Kashmir: Interlocutors overstepped brief, says BJP

NEW DELHI: The assertion by the Jammu and Kashmir interlocutors that a resolution of the Kashmir dispute is not possible without bringing Pakistan in the loop has kicked up a political row, with BJP and strategic experts slamming the move, maintaining that the three-member group has “overstepped its brief”, and asking the government to clear the air.

“Kashmir has been a part of Pakistan’s unfinished agenda of partition. Pakistan has been fomenting trouble in the Valley,” senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said on Sunday, adding: “Pakistan has no locus on Kashmir. The government should clarify whether internationalising the Kashmir issue is part of the interlocutors’ brief.”

“Since our announcement as the interlocutors, I have been saying our priority mandate is to seek the opinion of every section as time has come when we should try out to find out a permanent, comprehensive political settlement of the Kashmir dispute,” Dilip Padgaonkar, who heads the three-member team of interlocutors, had said on Saturday after landing in Srinagar along with M M Ansari and Radha Kumar.

He referred to Kashmir as a “dispute” thrice, and said no one could deny the “Pakistan dimension” of the Kashmir issue. “It (the dimension) has been there right from 1947. So those who say you will attempt this comprehensive solution without Pakistan’s involvement, that cannot be,” Mr Padgaonkar asserted.

“Pakistan has to be involved. People say, ‘Will you bring Pakistan (to the negotiating table)?’ Well, Pakistan is, of course, there. Where is the question of bringing Pakistan,” the veteran journalist asked.

The interlocutors, said Mr Jaitley, were expected to confine themselves to local Indian groups. “I have an uneasy feeling that they, in saying what they’ve said, have overstepped their brief.” While Congress refused to comment on the controversy, BJP went all out to criticise the interlocutors’ attempts to bring Pakistan into the frame.

Such comments, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, legitimised Pakistan’s stand on the issue. “It sounds as if they are rationalising Pakistan’s stand on its unfinished agenda on Kashmir. Furthermore, it seems as if the panel is arguing for the Hurriyat angle in this matter,” she said.

Strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney, too, criticised Mr Padgaonkar’s remarks, arguing that Pakistan, the sponsor of cross-border terror, was part of the problem and thus cannot be part of the solution. “Even before the panel has met with representatives of different parties and communities in J&K or has had time to deliberate, such misspeak spells trouble for this committee. Giving vent to dangerous and delusional personal opinions will impair the panel’s ability to carry out the task assigned to it,” he said.