Mufti Sayeed calls for purposeful political initiative

Srinagar, August 04 (Scoop News) – Peoples Democratic Party patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has said a bleeding Kashmir has become a black spot on the country’s name and called for urgent and purposeful steps to redeem the worsening situation.

In a statement here today Mufti said the present situation is a result of a long drift and a contemptuous neglect of a proud people with a distinct cultural and intellectual identity.Mufti said the present situation in the state did not arise overnight and the youth of Kashmir were not para-dropped on the streets to raise slogans and stage protests. “I feel this is the direct result of a callous attitude of apathy towards the basic political urges and aspirations of the people, unabated human rights violations and a heartless response to them apart from inept administrative handling’, he said.

Kashmir cauldron has been simmering for long and during the past three years the people here gave enough indications of their anger and discontent, be it in the summer of 2008, 2009 or earlier this year, he said and added that even while they gave a chance for democracy to play itself out, but unfortunately signals were either ignored or responded to with an insulting behavior by the state and the centre which unfortunately was guided by the more hawkish elements in the establishment.

He  said it is sad that the Government of India seems to have run out of ideas and thinking capabilities at the Centre seem to have reached a dead end. “In a situation about which I and my party had been cautioning constantly and pleading for a non-military approach, unfortunately the authorities are taking recourse to more force rather than reducing the dependence of the state on its military might,” he said and added that it is sad that Gandhi’s India should have only the gun and the soldier as its contact point with a self respecting and dignified people, who find themselves fighting a war of survival and identity.

Mufti said it was paradoxical that while all sane counsel of political action over the last few years had been ignored when the anger exploded into a volcano,  it was sought to be attributed to unidentified ghosts, manipulation, money and vested interest. This he said is an affront which no self respecting people, especially a generation that is increasingly conscious of its democratic rights, could take without protests.

He said the inept and rather juvenile handling of a sensitive state like Kashmir has now set the people here in direct clash with rest of the country and  shooting down unarmed protestors is no way to get out of this quagmire. “Such high-handed measures would only fuel rage and alienation,” he said and added that the democratic polity of India must respond to this challenge before the political and humanitarian crisis in Kashmir degenerates into a catastrophe. The  denial so long, he said has already wasted the gains of previous efforts, "and I am afarid an entirely new beggining will have to be made."

Mufti said there is enough political space and intellectual ingenuity in our system and hoped that country’s leadership cutting across the party barriers responds to this challenge and comes up with a political initiative that is purposeful, sincere, sustained and result oriented and is aimed at the political resolution of the problem.

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