Kashmir analysts in the government do not find much merit in interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar assertion that the “separatists have missed the bus” by not engaging in talks with the interlocutors.
It now appears that the much touted report submitted by the three interlocutors to Union home minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday to try and trace the contours of a political settlement in Jammu and Kashmir would only serve as a milestone, albeit an important one, and sooner or later it will be incumbent upon the Centre to rope in the separatists to find a permanent solution to the issue.
Kashmir analysts in the government do not find much merit in interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar assertion that the “separatists have missed the bus” by not engaging in talks with the interlocutors.
“For us, they (separatists) are a reality and cannot be wished away even if Padgaonkar says so or the report talks about giving much greater autonomy to the state,” a senior official dealing with Kashmir said.
Even Padgaonkar conceded that had the separatists engaged in talks with them, the report would certainly have been “far more worthwhile”.
“But we tried again and again to engage them and again and again they refused,” he said adding that “We have taken into account the stated public positions of various separatist groups.”
This leaves the report, at best, to be one of the key documents to be referred when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally decides to make another serious attempt to solve the Kashmir question which he may sometime in the next year by offering to talk to the separatists before his likely visit to Pakistan, a key Kashmir observer said.
The report, Padgaonkar said, is a reflection of the broadest possible spectrum of opinion in J&K. “The mandate we were given was to try and trace the contours of a political settlement… We have traced those contours and we have made a certain number of recommendations which aim at a permanent political settlement in Jammu and Kashmir.”
“To buttress the political settlement we have also made recommendations on other issues directly affecting the people of Jammu and Kashmir regarding its economy, social infrastructure, issues pertaining to culture,” Padgaonkar said.
It remains to be seen whether the regional council proposed by the interlocutors - Dileep Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and MM Ansari - are on communal or on more acceptable ethnic lines.
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