Are ‘They’ Mainstream leaders who profess for J&K separate Sovereignty linkages with India & Pakistan ?

It is time for immediately drawing clear line between mainstream & separatist ideologies by Indian Leadership

DAYA SAGAR

Recently a senior leader of a national level political party has while talking media said that the those leaders supporting separatists/ separatist ideologies should be thrown out , surely must be meaning out of J&K / out of India . But question is have the government of India drawn a clear line between the main stream and separatist ideologies/ political parties?
No doubt there has always been utmost need for derecognizing any ideologies or concept papers that had even a bit of distancing indicators or concepts professing directly or indirectly anything like J&K not being an ‘Indian’ state like UP or Punjab or there was any leftover agenda related to delayed Accession -1947 of erstwhile princely state of J&K of British Indian Empire . But so for any ultimate action in that regard has remained unaccomplished in real sense since still there are some who say that there exist an unresolved ‘Kashmir issue’ but they too are treated as mainstream party/ elements and the common man in such an environment could fail to fix what is not mainstream. No doubt Government of India after 2014 in a way appeared very seriously venturing into undoing some myths cultivated in J&K in over 6 decades that was otherwise considered impossible task and for removing some cultivated distancing symbols & expressions related to the events after passage of Indian Independence Act 1947 as well as w.r.t constitutional provisions like Art-35A & Art-370
Many improper descriptions and explanations in the name of ‘J&K having constitutionally a special status were used by even the mainstream political parties in J&K like “having own flag, own constitution , Article -370” which otherwise were nowhere like that but so unfortunately some Indian political leadership did no meaningful work to dismantle such explanations but worked more to send messages that they will work to ensure that such specials would be removed which indirectly made the common people to understand that such features ( good or bad) did exist ). The culture of deferring remedial measures in earlier times had surely made the innocent subjects of J&K to get carried in their subconscious minds with the myths related to ‘relationship’ of J&K with India .
Such style of working and such style of handling the issues did indirectly provide some crutches to separatists/ anti accession elements / anti India opinion makers so as to find some acceptability amongst common masses worth listening to their view point also
National Conference Greater Autonomy has remained more in debate than PDP’s Self Rule frame work and some have ‘professed’ that NC’s Greater Autonomy is ‘separatist’ concept but still GOI has treated NC as a main stream Party. National Conference has never talked of anything like “Kashmir issue” not doubt National Conference has been talking of issues in ‘Kashmir’.
Let us go to the J&K PDPs Self Rule Concept on the basis of which Mufti Mohd Sayeed formally launched J&K PDP in 1999 to see how conceptually PDP differentiates NCs Autonomy from PDP Self Rule ( no doubt Jammu & Kashmir- The Self-Rule Framework for Resolution was put in black and white in public domain on 25 Oct 2008 only ) and had pushed NC to the wall with its ideology just in three years (2002) . PDP Self Rule Document Para 58 says < What sets apart “…. Self-rule refers to autonomy from the Nation-state of India, whereas Autonomy connotes relative autonomy from the Government of India. The two are vastly different in substance and style. The change — from “autonomy” to self-rule” — means is a fundamental shift in the terrain of political discourse and the existing status of the Kashmir issue. Autonomy refers to empowerment of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir vis-a-vis the Government of India. As such it becomes a part of the centre-state debate in the Indian federal set up. Self-rule on the other hand refers to the empowerment of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, vis-a-vis the Nation of India. Para 60 says,. Further, autonomy is for an institution of governance, self-rule is for a region, or geography. Therefore, while autonomy doesn’t have a territorial element to it, the concept of self-rule has an element of territoriality to it. … As such, self-rule gets a pan-Kashmir dimension. It is a trans-border concept rather than a local domestic issue which autonomy is…>.So the SELF RULE concept was to be taken seriously since surely raised questions on the totalness of the 1947 Accession. This ‘mantra’ ( Self Rule ) surely attempts to dilute the totalness of the 1947 accession of J&K with India thereby finding better acceptability to ‘some’as compared to Greater Autonomy of National Conference that called for just autonomy for government of the J&K state from the Central government.
The way the issues have been approached all these years have kept people at loss to draw a clear line between mainstream & separatist ( from nationalist point of view ) ideologies .
Similarly J&K Peoples Conference vision “Achievable Nationhood 2006” too have enough to confuse the common masses in this regard unless the promoters come up with re- articulated documents publicly. Group of Interlocutors for J&K Final Report 2011 (A new compact with the people of Jammu & Kashmir ) on page 40 para 2.1. Centre-State Relations compared J&K Peoples Conference vision document 2006 Achievable Nationhood prepared by Sajjad Ahmad Lone with National Conference Autonomy saying “Sajjad Lone’s “Achievable Nationhood” goes several steps further as regards both the internal and the external dimensions of the Kashmir issue; on Page 53 at point 30 the interlocutor report comments on Achievable Nationhood like <” Sajjad Lone, in “Achievable Nationhood”seeks administrative autonomy for districts and wants the choice to ‘opt-out’ of the State in case its majority feels that its interests are better served that way.”> Briefly saying Lone’s Achievable Nationhood model attempts to achieve an economically single boundary-less Jammu & Kashmir Economic Union with India and Pakistan jointly managing defence and foreign affairs of their respective portions of Kashmir. The concept is a process of unification of the two parts of Kashmir by producing a “single economic entity” out of “two distinct geographical and political sub-entities” with separate sovereignty linkages with India and Pakistan, Lone said in the document. As per my information Lone has not withdrawn the document so far ( I may be corrected if not so)
So it is still time to immediately drawing line between mainstream and separatist ideologies by the Political Leadership of India/ GOI.
(The writer is a Sr Journalist & a known analyst of J&K affairs)