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| Will Delhi invite those who held different views during RTC meetings? | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, July 22: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh took a very positive initiative in 2006, when he invited representatives representing almost all the Jammu and Kashmir-based political parties and social groups to find ways to surmount the problems confronting different people inhabiting all the three regions of the state and forging a lasting peace there. In fact, he organized a roundtable conference at his official residence, 7 - Race Course. These representatives met three times to discuss the same issues, twice in New Delhi, February 25, 2006 and April 24, 2007, and once in Srinagar, May 24-25, 2006. He had also extended an invitation to the separatist groups, including the APHC (Mirwaiz). None of the militant groups took part in these three roundtable conferences.
After the end of the second roundtable conference (may 25, 2006), held at Srinagar, the Prime Minister announced the formation of five working groups, one each charged with the task of preparing a comprehensive report on the subject allotted to it. Four out of the five working groups submitted their reports to the Prime Minister in the third roundtable conference in 2008 (April 24, 2007). The fifth working group, which was mandated to prepare a report on the Centre-State Relations, submitted its report to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah last year. It was an extraordinary step in the sense that it was the Prime Minister, and not Chief Minister, who had constituted the said working group.
The authorities wanted the delegates to the third roundtable conference to adopt the four working groups' reports in full or without any modification. However, several representatives belonging Jammu and Ladakh and those representing the exiled community of Kashmiri Hindus opposed some the recommendations on the ground that the same were militant-friendly. These recommendations provided for the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers act from the state and financial and rehabilitation packages for the family members of the slain militants and separatists. These representatives also opposed the reports that these contained nothing whatsoever for the people of Jammu and Ladakh, Kashmiri Hindus, migrants of 1947, 1965 and 1971 and the border migrants. The situation climaxed to the point that most of these representatives dissociated themselves from the working group reports. This fact was widely reported.
A July 21 PTI report from New Delhi suggests that the authorities have again started toying with the idea of organizing almost a similar conference with a view to ascertaining the views of all sections of society and political parties in the state. The report also says that the authorities would also invite the separatist leaders to participate in the meeting as and when organized. Fair enough. If the government of India has actually decided to go in for such an initiative, it should be welcomed by one and all. After, everyone has stakes in the state and everyone wants normalcy to return in the state. People are fed with the senseless violent struggle that has been going on since more than two decades.
However, there is a feeling that the authorities may not extend invitation to those who opposed the working groups' recommendations. The feeling may not be well-founded, but there is a feeling that the authorities may, like what the British Government did in December 1932, rigorously exclude those who may be considered inconvenient and unaccommodating. In December 1932, the British Government had, it needs to be recalled, organized the third and the last roundtable conference in London to break the deadlock in India, but had excluded several of such members who had taken part in the first and the second roundtable conference. The third roundtable conference, in other words, was a truncated conference " in which the reactionary spirit reigned supreme." So much so, the British Government had not even invited even the Congress party, the country's premier political organization.
The authorities in New Delhi would do well to invite all those who participated in the first, second and third roundtable conference so that an impression goes across the country that they are really interested in taking on board everyone. Such an approach on their part is imperative. Their approach has to be all-inclusive and holistic. Exclusion of those who participated in the earlier roundtable conferences would send a wrong signal. It would not help the authorities reach a settlement acceptable to everyone.
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