Sangh opposes BJP talks with separatists

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 27

Even as some party leaders are advocating talks with the Hurriyat Conference to establish sustainable peace in the state, the ruling BJP is under tremendous pressure from different offshoots of the Sangh Parivar against engaging separatists in the dialogue process.

A veiled warning has already being given to the BJP leadership by some of the leaders of Sangh Parivar’s offshoots against ignoring nationalist forces of the state, including Jammu and Ladakh, at the cost of appeasing Valley-based separatists.

A prominent stalwart of Sangh Parivar, Indresh Kumar, has warned those who are advocating dialogue with the Hurriyat Conference. “Giving importance to the Valley-based separatists, by ignoring pro-India forces of Kashmir, would prove to be disastrous for the country because such exercise is going to discourage pro-India forces in the Valley,” he argued while dubbing separatist leaders as paid agents of Pakistan.

Indresh Kumar’s statement against engaging separatists in the dialogue process attached importance because recently Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, who belongs to the BJP, had advocated talks with the Hurriyat Conference by quoting the Agenda of Alliance of the coalition. In the Agenda of Alliance, the document for running coalition in J&K, it is clearly mentioned that the PDP-BJP government would follow the dialogue process initiated by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee by including all groups in the talks with the spirit of “Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat aur Jamhooriyat”.

In the ongoing turbulent situation in Kashmir which erupted after killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, the PDP has managed to convince a faction within the BJP to initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders, including separatists. And some BJP leaders have starting echoing PDP’s viewpoint on dialogue with separatists.

Without naming the BJP, Indresh Kumar said, “I cautioned parties against repeating the same blunders, which were earlier committed by the previous regimes from time to time, by engaging subversive elements in the dialogue process”. He contended that similar exercises had failed to yield any results in the past.