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The Government's present peace initiative in Kashmir does not appear to be based on ground realities and is destined to fail and bringing the Hurriyat Conference to the centrestage of negotiations amounts to repudiation of the fundamental principles of democracy, according to Supercop K P S Gill.
Mr Gill, who is credited with eliminating terrorism from Punjab with an iron hand as the chief of the state's police force, says the ongoing ceasefire in Kashmir is more of a gamble "destined to fail for far too many reasons".
"There is something absurd in accepting an organisation (Hurriyat) that has no democratic credentials and whose members are unashamed Pakistani proxies, as the 'sole representative' of the people of Kashmir in the negotiating process and divesting the state's elected political leadership of its locus standi," says Mr Gill, in an article on Kashmir insurgency.
"Hurriyat explicitly derives its legitimacy from the power of the terrorist's gun, though it may not openly engage in terrorist activities. To bring such an agency to the centrestage of negotiations and hence the political process, will be a repudiation of the fundamental principles of democracy," says the article in the latest issue of 'Faultlines', published by the Institute for Conflict Management, headed by Mr Gill.
The articles says the way in which negotiations are carried out in Kashmir could have a spill-over effect not only on other parts of the country but also on other areas of the world, infested with terrorist violence. "The leaders of the terrorist groups must be dealt with as terrorists and criminals. To appease them is to reward terror. And if terrorism in rewarded in one theatre of conflict, it will be replicated in others ... A victory for terrorism anywhere in the world is a victory for terrorism everywhere." Mr Gill says Kashmir is not the core issue between india and pakistan. "The conflict between India and Pakistan is an irreducible conflict between democratic liberalism and polity based on an exclusively religious absolutism."
Voicing a strong opposition to the "politics of consensus", he says: "The idea that everybody-including terrorists and mass murderers- must be accommodated in the political process ... Has been a unique product of a succession of corrupt and craven regimes. It is necessary now, if India is to survive, to abandon the whore's ethic of consensus and appeasement ... Nothing is going to change unless it is demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that violence will not profit those who seek to use terror as an instrument of policy."
While saying that the character of the current peace initiative has been defined by factors extraneous to the conflict (such as the specific pressure from the US), Mr Gill calls for pursuance of a consistent and coherent counter-terrorism agenda in Jammu and Kashmir.
"Despite its economic strength, political resilience and military might, India projects an image of utter fragility and vulnerability as a result of the vacillation and weakness of its political leadership and bureaucracy ... India's Governments have not learned how to act even as Governments of a principled democracy, leave alone a 'great power'," he concludes.
(UNI)
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