and his politics, throughout, have been guided by that principle. In its quest to gain power in Delhi, the BJP leader, liberally might I add, used hard-core majoritarian agendas and agents to advance his political cause. He unleashed a string of leaders and cadres all across the country who view liberal values as anathema. His relationship with Muslims in India has been, at best, adversarial and, therefore, to expect him to show a large heartedness and political vision to deal with an Islamic Pakistan would be expecting too much from a limited leader.

Can the BJP regime display the same attitude in dealing with China?

Beijing has been issuing stapled visa to the people of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh for quite some time, it has been doing the same kind of ceasefire violation as Pakistan has, allegedly, been carrying out. Can New Delhi suspend the talks with the communist regime and show spine?

There is no doubt that the repercussion of this reactionary move, by Delhi, is going to be felt in Islamabad as well. The narrative of peace that got a new impetus after Modi’s invitation to Nawaz Sharif for his attendance at the premier’s swearing-in ceremony stands debunked. The huge peace constituency, and friends of India, stand discredited in the eyes of hardliners who have always been sceptical of Modi’s political personality.

India, as an integral neighbour, needs to show greater confidence and acumen in reaching out to a neighbour where religious extremist forces survive on the oxygen of anti-India rhetoric. Modi, by his petulance, has jeopardised the political interests of a business-friendly prime minister of Pakistan. By not demonstrating a greater diplomatic gesture to its western neighbour, New Delhi is showing its own narrow worldview; it reveals how short-sighted we are in our ambition to emerge as a player at the international level.

The larger implication is that the new generation of Indians who supported Modi with the hope of a new India do not get a chance to evolve under an enlightened leadership. Their worldview, vis-à-vis Pakistan, remains as shallow as before. The media has its own role in perpetuating this narrow worldview, and a majority of think tanks and their mandarins are just too hawkish to think ahead of time and tenure.

The whole episode also tells another story; it shows how Modi is the prisoner of his own image and ideology. He is so conscious of his image that he cannot think of making any unpopular decision, a decision which goes against his Hindu sectarian narrative. He cannot think of antagonising Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu radical organisation from which the BJP derives its ideology, and from where Modi has graduated.

The unfortunate part of today’s India is that political leadership of the nation is in the hands of an individual who does not think himself as a democrat but as a monarch. He believes in concentrating all the power and wisdom of governance in his own hands. He reminds us, at times, of the medieval king, Muhammad bin Tughlaq, who was eccentric and popularly known for almost transferring India’s capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, before changing his decision midway. Modi is behaving in the same way without realising the long term impact of his whimsicality.

Sanjay Kumar
A New Delhi based broadcast journalist who reports on national and international affairs. He is a contributor to the Asia Pacific based magazine, The Diplomat.

Why did Modi cancel talks with Pakistan? – The Express Tribune Blog

 

[SamantK]

And Sanjay Kumar is a Jouranlist, and he has a lot of bullshit going on in one article to give it any serious thought.. Whereas read the report from Hindu, the separatist are also mocking Pakistan

 

[Bang Galore]

Nobody cares about what some "election-hurt" detractor of Modi has to say. While the decision to cancel talks might have been a bit abrupt, the main point is that there should have been no rush to talks anyways. As long as Pakistan cannot decide what it is willing to offer in the talks, there is absolutely no reason for India to oblige them with these kind of grandstanding opportunities. Too many in Pakistan think that trade ties with India is some sort of a favour. Modi's government has put that too on the back burner and don't seem too interested in pushing that unlike the previous UPA government. What Pakistan wants in talks, India cannot & won't give. There is little to be gained by public talking, any talk should happen in the back channels & kept away from public view until there is something concrete to be announced, if at all.

 

[nair]

And Sanjay Kumar is a Jouranlist, and he has a lot of bullshit going on in one article to give it any serious though.. Whereas read the report from Hindu, the separatist are also mocking Pakistan

I remember reading an article, The message in that article was " Separatists have no intention to join Pakistan but wanted a different country for themselves which includes Azad Kashmir" i think it was during mushraff regime....

 

[SamantK]

I remember reading an article, The message in that article was " Separatists have no intention to join Pakistan but wanted a different country for themselves which includes Azad Kashmir" i think it was during mushraff regime....

That may be true but according to the admission of the separatists, there is no single consensus on that too, Pakistan's cause of Kashmir is as dead as a dodo.

 

[SrNair]

The separatist itself consider GB as part of Kashmir and here Pakistan does not agree, makes one doubt if they are serious enough for the dialogues itself. @Bang Galore @illusion8 @arp2041 @Dillinger @SarthakGanguly @Syama Ayas @jbtg90

We already knows this.Vested interests in Pakistan aims for weakening India not for the independency of Kashmir.

 

[Biplab Bijay]

We already knows this.Vested interests in Pakistan aims for weakening India not for the independency of Kashmir.

They are not leaders. Ask them about kashmiri Pundits and their face will turned red. They are just like you know what we say in Hindi :

Dhobi ka kutta, ghar ka na ghat ka.

 

[SrNair]

They are not leaders. Ask them about kashmiri Pundits and their face will turned red. They are just like you know what we say in Hindi :

Dhobi ka kutta, ghar ka na ghat ka.

Fact is this so called leaders or parasites dont even interested in a solution.The benefits of these guys from India is that much,including unlimited free treatment from premeir Indian hospitals.

People will genuinely ask them which side is better,Indian side ,Pak side or independency .Educated youths in Kashmir know these parasites dont have any vision about an independent kashmir.
Being ina strategic location these Himalayan state dont have any other income thy are completely relying on GoI for their 9billion $expense .Can Pakistan give this much amount to them?An independent Kashmir cant even imagine about it.

Earlier decades Pakistan and India was similar in almost all fields.But now things are change drastically.Even US would think twice before they talk us about Kashmir.

Latest example GoI action plan for rehabilitationof Pandits in Kashmir.

 

[Biplab Bijay]

Fact is this so called leaders or parasites dont even interested in a solution.The benefits of these guys from India is that much,including unlimited free treatment from premeir Indian hospitals.

People will genuinely ask them which side is better,Indian side ,Pak side or independency .Educated youths in Kashmir know these parasites dont have any vision about an independent kashmir.
Being ina strategic location these Himalayan state dont have any other income thy are completely relying on GoI for their 9billion $expense .Can Pakistan give this much amount to them?An independent Kashmir cant even imagine about it.

Earlier decades Pakistan and India was similar in almost all fields.But now things are change drastically.Even US would think twice before they talk us about Kashmir.

Latest example GoI action plan for rehabilitationof Pandits in Kashmir.

It does not matter what are they . They may be pigs, I dont care. Our goal and statement should be simple. As long as those migrated Kashmiri Pundits are not rehabilitated in the valley, situation will remain the same and their wont be any progress. And any kind of violence will be dealt with violence and brutal force. We need leaders who represent Kashmiri Pundits in these talk. Simple and clear.

 

[illusion8]

Venturing into a more personal space, he added: “My father was killed by our own people and not India. Same is the case with him and him… We just want suggestions. Nobody from Delhi or Islamabad should decide for us. We killed our own fathers and brothers, not India.’’

. In January 2005, when Pervez Musharraf sent then PM Shaukat Aziz to New Delhi and Hurriyat flocked to the capital to meet him, then PM Manmohan Singh faced the same dilemma but adopted a very different course of action.

Through an intermediary, he tried to persuade them to observe diplomatic protocol by meeting him first, before they met Aziz. Since Singh had met the Hurriyat leaders through me three years earlier, he asked me to be the intermediary. I spent the entire day urging, cajoling and eventually warning the Mirwaiz, Butt and Bilal Lone that they would irretrievably turn the PMO against them if they insulted not only the PM but also the Indian state. But they refused to budge. Only in the late afternoon did Hurriyat chairman Abdul Ghani Butt explain why: “If we do this”, he told me bluntly, “we will be killed”.

To anyone not familiar with Kashmir’s tragic history this would have sounded like self-expiating melodrama. But Butt’s confession took the wind out of my sails. For beginning with the assassination of Mirwaiz Umar Farouq’s father Maulvi Farouq on May 21, 1990 (three weeks after he gave an interview to BBC outlining requirements for a return to peace) and ending with the assassination of Abdul Ghani Lone exactly 12 years later, each and every Kash-miri nationalist leader who dared to discuss, or even consider, a solution within the Indian Union, had been assassinated by ISI agents.

ISI had, in fact, administered its most recent punishment for disobedience only eight months earlier when it arranged the assassination of Maulvi Mushtaq Ahmad, the Mirwaiz’s uncle, and torched his family’s 100-year-old school in Srinagar, when he did not succumb to its threats and met deputy prime minister L K Advani on February 2, 2004, for a second round of talks on Kashmir.

Butt’s own brother had been killed by the same agency in 1996, so his and Hurriyat’s fear was understandable. Despite that, by refusing to meet Manmohan Singh first, they burned their bridges with NSA Narayanan and, as subsequent events have shown, hastened their descent into irrelevance.

But Singh did not prevent the meeting with Aziz. He allowed Hurriyat leaders to interact freely with Pakistani decision-makers in Delhi and Islamabad, and kept his doors open for them. By doing that he kept the Kashmiris a part of the decision-making process, and brought India and Pakistan within a whisker of resolving the Kashmir dispute in 2007 before the judges’ crisis fatally weakened Musharraf.

An inept Pakistan policy: Modi government commits big mistake by cancelling talks and cutting Hurriyat out | Times of India Opinion

 

[arp2041]

Why did Modi cancel talks with Pakistan?

Modi is the prisoner of his own image and ideology. He is so conscious of his image that he cannot think of making any unpopular decision, a decision which goes against his Hindu sectarian narrative.

This question has always been there right from the beginning: will Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi walk the talk? Will his huge electoral mandate be able to transform a Hindu sectarian leader into a national statesman? Will the early promises of out-of-the-box thinking usher in a new era of development in the Pakistan-India relationship?

The rhetoric never matches with reality. Words don’t match actions. Oratory is not a substitute for a vision. Modi has all the germs to be a great sectarian leader. He has proved time and again that he lacks the gene to be a leader that suits India’s mood and temperament.

The decision to cancel the foreign secretary level talks between India and Pakistan demonstrate this very clearly, not only the limitation of the new Indian leadership but also a limited mind-set that is going to determine the future bilateral relationship.

It has been more than a decade since Pakistan’s been holding parleys with separatist leaders from Kashmir. New Delhi based Pakistani envoy’s engagement with the Kashmiri leaders of all hues is not new or unknown. If New Delhi accepts that the Kashmir is the main issue between India and Pakistan, then it should have no problem if the Islamic Republic cultivates friendship with the separatist leaders. There have been so many instances in the past where Indian leadership has sent olive branches to these separatist leaders in the valley and held discussions with them to find a way out of the Kashmir imbroglio.

In Kashmir valley, Hurriyat leaders are not an enlightening force and not the voice of the mainstream Kashmiris; they have always been fringe elements and could not establish popular support in the state due to their extremist religious ideology and their proximity with the fundamentalist group, Jamaat-e-Islami.

The problem is not the separatists in Kashmir but the sectarian elements and mind-set in the Hindu right wing; Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in Delhi. They look at Kashmir from the prism of religion and see the people of the state as Hindus and Muslims. Therefore, they react very strongly when Muslim separatist leaders meet at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. By attacking Hurriyat leaders, the BJP is, in effect, targeting the special status enjoyed by Kashmir in Indian constitution. This has long been the project of Hindu radical forces and the cancellation of talks with Pakistan is aimed at this.

Contrary to popular perception, Modi’s government’s decision to call off the foreign secretary level talks sends a strong message to Pakistan. New Delhi’s move, however, is aimed at sending a very strong signal to its own hard-core Hindu constituency in Jammu and Kashmir, the state which is going to polls in a few months’ time. It is, therefore, not a foreign policy move but a local political move aimed at winning particular vote banks.

The larger repercussion of this move is that the worldview of the Indian masses gets further narrowed vis-à-vis Pakistan. An evolved leadership prepares his people to think in terms of long term national interest. Modi has a mandate to take a risk and make a leap in the future but he is the by-product of hard-core Hindu sectarian ideology and his politics, throughout, have been guided by that principle. In its quest to gain power in Delhi, the BJP leader, liberally might I add, used hard-core majoritarian agendas and agents to advance his political cause. He unleashed a string of leaders and cadres all across the country who view liberal values as anathema. His relationship with Muslims in India has been, at best, adversarial and, therefore, to expect him to show a large heartedness and political vision to deal with an Islamic Pakistan would be expecting too much from a limited leader.

Can the BJP regime display the same attitude in dealing with China?

Beijing has been issuing stapled visa to the people of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh for quite some time, it has been doing the same kind of ceasefire violation as Pakistan has, allegedly, been carrying out. Can New Delhi suspend the talks with the communist regime and show spine?

There is no doubt that the repercussion of this reactionary move, by Delhi, is going to be felt in Islamabad as well. The narrative of peace that got a new impetus after Modi’s invitation to Nawaz Sharif for his attendance at the premier’s swearing-in ceremony stands debunked. The huge peace constituency, and friends of India, stand discredited in the eyes of hardliners who have always been sceptical of Modi’s political personality.

India, as an integral neighbour, needs to show greater confidence and acumen in reaching out to a neighbour where religious extremist forces survive on the oxygen of anti-India rhetoric. Modi, by his petulance, has jeopardised the political interests of a business-friendly prime minister of Pakistan. By not demonstrating a greater diplomatic gesture to its western neighbour, New Delhi is showing its own narrow worldview; it reveals how short-sighted we are in our ambition to emerge as a player at the international level.

The larger implication is that the new generation of Indians who supported Modi with the hope of a new India do not get a chance to evolve under an enlightened leadership. Their worldview, vis-à-vis Pakistan, remains as shallow as before. The media has its own role in perpetuating this narrow worldview, and a majority of think tanks and their mandarins are just too hawkish to think ahead of time and tenure.

The whole episode also tells another story; it shows how Modi is the prisoner of his own image and ideology. He is so conscious of his image that he cannot think of making any unpopular decision, a decision which goes against his Hindu sectarian narrative. He cannot think of antagonising Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu radical organisation from which the BJP derives its ideology, and from where Modi has graduated.

The unfortunate part of today’s India is that political leadership of the nation is in the hands of an individual who does not think himself as a democrat but as a monarch. He believes in concentrating all the power and wisdom of governance in his own hands. He reminds us, at times, of the medieval king, Muhammad bin Tughlaq, who was eccentric and popularly known for almost transferring India’s capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, before changing his decision midway. Modi is behaving in the same way without realising the long term impact of his whimsicality.

Sanjay Kumar
A New Delhi based broadcast journalist who reports on national and international affairs. He is a contributor to the Asia Pacific based magazine, The Diplomat.

Why did Modi cancel talks with Pakistan? – The Express Tribune Blog

If I am not wrong, then he is the same person who had written an article on Sanjay Dutt saying that he was imprisoned just because he was HALF MUSLIM.

 

[COLDHEARTED AVIATOR]

Who appointed Hurriyat as the representatives of J&K?

No one supports them in Jammu not even Muslims..In Lehand Ladakh again no one supports them.When talking about Kashmir they have a following but so do Congress and PDP..Who elected them.If they are so sure of their following then why dknt they fight elections?

 

[dray]

In fact there is barely anything to talk about Kashmir, all the talks are bound to be futile when the positions are so opposite of each other.