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Hurriyat leaders deny talks with Centre

Faraz Ahmad in New Delhi

With a comparative lull in the terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir, there is speculation that the Government of India may soon initiate a dialogue with leaders of the All Party Hurriyat Conference in Jammu and Kashmir.

A fortnight after the release of the Hurriyat leaders and their return to the valley, Hurriyat leader Abdul Ghani Bhat denied any knowledge of the GoI's reported attempt to break the ice with them.

He, however, admitted to having met Pakistan High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi over dinner in Delhi soon after the leaders were released. "Yes we met Qazisaheb. There is nothing to hide in this. We went over for dinner to his residence," Bhat told rediff.com in a telephone conversation from Kashmir.

Bhat disclosed that Qazi had only supported their view that there is no option but negotiations on the Kashmir issue. Union Home Minister L K Advani too has expressed the GoI's desire to open a dialogue with the Hurriyat leaders. But the government is not inclined to involve Pakistan in any negotiations on the Kashmir issue and give Pakistan's claim to Kashmir legal or moral sanctity.

Bhat did not attach much importance to the speculated dialogue between the government and the Hurriyat leaders. "So far there have been four rounds of dialogue between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. The first one was held between then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and then Pakistan premier Liaquat Ali Khan. Then it was the Tashkent agreement between the then Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and the then Pakistan president Ayub Khan. The third round was in Simla between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the final round was held as late as last year in Lahore between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif. None of these talks finally yielded any results because all along the people of Jammu and Kashmir were never a party to any such talks. Therefore, it is necessary that there should be tripartite talks," he stressed.

Sources suggested that despite this tough posturing the Hurriyat leaders and the Pakistan government are under pressure to commence some sort of dialogue to arrive at a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir problem. That is not to say that the Government of India is not under equal pressure from the United States of America to resolve the Kashmir issue through negotiation.

According to sources, the government released the Hurriyat leaders largely to impress the world outside and inside that it is willing to settle the Kashmir issue through dialogue and discussion with the peoples's representatives in the state.

Meanwhile, the Farooq Abdullah government in the state has issued two sets of autonomy reports. One for the state, which largely reverts back to describing the chief minister of the state as Wazir-e-Azam (prime minister) and the governor as Sadr-I-Riyasast (president). This nomenclature existed largely in the 1950s under the agreement between the Government of India and then National Conference leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.

Dr Abdullah had gone to the 1996 assembly election with the promise of restoring Kashmir's autonomy as envisaged by his late father, Sheikh Abdullah. He appointed a committee which mostly recalled the discussions between the Constituent Assembly of India and Sheikh Abdullah as the representative of the Kashmir Constituent Assembly. If granted, proposed autonomy for the state might confer virtual sovereign status on Jammu and Kashmir, with the exception of currency, external affairs and communications.

From all accounts it appears that Dr Abdullah may go to next year's assembly election with the slogan that his demand for restoration of full autonomy for the state has not been fulfilled by the Centre.

Simultaneously, the state had also appointed a regional autonomy committee. This committee, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Riaz Punjabi, has suggested the division of Kashmir on communal lines, with the Hindus walking away with the Hindu dominated areas of Jammu, Sunni Muslims with large parts of the valley, Ladakh going to the Buddhists and Kargil to the Shias.

This, according to political observers like Balraj Puri, who was associated with this committee for some time, will finally and completely divide the Kashmiris on communal lines. Strangely, he said, the Centre has not once adversely comment on this proposal.

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