Prof KN Pandita Writes: During past two months, former foreign minister Yashwant Sinha twice led a delegation of Delhi-based organization named “Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation” to Kashmir. This group of “intellectuals”, working on Kashmir for more than a decade, includes some top ex-bureaucrats, diplomats, senior army and civil servants, including a former Army Chief, a former RAW Chief and a former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, and others, all high profile personalities. After the visit of Sinha delegation to Kashmir secessionists, — who sing to the tune of terrorist sources in Pakistan— it issued a statement-cum-appeal coinciding with the martyrdom day of Mahatma Gandhi, thereby indirectly purporting to add ethical weight to the content of the appeal.
Couched in carefully drawn phraseology, the statement conforms to the new political narrative of ‘post-truth era’. Therefore, it merits notice. So far, no Kashmir watcher has specifically reacted to it. Perhaps more voluble mainstream media has deliberately chosen to underplay the nuances of the statement and public reaction. The appeal is meant to serve two purposes; (a) sensitizing “thinking citizens of Indian democracy” to the “agony” of “fellow brothers and sisters” in Kashmir (b) assuaging hurt feelings of Kashmiris.
The Statement makes us presume that “thinking citizens” of India are insensitive to the pain and agony of “brothers and sisters of Kashmir”. No cultured man can be insensitive to human suffering. The blame of insensitivity against citizens of India would be justifiable only if the Indians had not suffered bereavement on the martyrdom of thousands of their near and dear ones who laid down their precious lives while fighting externally sponsored insurgency in Kashmir. While our “intellectuals” have vowed to shed tears for the “brothers and sisters in Kashmir”, the fallen heroes of our defence and security establishment had also vowed to protect the countrymen, including the wailing “intellectuals”, from external aggression and internal subversion.
The dirge of these “intellectuals” is about the hurt feelings of Kashmiris. The appeal wants voice to be given to all our citizens that “this is their country as much as Kashmir is part of us”. Does this appeal assuage the hurt feelings of Kashmiris or does it exacerbate them? The statement draws a line between “their” and “our”. This is the crux of the issue. This is precisely what the Kashmiris think and act upon. Kashmiri “brothers and sisters” say they have made sacrifices and suffered privations to make the Indian “intellectuals” understand that “this” (India) is not their country nor is Kashmir part of their county. The real pain of Kashmiris is that Indians refuse to understand them.