Dost Khan
JAMMU: Kashmiri separatists have a motivation to bash India and support Pakistan but what about the so-called mainstream actors, who always play musical games for the hot seat of power. Why should their hearts always bleed for Pakistan? They didn’t join the nation in congratulating armed forces, if not Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for successful surgical operations in Pak occupied Kashmir. And, instead, they sought restraint, dialogue and what not with Islamabad.
Being Chief Minister of the State where such a historic operation took place, Mehbooba Mufti should have been the first to compliment the armed forces but she preferred to express concern over, what she said ‘the escalation of situation along the borders’. She even warned that confrontation could lead to a disaster of epic proportions for the State.
A person, who used to plead for bombing terror camps in PoK when in the cradle of power, now sermonises that confrontation and hostility between New Delhi and Islamabad have not yielded favourable results for either country in the past. Farooq Abdullah appealed for restraint and upholding the ceasefire of 2003 post surgical operations. Where did his restrain go when Pakistan backed terrorists killed 19 Indian soldiers? Did he say a word in condemnation? His younger brother and NC loose cannon Sheikh Mustafa Kamaal echoed Pakistan line saying Indian soldiers were killed by Indians themselves. He even questioned entry of the Indian commandos into PoK saying India violated the sovereignty of Pakistan. Doesn’t he know that PoK is legally part of India?
There has been a problem with Kashmiri ‘mainstreamists’, who speak differently when in power and quite reverse once outside it. At times, shamefully, they tend to be more secessionists than the separatists.
They did not speak a word against anti-India deride by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief in United Nations General Assembly over Kashmir but came out spontaneously when New Delhi decided to keep off from the SATC Summit meeting in Islamabad, as protest against Pakistan’s continued support to terrorism and the Uri attack.
What an irony. Precisely at a time when the MEA spokesperson was announcing India’s decision to boycott SAARC meet, Mehbooba Mufti was pitching for ‘amicable relations between India and Pakistan to fight the poverty and economic deprivation plaguing the region’. She also underlined the need of a bilateral dialogue to resolve the issues without spelling these or telling what could be the solutions.
Similarly, when New Delhi began reviewing Indus Water Treaty, the former Pradesh Congress President and Union Minister Saif-ud-Din Soz opposed any such move, notwithstanding the fact that he himself as Water Resources Minister in 2007 had found nothing wrong in carrying out the work on Tullubul Project near Sopore, which envisaged construction of a 439-feet-long and 40-feet-wide barrage at the mouth of the Wullar Lake to ensure flow of water during the winter. He had asserted that the project does not violate the treaty and a Japanese company was investing in it.
Saif-ud-Din Soz owes allegiance to a party which has been for the past nearly seven decades considering Jammu and Kashmir as a bilateral issue but, swayed by unrest in the Valley, he wants Kashmir mainstream to open up a new front by saying, “I reiterate my plea that it is high time at this critical moment in Kashmir that the mainstream parties, (including NC, Congress, PDP, CPM, PDF, DNP) make their stand clear on the Kashmir question and tell the three stakeholders (among others) in clear terms as to what they should do under the present circumstances; the Hurriyat, the Govt. of India and the Govt. of Pakistan. So, Congress being a mainstream party in the Valley wants to make Kashmir a tripartite issue.
National Conference, which is stealing the headlines these days by making observations on Twitter, too did not object to what Nawaz Sharief told the UNGA or what Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said while hurling nuke threat to India. The rogue Khawaja said, “We will destroy India if it dares to impose war on us. Pakistan army is fully prepared to answer any misadventure of India.” Don’t the mainstream leaders, who have shared power in Jammu and Kashmir as also in New Delhi feel moral obligation of confronting such provocative statements?
On the contrary, Ali Shah Geelani has been consistent in his perception, not only because of the funding he receives from ISI and Pakistan but out of conviction. This conviction makes him and his ilk brand anti-Indians but what about these so-called leaders of Kashmir mainstream. What about their conviction towards Indian nation?