Author: Dr. Syed Mohammad Inayatullah Andrabi

There have been some awkward developments in Kashmir in recent weeks. The APHC leader Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat has made some unusual statements recently saying that time had come to speak the truth. The learned Professor may agree that he has not made any disclosures in the real sense of the term; both, the informed elites as well as common masses in Kashmir know fairly well what has been going on in Kashmir for the past 21 years, who did what and why. Prof. Bhat should be knowing it fully well that in politics what is said is as important as when it is said, and even where. This is because political people understand things by their whole being, their faith, emotions, outlook, ideology, but they do things (speak out or any other action) on the basis of calculation.

Extremism has become a part of the modern day political vocabulary, but most often the word is used, rather misused for political purposes. It is because of this gross misuse of the word that the underlying concept is either totally misunderstood or least understood. Actually one would tend to disregard the need to understand the underlying concept, simply because there is nothing the word really stands for; it is simply the political motive of the user that determines the meaning of the word. For example, India would call anyone who calls it an occupier, or does something to force it out of Kashmir, an extremist, although there is no extremism involved here. As such, one might perhaps conclude that extremism is simply a label of convenience, and does not stand for anything definite in the real world. This, however, will be a hasty and erroneous conclusion.

President Barack Hussain Obama has come and gone. We are not going to analyze the outcome of this visit here, but only focus on some issues revolving around India’s ambitions for a higher power status, so manifestly evidenced by its overwhelming concern for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and America’s approval of these ambitions. Since the relationship is not between two equals, the focus has to be mainly on how India is going to be used in the global power game.

Mr Salman Bashir, Foreign Secretary, Government of Pakistan held a press conference in New Delhi at the conclusion of foreign secretary level meeting held between India and Pakistan on 25/02/2010. A little earlier, his Indian counter part, Nirupama Rao also addressed the press, saying we talked about Kashmir but very briefly. Salman Bashir (henceforth SB), later said he disagrees with that, and that Kashmir was discussed at length. We are not going to analyze the results of this secretary level meeting, nor make any judgments about its success or otherwise, the purpose of this brief write-up is to seek the attention of readers towards what seemed to me a sort of contradiction or incoherence in SB’s press briefing. It was not an explicit contradiction, certainly not a contradiction between his utterances, and, therefore, was not easily notable. However, some contradiction, incoherence or inconsistency, whatever you may choose to call it, did definitely exist.

In his address to the legislative assembly of Azad Kashmir at Muzaffarabad on 5th January, 2009, the president of Pakistan Mr Asif Ali Zardari, has made some very important points injecting new hope and energy into the Kashmiri freedom struggle. Apart from the routine stuff, and promises to AJK government, the president said something very meaningful, not often articulated by Pakistani rulers.