Wanted Governance, Not Appeasement  (Editorial Koshur Samachar December 1994)

As is the wont of the Congress Party, whenever it is defeated in any election anywhere in the country, it tries to find reasons why the minorities (read Muslims) have turned their back to it. The same has been done in the wake of the party's debacle in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The party lost no time in announcing the formation of two groups, one of them to analyse specifically, for the umpteenth time, why the Muslims in the two States did not vote for it in spite of the clandestine way in which the Urdu News Bulletin was started from Doordarshan Kendra in Bangalore and the declarations of Shri Sita Ram Kesri, the Welfare Minister, that his party is committed to provide ten percent reservation in Government/semi Government and other jobs to Muslims throughout the country.

 

It is not known so far what this group has recommended but, going by the Congress record in this connection, we can be sure that it must have suggested further doses of minorities. The party high command would also find it expedient to announce some more concessions for this section of Indians before the next round of elections in four other major States take place in February next year.

 

While what happens next or in whatever way this target group reacts to any further appeasement is anybody's guess, we are afraid lest the Government might go in for some panic decision in regard to Kashmir which is the sharpest thorn in the body-politic of the nation The Government has been treating Kashmir as a Muslim problem rather than a national issue.

 

We find ourselves duty-bound to warn the Government, while there is still time, that what Jammu and Kashmir State requires is a good and an effective government and not convulsive reactions motivated more by the ruling party's expectations from Muslims outside the State and the country rather than by any concern for what is happening in the State, in the Valley in particular.

 

New Delhi does not seem to be concerned about the suffering of the people of the Valley, both Muslims in Kashmir and Hindus outside it, in the past five years. It does not know that the Government's authority in the Valley has been eroded almost completely and to a large extent in some districts of the Jammu Division. The Government seems to have no feeling for the dozens of people, innocents and others, getting killed everyday in Kashmir, the bomb-blasts in Jammu and its environs and other happenings which have by now become a routine in what was till recently supposed to be one of the most peaceful States in the country.

 

All this because the Government seems to have made up its mind not to tackle a few miscreants and gun-toters firmly to provide relief to the general mass of people but to undertake confabulations with the very people who open fire before they open their lips. As has been proved time and again, in Punjab and in other parts of the country, those who are out to kill deserve to be killed and not to be tamed by soft talk and promises of money, development, progress, and else, whatever that means.

 

One would have expected that the drubbing that Pakistan, the sponsor of terrorism in the State got in various international fora during the past two years would motivate the Government to clip its wings in Jammu and Kashmir effectively to usher in an era of peace and prosperity in the State. What it is doing instead is to provide further encouragement to those who, under orders of their foreign masters, known and unknown, are in no mood to allow the process of normalisation to succeed. This has been proved amply, if any proof were needed, by the Government's decision. to permit two prominent members of the Hurriyat Conference of Kashmir to attend the seventh OIC summit in Casablanca recently. What did the Government earn from this gimmick except the so-called resolve, voiced publicly at an international meet, of Muslims of Kashmir, as represented by Maulana Umar Farooq and Maulana Abbas Ansari, to continue their fight for independence from India with the active assistance and support of terrorists trained and equipped by Pakistan.

 

There is still time for the Government of India to put its act together in Kashmir and to curb the nonsense of gunmen, both foreign and indigenous, in the Valley and to stop talking of elections and political process till this is done In this process, India can take courage from what the Presidents of Egypt, Algeria and Turkey said against foreign-inspired religious fanaticism and terrorism in different countries at the OIC summit and even before that. It can take a lesson from how Russia is tackling Chechnya, without anyone interfering in the issue. It can take lessons from how Islamic fundamentalism and militarism is sought to be isolated in Bosnia by the NATO countries and Russia. The Government of India has only to note that the world, to which Pakistan is appealing day in and day out to intervene in Kashmir, is providing it time to tackle foreign-inspired insurgency in Kashmir on its own. If India fails to take action now, for whatever reasons, it will soon find itself completely isolated on this burning issue.

 

What is urgently required is good and firm governance and not gimmicks and appeasement

 

Courtesy:  M L Bhat Ex-Editor Koshur Samachar & December 1994 Koshur Samachar

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