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| October 2009 Issue |
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Winds of Change
Centre’s decision to engage with Kashmiri Separatists was long overdue
By Ghazala Wahab |
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Once again, the season of hope seems to be visiting the state of Jammu and Kashmir. After being out of range for a long time, the state once again is blipping on the government of India’s radar screens. In just a matter of weeks several encouraging statements have been issued by various Union ministers, which can only have positive connotations in Kashmir.
After setting a cat among the pigeons by announcing the allocation of one Central University in Jammu and Kashmir last year, the Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal recently relented and on September 25 swapped the proposed Indian Institute of Management (IIM) with another Central University to assuage both Jammu and Kashmir.
On the political front, after testing waters gingerly with his toes for several months by making such statements as, ‘government is considering withdrawing Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from certain urban areas’ or withdrawal of the armed and Paramilitary forces in a phased manner, strengthening the state police and so on, the Union home minister P. Chidambaram finally took the plunge. Newspapers quoted him in the last week of September saying that he was ready for talks with Kashmiri Separatists, essentially Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Sajad Lone, both of whom have been in some kind of political wilderness for a while. The Indian intelligence agencies seem to have thrown up a double whammy... |
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Interestingly, a few days before Eid, Mirwaiz had made an unprovoked statement saying that time for anti-India rhetoric was over. Though he hastened to add that he favours talks with both India and Pakistan, it was the first part that was unprecedented. The Kashmiri mainstream leaders like Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad,both former chief ministers and now Cabinet ministers, were quick to lap this up... |
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Attending the international golf tournament in Srinagar, both of them patted the Mirwaiz (figuratively, of course, since Mirwaiz by then had gone to New York to attend the ministerial meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) contact group on Kashmir. Making use of the visit, he also met the Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi). The statement clearly did not go unnoticed at the Centre.
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[Full Column] |
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