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Resuming dialogue process

Kashmir Times. Dated: 9/26/2013 11:12:23 PM

India-Pak PMs must ensure that it moves fast and remains uninterrupted and uninterruptible

Happily, after weeks of hesitation and speculations Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken a realistic decision to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, on the sidelines of the United National General Assembly session in New York, thus breaking the prolonged and undesirable logjam for resuming the process of composite dialogue for resolving all the disputes including that of Jammu and Kashmir peacefully. There was persistent and aggressive pressure from the hawks in politics, bureaucracy and security establishment, with a powerful section of the corporate-controlled media acting as their force-multiplier, against resuming the dialogue process in view of the recent unfortunate and condemnable violations along the ceasefire line. There were even voices against having any dialogue with Pakistan and war cries by the saffron brigade and other rabble-rousers in the country. Manmohan Singh has done well to eventually ignore such voices and agree to have a meeting with Nawaz Sharief in New York.
One should hope that the two sides will demonstrate their political wisdom, will and capacity to withstand the hawkish voices in their respective countries for not only resuming the dialogue process but also pushing it forward by removing all the roadblocks to usher into a much wanted new era of peace and cooperation in the region. With the exception of a lunatic fringe of the population, which has a vested interest to prolong and even escalate the conflict, the teeming millions in the two countries desire peace, end to the prolonged confrontation which has brought nothing but miseries for them, by resolving all the disputes peacefully and have lasting and sustainable peace. The recent ceasefire violations along the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir, viewed in this context, are essentially the desperate bids by the enemies of peace, are aimed at derailing the peace process. The most condemnable attack in Samba and Hiranagar areas of Jammu by the alleged infiltrators from across the borders, causing loss of human lives, within hours of the Prime Minister’s announcement about the summit meeting at New York, is a crude attempt to disrupt and even reverse the dialogue process. These should in no way influence the governments in the two countries to abandon the peace process as doing so will be to play in the hands of hawks and war-mongers, who are the enemies of the people at large.
The scheduled meeting at New York provides an opportunity to the two Prime Ministers to take serious view of these incidents and evolve a mechanism to rein in the terrorists and war –mongers and ensure that the sanctity of the ceasefire is maintained at all costs.
Nawaz Sharif, ever since he assumed the office of the Prime Minister in his country, has been reiterating his government’s resolve to not only resume the dialogue process with India but also to carry it forward with greater speed to its logical end. The issues of terror, LoC tensions, trade etc may dominate the Prime Ministers meeting it is important that the meeting at the highest level is followed by series of meetings at official levels to resolve all the contentious issue without losing much time. The issues of Sir Creek, Siachen Glacier, fishermen in both the countries, on which much progress had been made earlier, can be clinched if both sides demonstrate their flexibility and retrace from their respective rigid positions as a matter of false prestige and political expediency. Two important issues which have been delayed for too long, are that of relaxing the rigid visa system that prevents not only the divided families from meeting their kith and kin on the the other side of the divided line but also stands in the way of bridging the trust-deficit through people-to-people contacts and normalization of trade between the two countries. Some of the decisions taken in this regard need to be implemented in letter and spirit without any further delay. The demilitarization, with the two countries agreeing to cut their defence budget by 25 per cent every year, is indeed one of the most important confidence building measures for creating a conducive climate for peace.
Jammu and Kashmir undoubtedly, has been a major issue that has been both the cause and consequence of the prolonged conflict and needs to be resolved with speed if the relations between the two countries are to be normalized. Unfortunately, the Kashmir-related dialogue has not even taken off the grounds by taking the people of the troubled state on board. Unfortunately even the CBMs for creating a conducive climate for pursuing the dialogue process have not been taken by the two sides. The reopening of few routes across the LoC for resuming trade and travel, though right steps, have failed to yield the desired result due to the bureaucratic hassles and lot of curbs. While these need to be made hassle-free and further expanded, the most important of J&K related CBMs is the revocation of draconian laws like AFSPA and PSA, end to human rights abuses,removal of armed forces from the civilian areas and restoration of people’s democratic rights.