PDP Says Dulat, Chidambaram To Be Blamed For Demeaning Kashmir Talks

Ruling Peoples Democratic Party today said it welcomes former RAW chief A S Dulat’s assertion that returning to Vajpayee’s policy of reconciliation on Kashmir is the only way forward. However, the PDP said unfortunately, people like Dulat, who now project himself as champions of dialogue and reconciliation on Kashmir, were in fact responsible for sabotaging the confidence building process, one way or the other.

“By naming in his book Kashmir – The Vajpayee Years the Kashmiri leaders who came forward for talks, at some point in time, to help resolve the tangled Kashmir issue, Mr Dulat has tried to project them not as facilitators but as collaborators, thus impeding the very resolution process instead of helping it,” PDP chief spokesman, Dr Mehboob Beg said in a statement today.

Beg said the irony is that Dulat has named and projected in his book leaders from, both the separatist and mainstream camps, in a way, as if they were acting like agents of New Delhi and not as genuine political voices from Kashmir, who wanted the Kashmir issue to be resolved through a sustained political and reconciliation process. “If the likes of Mr Dulat are blaming the local politicians for the mess in Kashmir, Mr Dulat and his ilk in Delhi are equally to be blamed for adding to the muddle for their own vested interests,” he said.

Beg said ironically, the former Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, who has today become a votary of reconciliation in Kashmir, is known for his dictatorial and hawkish approach during 2010 unrest. “If the Government of India would have taken some concrete confidence building measures after 2010 unrest in Kashmir, the situation would have not reached such an impasse,” he said. He said that it is the time that the politicians and policy makers shun their personal and political expediencies and reach out to the people in Jammu and Kashmir to find a way out of the present morass.

“What Kashmir and Kashmiris want today is not rhetorical and hypothetical statements, but tangible confidence measures to address their genuine concerns and find a way out of the present imbroglio,” he said. He added that the onus lies on all to help facilitate peaceful resolution of the problems confronting Jammu and Kashmir through a sustained and result-oriented dialogue process both on internal and external fronts.