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| Congress must reveal what understanding it had reached with Musharraf | | Playing with fire | | Neha
JAMMU, Jan 6: BJP ideologue and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, in his article (January 3) on the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's press conference in New Delhi drew attention to what he said about the "Kashmir issue" - an aspect of the prime Minister's media address that got buried under the many other things the Prime Minister said. Jaitley recalled that Manmohan, in a response to a question on Pakistan, had said that "a possible solution to the Kashmir impasse had almost been arrived at but later things didn't work out as Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf had to make way for other leaders". "If a solution to Kashmir was this close to taking shape", Jaitley said "the people of the nation deserve to know what it was".
Giving expression to India's long-standing view on the issue, Jaitley said: "The stated position of India has been very clear. Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India. In 1994 the Indian Parliament had passed a unanimous resolution asserting that POK was an integral part of India's territory. India firmly believes that no third party intervention in Kashmir is permissible. Pakistan has an unfinished agenda on Kashmir. It has not reconciled to Kashmir being integral to India's sovereignty. It has used warfare and terrorism to achieve this end. India firmly believes that the age and era of re-drawing boundaries is over. India's negotiating space on territory in the context of Kashmir resolution is negligible."
Jaitley had also talked of the futility of the Nehruvian "separate status" solution. He had said that "there is significant difference of opinion in Kashmiri politics on what constitutes a suitable solution. The Congress stands for separate status, the National Conference advocates pre-1953 status, the PDP talks of self-rule and the separatists talk of 'Azadi'." Stating that each of these "solutions is intended to dilute India's sovereignty", Jaitley had said that the "advocates of these want to weaken Jammu & Kashmir's political link with the rest of India". He was absolutely right, In addition, Jaitley had said that the "interim measures suggested by Pakistan include unacceptable actions such as demilitarisation in Kashmir, dilution of the LoC, and maintenance of territorial status quo". "With a state of affairs such as this prevailing", Jaitley asserted that the "nation needs to know the details of any 'almost arrived a' resolution between Manmohan Singh's government and Pakistan". Not just this, Jaitley had also argued that "track two diplomacy, while accepted across the world, cannot be at variance with the stated national position" and warned that "if Manmohan Singh's breakthrough involves agreeing to any aforementioned Pakistani conditions, we may squander away all advantage we have accumulated so far after having successfully de-internationalised the Kashmir issue". Now that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has publicly confessed that he had reached some sort of understanding with Musharraf and that the Leader of Opposition has asked him to inform the nation to that effect, it is incumbent upon the Congress-led UPA Government to make public everything. Jammu & Kashmir is not the Congress's issue. Jammu & Kashmir is a national issue and no party can be permitted to barter national interests. |
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