Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS) Sunday called upon the respected parliamentary delegation to urge New Delhi to take concrete steps on the ground immediately to diffuse the situation and straight away initiate result oriented negotiations for the resolution of Kashmir dispute to ensure lasting peace in the region. In a statement issued to KNS, the KCSDS spokesman said that they deplore the cliché-ridden decadent time buying response of the Delhi govt by way of repeating the old strategies which have come nowhere closer to resolving the problem in the past and will be equally futile today.“What is all party delegation going to hear from people which they have not heard so far. People have made loud and clear their rightful demand time and again and with greater intensity in the past two months. The cruel joke is that the All Parties delegation that visited us in 2010 instead of recommending concrete steps to heal the wounds of Kashmir, ensure justice to the victims of state violence and urge the govt to resolve the dispute, recommended the formation of Abijit Task Force for additional allocation from state funds of one thousand crore to Jammu and Ladakh,” KCSDS said.
They said that the latest betrayal to the string of betrayals is Home minister Rajnath’s commitment to remove the pellet gun within four days but actually sending 3crore more pellets to maim and blind Kashmiri protesters.“If the delegation really wants to know what the people of Kashmir want, they must stress on holding referendum to make the subaltern speak for themselves because it is not humanly possible to talk to roughly 13 million people. If Govt of India denies Hurriyat its representative character, then it must listen to every voice through referendum,” they said.KCSDS said that those who were ‘elected to the state Assembly stand totally deciminated today. “The members are in flight from their own constituencies. The repetition of the past strategies will only aggravate the situation as people understand these tactics for what they are.”They said that the dire need of the hour is to start meaningful negotiations with united Hurriyat Conference leaders for the resolution of the dispute, to take concrete steps on the ground to build confidence of people in the seriousness of govt’s resolve to resolve the dispute permanently. “The meaningful negotiations with Hurriyat and Pakistan simultaneously must be held without preconditions, without defining the contours of the framework of resolution within the boundaries of either Indian or Pakistani constitution,” KCSDS said.
The statement further reads that when Vajpayee spelled out the three pronged approach of Insaniyat, Jamhoriyat and Kashmiriyat, he talked of these as guiding principles of his vision for finding an out of box solution to the Kashmir problem.“By Insaniyat, he meant to look at the problem from the prism of humanity rather than territory, human values and human rights and by Jamhoriyat, he meant to respect the majority will in the state and by Kashmiriyat he meant that Kashmir’s distinct ethnic identity would be preserved and allowed to flourish as a sovereign entity without oppressive control from outside. But today Vajpayee has been abused by his followers who have perverted these terms into: oppressive control, savagery as against the ambit of humanity to control the situation and imposition of dominant Hindu majoritarianism on Kashmir instead of preserving its ethnic identity and denial of democratic expression even in India. Instead, ironically, as a cruel joke, these terms are slapped on our face and we are asked to believe in them not to demand what the concepts stand for but contrarily to enable Delhi to integrate us fully with the union of India,” they said.
KCSDS said that this is the time to leave behind obfuscation, manipulation, blackmailing, double speak, convolution, circumlocution, skull duggery, clever deception to hoodwink people and diffuse the situation and instead act in tune with the cardinal principles of freedom, truth, justice and respect to collective human will and above all in accord with the promises made to the people of Kashmir by the Indian state.“It is high time to realise the human and economic cost of the stalemate to all the three parties which has particularly resulted in colossal sufferings and indescribable human tragedies in Kashmir in the past 70 years, the latest being the current unprecedented savagery let loose on us. It is time to introspect to see what Indian state has done to Kashmir rather than put the blame on Pakistan,” they said.The further said that their request to the parliamentarians is to compel the govt to take the following steps to redeem the situation and initiate either a trilateral dialogue with Kashmiris and Pakistan or take quick steps for referendum to find out what people want and then to implement that decision in all sincerity.
1. Demilitarize the entire civilian space.
2. Release all political prisoners.
3. Stop use of force of any kind against protesters.
4. Institute judicial inquiry into killings and blindings.
4 Restore civil and political liberties and space for dissent.
4. To urge Govt of India to sign and ratify the Rome statute of 1998 which established the War Crimes Tribunal to enable us to approach it for the redressal of crimes against humanity in Kashmir. (KNS)