Interlocutors of Kashmir

What! Now another interlocutor to settle the mess in the Kashmir Valley!With the appointment of the former IB  director, Dineshwar  Sharma, as yet another interlocutor for the Valley, eyebrows are getting raised  and a  bunch of  pertinent questions thrown up: What happened to the in -depth reports of the former  team of  interlocutors –Dileep Padgoankar, Radha  Kumar and MM Ansari? Also, whatever happened to the whole list of recommendations put together by Yashwant Sinha?

In fact, if one were to go through by the report put together by the  Padgoankar led team, which had submitted its report in the winter of 2011, it gets apparent that they had suggested to the then  government to do away with the Disturbed Areas Act and also to re-look at the implementation of AFSPA ( Armed Forces Disturbed Areas Act)The crux of that report was to address human rights violations by the forces, lessen  Army  presence, and to begin that crucial political dialoguing process.But that report was not  to be implemented.And now, more recently, as the veteran civil servant turned politician Yashwant Sinha had come out with several recommendations which, if implemented, could have lessened those gaps, but even those were side-lined! Not just the recommendations but even Yashwant Sinha himself stands side-lined by BJP’s top brass in New Delhi.

Now that Dineshwar Sharma enters the arena, there seems little hope  of the mess getting less messier. For one, the masses and even the  local  Kashmiri leaders are wary of the Intelligence Bureau; after all. its all too very sarkari and part and parcel of the  government they have little trust in. Sharma may have retired from service but he is still seen as an extension of the hukumat in power. Who will he talk to in this atmosphere where killings and arrests and injustices are ongoing? Who will listen to him,when hopelessness stretches out to every possible locale, as ground realities are getting murkier by the day?

It is sad and unfortunate that people of the Valley are not heard, their grievances not addressed, the brutalities heaped on them un-ending. To quote academic  Christopher Snedden from his recently published book-'Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris' (Speaking Tiger)-"In the  sixty - seven  years of the  India-Pakistan  dispute over  J&K, 'the third party'  to the Kashmir  dispute  - the people of Jammu and  Kashmir - have  never been consulted in any  meaningful or inclusive  way on how  the  dispute  over  J&K  should be resolved. This ignores the fact that J&K-ites are actually the 'first party' to the Kashmir dispute simply because this dispute is about their state and homelands. Indeed, J&K-ites are actually the ‘first party’' to this dispute because they instigated the fight over J&K’s status in 1947  before the  Maharaja’s accession to India in 1947."

Snedden  also writes in his book, ‘One way for India and  Pakistan to resolve this matter would be to mutually agree to devolve it to the  people of  J&K and allow them to discuss, debate, and determine what solution  or solutions they want for what are, after all, their (disputed)lands.  Such a devolution would be  possible under Section 1.ii  of the   Simla  Agreement. It states that India and Pakistan can "settle their differences through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon". Both nations therefore could agree to devolve the resolution of the Kashmir dispute to J&K. I call this approach -Let the People Decide.’