After the BJP, Kashmiri separatists too have rejected the report of the Centre’s interlocutors, though for different reasons. On the other hand, the ruling National Conference (NC) and other like-minded parties and groups too seem to be dragging their feet. The main Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) wishes its own “self-rule” formula be seen sacrosanct and doable and the Congress is conspicuous by its silence.
The question thus raised is: has the document its authors claim could address the issues Jammu and Kashmir is faced with lost its sheen before the Centre mulls over it — and if, at all, it does.
Some local watchers subscribe to the view, essentially that of separatists, that it has been a futile exercise.
The average Kashmiri too does not see much in the report that could allure him either, leave alone if, at all, it has any potential of resolving the mess they or the state as such has been caught in.
Many people interviewed by this correspondent on Friday said they had only read in newspapers or heard on radio and television about the salient component of the report which is “not any impressive” and, in fact, something not heard before.
Others pleaded to study it first and only then would decide on its usefulness or futility.
That precisely is chief minister Omar Abdullah’s standpoint. He tweeted: “Will take a few days to examine the report, discuss it with senior colleagues and then react.”
However, senior NC leader and Member of Parliament Mehboob Beg said the report was full of contradictions. “On one hand, they call for revisiting the Central laws (made applicable to Jammu and Kashmir since 1953 after the dismissal and detention of legendary leader Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah) and on the other, say clock can’t be turned back,” he told Greater Kashmir newspaper in an interview, adding: “This is a clear contradiction and the interlocutors need to explain it.” He was also of the opinion that recommendation of forming a committee for revisiting Central laws seems to be “time-buying exercise”.
While hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani does not consider the report worth comment for being “old wine in new bottle”, Shakeel Ahmed Bakshi, the face of young dissenters who openly supported the stone-pelting pastime of the local youth during the 2008-10 civil unrest openly calling it Kashmiri Intifada, said the report seeks to “dilute the freedom sentiment”.