Autumn of formulas in Kashmir

Vineetha Mokkil / TNN / Nov 10, 2006, 00:23 IST

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It's the season for formulas in J&K. Fifty-eight years later, political parties are still churning out formulas to solve the Kashmir conundrum.

JAMMU: It's the season for formulas in Jammu and Kashmir. When autumn stripped the chinars bare this October, former CM Mufti Mohammed Sayeed took the People's Democratic Party's formula for resolving the Kashmir issue to the UN general assembly.
Mufti became the second leader from the strife-torn state to make a speech at the UN on the Kashmir issue.In February 1948, a fiery Sheikh Abdullah had unveiled his roadmap for Kashmir before the UN Security Council.
Fifty-eight years later, political parties in the state are still churning out formulas to solve the Kashmir conundrum. The recent formula proposed by PDP demands that Article 356 of the Constitution, which empowers the Union government to dismiss state governments, should not be applicable to J&K.
It asks for the governor to be elected by the state and not nominated by the Centre. The proposal calls for setting up separate legislatures for Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, as well as for reforms in the IAS system in the state.

When PDP's formula made its way to the UN, National Conference was quick to point out that it was a plagiarised one. NC president Omar Abdullah said PDP's formula was borrowed freely from its proposal for internal autonomy.
In 1996, under the leadership of then CM Farooq Abdullah, the state assembly had passed the internal autonomy resolution presented by NC. But this resolution was rejected by the Centre.
"PDP's formula focuses on renegotiating Centre-state relations. It is a modest demand for autonomy, allowing for the authority of impartial institutions like the Supreme Court and the Election Commission to continue in the state," says Rekha Choudhary, a political science professor at Jammu University.

"The formulas proposed by both PDP and NC define autonomy for J&K within the present context of Indian federalism."
PDP's call for self rule has met with censure from its coalition partner, Congress, for obvious political reasons. This censure apart, CM Ghulab Nabi Azad has welcomed initiatives by all political parties to propose solutions for dealing with Kashmir's tangled web. Separatist groups are also busy airing their formulas.
The moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, will meet with Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf in mid-November to present its road map for Kashmir.
Dismissing Mufti's current proposal for self rule as "status quo with a new and ineffective tinge," Mirwaiz says that during his meeting with the Pakistani leadership, Hurriyat will offer its suggestions on the joint management of the state by India and Pakistan.
"When it comes to formulas, there is no poverty of ideas in the state," says professor Amitabh Mattoo, vice chancellor, Jammu University, and member of the advisory board of the National Security Council.
"But it is important to discuss and debate these proposals with the people who are the main stakeholders in this issue. Through ideational Darwinism, the proposal which truly voices the aspirations of the people will survive."
Nearly 40 official proposals for a solution to the Kashmir crisis have surfaced in the history of post-partition India.
These include turning the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) into an international border, implementation of UN resolutions on Kashmir to hold a plebiscite which will let Kashmiris choose between Indian and Pakistani rule.
In 1996, Farooq Kathwari, a Kashmiri businessman along with a few concerned citizens, set up the Kashmir Study Group.
The task force of the Group undertook fact finding and analysis and immersed itself in dialogue with all parties connected with the conflict in the hope of finding a viable solution.
The task force has published three reports on its findings and recommendations so far. A history of failed formulas and faction-ridden politics darken Kashmir's horizon.
But political analysts are looking forward to the third round of foreign secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan slated to begin on November 13 in New Delhi with optimism.
Kashmir will be a significant part of the agenda. The talks were suspended after the 7/11 terror bombings in Mumbai.
The three main regional parties in Kashmir politics — National Conference, Peoples' Democratic Party and Peoples' Democratic Forum — have hailed this Delhi-Islamabad dialogue as a giant leap in resolving the Kashmir issue through peaceful means.

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