It's just a striptease show

It's just a striptease show

When Farooq Abdullah called for the restoration of the pre-1953 status of the state, he implicitly asked for the annulment of the November 13 Kashmir accord and a return to the 1947 Instrument of Accession which makes accession to India contingent upon the Kashmiris' verdict through a referendum. There seems to be collusion between Dr Farooq Abdullah and his ruling coalition partners.

It is intriguing that the extremist Home Minister L.K. Advani should take a tolerant view of the autonomy demand, equating it with similar demands made by other states of the Indian Union and even suggesting the revision of what he described as the highly centralised federation of India.

Similarly, the Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, on his return from Italy and Portugal, reacted sympathetically to his ally's demand: ``The autonomy resolution is within the Indian constitution and whatever they are demanding is under the constitution,'' said he. He assured the Kashmiris that the demand would be considered. It was considered by the federal cabinet and rejected out of hand.

What could be the motive behind this burlesque? First, to rehabilitate the puppet Kashmir chief minister. Second, to offer autonomy at some stage of negotiations with the Hurriyat Conference leaders, most of whom have refused even to consider it. Amanullah Khan of the JKLF seems to be inclined to the autonomy offer for the moment only to consolidate the strength of the freedom movement in order to give an impetus to the state's liberation. But it would be naive on his part to harbour such illusions.

Under the pre-1953 autonomy, India exercised control over defence, foreign affairs and communications. It will continue to do so again. So what difference will it make? Will the proffered autonomy terminate the military occupation of Kashmir by India? Besides, it is wrong to say that the autonomy plan would give Kashmir the same rights within the Union as are enjoyed by other component units, since Kashmir will remain an occupied territory. In how many states of the Indian Union, there are deployed 700,000 troops to fight insurgency?

India should know that by this striptease show, it cannot appease the Kashmiri people. Nor can it oust Pakistan from what certainly is a trilateral dispute. The US Study Group rightly regards it as an inter-state problem and recommends the withdrawal of the Indian troops along with Islamabad's guarantees against cross-border operations by militants and deployment of an Indo-Pakistan Boundary Group or an ASEAN/SAARC peace-keeping force along the Line of Control and prevention of human rights violations and the inclusion of the representatives of Kashmiris in India-Pakistan talks on normalisation.

After the deployment of the Boundary Group, sections of the LoC to a width of 10 kilometers on both sides should be demilitarised to prevent cross-border exchanges between India and Pakistan. If this is not acceptable to New Delhi, it would mean that it wants to hold Kashmiris down by force. In that case it should not complain if the armed struggle continues to rage in the occupied state.

Excerpted from `Farooq Abdullah's autonomy stunt', by Shameem Akhtar, `Dawn', July 13