| |
Kashmir: New government, new
hopes
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW
DELHI - The regional party set to lead the new coalition
government in Kashmir, the People's Democratic Party
(PDP), may be the best bet for peace that India's
Muslim-majority state - at the core of a dispute with
neighboring Pakistan - has had in decades.
The
breakthrough came late on Saturday evening after two
weeks of wrangling with the Congress party that ended in
its conceding to the PDP the leadership of the state for
the first three years of the six-year term of the
Kashmir assembly. The new government is expected to be
sworn in on November 2.
The Congress party,
which leads the national opposition, bagged 20 seats or
four more than the PDP. But it agreed with the PDP to
lead the Kashmir government on a rotational basis,
ruling during the second half of the state government's
term.
On Sunday, the Congress-PDP coalition
unveiled a common minimum program for Kashmir that
signaled new initiatives to seek peace for the region
troubled by separatist militancy. "The goal of the
coalition government is to heal the physical,
psychological and emotional wounds inflicted by 14 years
of militancy, to complete the revival of the political
process which was begun by recently concluded
elections," the program said.
It also asked the
Indian central government to "initiate and hold,
sincerely and seriously, wide-ranging consultations and
dialogue, without conditions", in order to reach a
"broad-based consensus on restoration of peace with
honor in the state".
Congress party leader Sonia
Gandhi said that the decision to allow PDP leader Mufti
Mohammed Sayeed to become Kashmir's chief minister was
made "in the larger interest" of the state. Sayeed, the
only Muslim to have held India's key interior ministry
portfolio, described Gandhi's concession to the PDP as
an "act of true statesmanship".
"Who becomes
chief minister is not important? We need to look at the
interests of Kashmir and of the nation as a whole," said
Sayeed, whose PDP supports independence for Kashmir but
fought the September-October state elections under the
Indian constitution.
"This is a turning point in
Kashmir's history. I will try and take along all the
parties, including the militants, in solving the
problems of the Kashmiri people. My effort would be to
restore peace with dignity," Sayeed said.
On
Sunday, he said that the new Kashmir government would
release all political prisoners and review the cases of
detainees held without trial for long periods. He also
said that the government would not implement the tough
Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in the state, in
keeping with both the Congress and PDP's earlier
agreement that Draconian anti-terrorist laws in the
state must go.
Earlier, the two parties also
said the special operations group, a crack police force
that has been discredited for indulging in extortion and
abuses in the name of cracking down on militancy, must
be disbanded, and that the State Human Rights Commission
revived.
The formation of a new coalition
government underscores the changes in Indian Kashmir
after the September-October elections, which other
parties in the state's Kashmir valley region, allied
under 24-member All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC),
had asked people to boycott. However, they were isolated
by an unprecedented 45 percent voter turnout in the
state.
The elections threw up a fractured
verdict. In fact, the combined 36-seat strength of the
PDP-Congress coalition is still short of the 44 seats
required for a simple majority in the 83-member
assembly. The ousted National Conference (NC) party
continued to be the largest single party, with 28 seats
in the assembly.
However, several other parties
and independents that fought the elections to break the
27-year-old monopoly on power by the National
Conference, an ally of Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee's pro-Hindu and ultra-nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), have pledged support for the
PDP-Congress coalition. At least two parties, the
Panther's Party from the Jammu region of the state and
the Marxist Communist Party, which have between them six
seats, are expected to join the new coalition
government.
Saturday's decision by the Congress
party was pragmatic. It has no presence in the Kashmir
Valley region, the part that is mainly claimed by
Pakistan, because it is almost completely Muslim and
also because the Indus river, crucial for the area's
economy, flows through it.
Said Prem Shankar
Jha, political analyst and a member of an informal
committee tasked by Vajpayee with finding a political
solution to the Kashmir problem, "The PDP is the only
party that can make a reasonable claim to represent
Kashmiri ethnic sentiment." Jha suggests fresh elections
two years down the line to give separatist parties,
grouped under the APHC, a fresh chance to join the
political mainstream.
Several of the APHC's 24
constituents have close links to militant groups based
in the Pakistan-controlled part of the former princely
state of Kashmir, and openly support accession of the
whole state with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of
militarily supporting the jihadi groups and in December
ordered more than 700,000 troops to the border between
the two countries as response to a series of militant
attacks, including one on the Indian parliament.
The high voter turnout in Kashmir in defiance of
the boycott call and death threats by militant groups
seem to indicate little popular support for the merger
of Indian Kashmir with Pakistan.
Pakistan was
created as a homeland for the sub-continent's Muslims
out of the larger British India after decolonization in
August 1947. But princely Kashmir briefly remained
independent of the two new countries, which went on to
fight three inconclusive wars for complete possession of
the territory.
A new survey commissioned in
Pakistan by the US State Department shows that while
most Pakistanis support Kashmiri separatism, most were
against active interference by their government.
(Inter Press Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
