CANARD AS COMMENT *** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
By Hari Om
Op-Ed
The Pioneer
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By falsely attributing to Chandan Mitra the separatists' demand that
India must surrender Kashmir Valley to Pakistan, Kashmir Times has
chosen to play a sinister game
A Delhi-based Kashmiri commentator on Jammu & Kashmir affairs,
Iftikhar Gilani, who is a close relative of the pro-Pakistani
separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani and also writes for a local English
daily, The Kashmir Times, has expressed surprise over the "views" as,
according to him, expressed by Chandan Mitra in his article "A 'moth-
eaten' India?" published in The Pioneer on Sunday, February 21.
Actually, Iftikhar Gilani has distorted everything and shamelessly
put his own words in the mouth of Chandan Mitra to create confusion
and mislead public opinion.
A former member of the Rajya Sabha, Chandan Mitra is a member of the
BJP National Executive and editor of The Pioneer, which is perhaps
the only national English language newspaper whose concept of India
is what it should be. The extent of the ill-motivated 'surprise'
expressed by Iftikhar Gilani can be gauged from the fact that he has
described the "views of the BJP think-tank as a sharp U-turn".
It would be appropriate to quote verbatim those portions of his
front-page story, "Free Kashmir or joint sovereignty is BJP think-
tank's new mantra", published in the Kashmir Times on Tuesday,
February 23, which have, according to him, sprung a 'surprise' on
him. The relevant portions of story read: "A sharp U-turn of the
Bharatiya Janata Party on Kashmir was taken by one of its top think-
tank members suggesting India give up its claim on the Valley or go
for the joint-sovereignty. . . The BJP may wriggle out (by)
describing it as a personal view of Mitra and not that of the party
as it did in the wake of a series of articles by former Union
Minister Arun Shourie, but still such views coming from one of its
think-tanks are surprising. . .".
It would be no exaggeration if it is said that Iftikhar Gilani has
violated all the cardinal principles of journalism by putting his own
words in the mouth of Chandan Mitra.
What exactly did Chandan Mitra write in his Sunday column? He, among
other things, wrote: "A small but influential section of public
opinion in India has been pleading for 'flexibility' in the
Government's approach to the Kashmir issue. Some important opinion-
makers have, in fact, gone on record to suggest that India will gain,
not lose, stature if it gives up the Kashmir Valley in order to buy
peace with Pakistan. At any rate, we will stop bleeding in the Valley
and the world would look upon us as a mature, self-assured, emerging
global power once the 'thorn' of Kashmir is removed. . . They argue
that none other than Jawaharlal Nehru internationalised the issue by
scurrying to the UN in 1948 and pledged India to conduct a plebiscite
in the State."
Quoting whom he described as "appeasement-peddlers", Chandan Mitra
further wrote: "After losing nearly 1,00,000 lives in 22 years of
insurgency, isn't it high time that Delhi considered this 'out-of-
the-box' solution? And if that is not quite practical yet, what about
joint sovereignty? Why can't undivided Jammu & Kashmir have a united
quasi-Parliament thereby abolishing borders and giving equal say to
India, Pakistan and the 'people' of the State over its destiny?
Washington, which loves such complex arrangements that facilitate a
permanent foothold for itself in strategic regions, (erstwhile
Yugoslavia being a case in point) has privately pushed this line for
long. There may not be too many takers for such abject capitulation,
but the fact that these views are increasingly aired in public
appears to have put the Government on the defensive. Under pressure
from Washington, New Delhi stonewalled the legitimate demand to call
off the proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks despite last week's
blast in Pune."
That Chandan Mitra nowhere endorsed these controversial views,
barring the views on the American pressure, becomes clear from what
he wrote in the following paragraph: "This section of appeasement-
peddlers are, therefore, certain to overlook the menacing threat
conveyed earlier this month by Jamaat-ud-Dawa'h (euphemism for
Laskhar-e-Tayyeba) deputy chief Abdur Rehman Makki. Speaking at a
Kashmir Day rally in Islamabad on February 5, the fire-spewing Makki
not only let slip that Pune was on their radar, but also declared
that jihad was also to be waged against the alleged denial of river
water to Pakistan. This is a very significant addition to Pakistan's
agenda, doubly important because it is a 'secular' inter-governmental
matter rather than emotional or Islamist. The annexation of Kashmir
on grounds of its denominational character is a declared jihadi
objective. But Talibani/jihadi forces had so far refrained from
dovetailing this issue with other disputed matters between India and
Pakistan."
And, what is the operative part of Chandan Mitra's article? It reads:
"Who knows what more will be added to the jihadi wish-list in the
years to come? Hyderabad, Junagadh, Assam, Kolkata? Jinnah complained
in 1947 that he had been tricked into accepting a 'moth-eaten
Pakistan'. The jihadis are carrying forward the promised 1,000-year
war to reduce India to a moth-eaten entity, within and without."
The meaning of what he wrote is clear: Even if you hand over Kashmir
to Pakistan on a platter or even if India goes in for supra-state
measures in order to empower Islamabad to exercise co-equal powers
with New Delhi in the Indian State, Pakistan would continue to bleed
India with a thousand cuts.
Even a na�ve person would agree that what Chandan Mitra has written
is nothing but a scathing attack on the Congress-led UPA Government
and its foreign policy which has enabled Pakistan to score diplomatic
victories and humble and harm India.
His whole refrain, which is quite visible in his entire article, is
that the authorities in New Delhi are pandering to jihadis, thus
emboldening them further to expand their anti-India agenda. His
comments on the July 16, 2009 Sharm el-Sheikh India-Pakistan joint
statement, the Pakistani designs on Indus waters, the future of the
Pakistani state and possibility of the jihadis taking over the
Pakistani political and military establishments and nuclear
installations, India's humiliation at the London Conference and the
conclave in Turkey, exclusion of India from the core group on
Afghanistan, resumption of talks with a "rogue" Pakistan and so on,
all indicate Chandan Mitra's grave concern over what has been
happening for quite sometime now.
- The writer is Dean of Social Sciences, University of Jammu, and
former member of Indian Council of Historical Research.
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Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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