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| Dixon Plan: Moves appear afoot to divide Jammu on communal lines | | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, June 14: What the Forum Against Dixon Plan (FADP) said on June 9 was not a figment of imagination. Its apprehensions and fears were well founded. A reference here to just three instances in this regard would prove that what the FADP said was based on some solid facts.
One, It is not a secret that the BJP had decided to give extraordinary concessions to Islamabad and give legitimacy to the politics of communalism and separatism in Kashmir by giving maximum possible autonomy to Kashmir and its adjoining areas as early as in March 1999. The BJP had agreed to accept the Pakistan's anti-India suggestions in March 1999, when the Indian Foreign Minister and senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz met at Colombo to discuss ways and means that could resolve the so-called Kashmir issue, "diffuse the potentially dangerous situation in South Asia" and harmonize India-Pakistan relations.
The meeting between the two resulted in an agreement, which was to be implemented in a "span of four/five years." The agreement, among other things, suggested "plebiscite" in Jammu and Kashmir on regional/district basis, division of Jammu province along Chenab River on communal lines, "maximum possible autonomy to Kashmir and its adjoining areas" and "annexation" of the remaining areas of Jammu province and Ladakh region by India.
Singh and Aziz were to meet again after one month to give concrete shape to the agreement arrived at. But it did not happen because of the Kargil invasion in 1999. Besides, the BJP-led NDA Government also collapsed in 2004. Had there been no Kargil misadventure or had the people of India again voted the BJP-led NDA to power at the Centre, New Delhi would have surely implemented the Colombo Agreement.
Two, it is also not a secret that on May 2, 2005 that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told media persons that he and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had virtually reached an agreement over Kashmir - "a non-territorial solution", but they couldn't give it a practical shape because certain domestic developments in Pakistan tied the hands of the Pakistani President. One such development, according to the Prime Minister, was the unending personal feud between the Pakistani President and Pakistani Chief Justice, whom the former had sacked. The Prime Minister made public what had transpired between the Indian back channels and the Indian Foreign Office and the Pakistani back channels and those dealing with foreign affairs and Jammu and Kashmir when the people of India were participating in the crucial 15th general elections.
It bears recalling that what Prime Minister had told reporters was what Pervez Musharraf had been repeatedly saying, particularly since the spring of 2007, and what he had been saying had been attracting attention of media across the world. He did not get ample coverage in India. Why? A riddle.
What, according to Musharraf, was the agreement that was reached between Islamabad and New Delhi and what were its main features? Musharraf had told reporters everywhere that "I came out with a broad outline", which included "gradual demilitarization of the Line of Control and Kashmiri cities; maximum self-governance on both sides of the Line of Control; a joint governing mechanism for Kashmir, to include Pakistanis, Indians, and local Kashmiri leaders; and, most important, a porous Line of Control…I wanted to make the Line of Control irrelevant, to open it on six to eight places and let trade flourish…That way Pakistan could say the line was finished and India could say it still existed…"
Pervez Musharraf had told media persons everywhere that "he hoped to implement this framework 'for 15 years'. And then (both sides could) revisit it and see how to move forward…The Line of Control would become almost irrelevant after 15 years…We (Musharraf and Manmohan Singh) were close…I only wish the two governments would start again. The leaders needed to be open-minded and bold…I thought we had to have peace for the sake of the entire region, and for India and Pakistan…We could reap a lot of economic advantages…(I) authorized secret 'back channel' talks by special envoys in hotel rooms in Bangkok, Dubai and London from 2004 to 2007. The talks got little attention in the US media until a detailed article by South Asia expert Steve Coll in the New Yorkerin March 2009…The envoys worked on a framework for resolving three major boundary disputes. The first two - over the 20,000-foot Siachen glacier and the Sir Creek waterway between India and Pakistan - could be solved tomorrow…As for Kashmir, (he) devised a compromise for a seemingly intractable problem…" The compromise was what both our Prime Minister and Pervez Musharraf hinted at on May, 2005 and 2007, respectively, and what Jaswant Singh and Sartaj Aziz had worked out at Colombo in March 1999. (To be continued)
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