SRINAGAR: India should talk to Pakistan and the leaders in Kashmir to defuse tension raised by a suicide attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy that killed 40, a former chief minister of the state said.
Mehbooba Mufti, who was the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir from early 2014 to June last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party withdrew support for her regional party, said an ongoing crackdown on freedom fighters and those supporting secession could further alienate the people. “I strongly feel that there has to be a dialogue process internally as well as externally, with Pakistan,” Mufti said in an interview. “The situation is going to get worse if some kind of political process is not initiated on the ground now,” she feared.
Indian officials have repeatedly ruled out talks with Pakistan unless it acts on militant groups allegedly based there. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has sought to speak with Modi amid the hostility, however said no militant group would be allowed to operate from his country to carry out attacks abroad.
“This confrontational attitude – no talks, no discussion -has an impact,” Mufti said. “Whatever relationship we have with Pakistan, it has a direct impact on Jammu and Kashmir and we are the worst sufferers of this animosity,” she maintained.
Mehbooba Mufti says choking space for dissent in a democracy leads to further dissent and alienation
Indian authorities have arrested many Kashmiri leaders in the past few weeks, and the chief of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said recently that the government had made it clear to them that “if they want to live in India, they will have to speak the language of India, not Pakistan’s”.
Mufti, whose father was also a chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said the tough stance by Indian authorities would only lead to ‘some calm on the surface’ that won’t last long. “Once you start choking the space for dissent in a democracy, people feel pushed to the wall and then it leads to further dissent and alienation,” she said.
Mufti said India’s general election – starting April 11 and whose results will be declared on May 23 – could delay the process of any inter-party talks on Kashmir.
