KT NEWS SERVICE SRINAGAR, AUG 6 : Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president and member parliament Mehbooba Mufti has appealed that people from Pakistan be allowed to visit shrines in Kashmir and Kashmiris permitted to pay a visit to Pakistani shrines.
She made the plea to governments of India and Pakistan while addressing the party workers meeting at Nishat here yesterday.
"I welcome the Indo-Pak talks over allowing people from both the countries to visit shrines in the other country.
But I appeal New Delhi and Islamabad to allow people from Pakistan to visit shrines in Kashmir and also allow Kashmiris to visit shrines in Pakistan.
Besides Wagah and Attari, pilgrims should also be allowed to drive through Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road", Mehbooba said.
She asked as to why the people from Pakistan are only allowed to visit shrines of Hazrat Moin-ud-Din Chesti (RA) in Ajmeer and Hazrat Nizammuddin in Delhi." Pakistanis are not being allowed to visit the land of shrines, Kashmir.
We have here shrines of renowned saints like that of Hazrat Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani (RA), Hazrat Sultan-ul-Arifeen (RA) and Hazrat Shah Hamdan (RA)," the PDP president said.
She stated that the people of the state carve for visiting shrines in Pakistan and added that the bottlenecks, which come in their way be removed.
Mehbooba hailed the confidence building measures between New Delhi and Islamabad saying the measures promote brotherhood and business between the two countries.
The PDP president ,however, observed that the Kashmir solution, which is an all important and main issue between the two countries, should not be put on the backburner when it comes to extending these measures to Jammu and Kashmir.
Mehbooba opined that the visits of the artists, cricket teams, pilgrims and parliamentarians should not be restricted between New Delhi and Islamabad.
"Kashmiris should also be allowed to visit different parts of Pakistan and likewise the delegations of Pakistan be allowed to visit Kashmir", she said.
The PDP leader urged prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Pakistan president Gen Parvez Musharraf to include the aspirations of the people of Kashmir in the confidence building measures.
Role of civil society in Kashmir imbroglio 'Chant the peace mantra & it just might happen' KT NEWS SERVICE JAMMU, Aug 6: Peace is a rare commodity, which is not easy to attain and what makes it all the more difficult to achieve is the disagreement to peace.
However, if one keeps making efforts for peace through various means, peace might become a reality some day.
And for that the civil society will have to place a dynamic and significant role to play.
This and several other viewpoints came to the fore at the roundtable on "Peace in Jammu and Kashmir: Role of Civil Society," organised by the Special Assistance Programme (SAP) of Department of Political Science, Jammu University.
The programme, which was organised in the Vice Chancellor's Committee Room, JU campus this afternoon, was organised with an aim to articulate the voice of civil society of Jammu and Kashmir in the ongoing peace process.
Although, the concern shown by all the participants was similar, it was raised in different connotative voices.
Some called peace a "strategic necessity," some called it "multi-dimensional," some of the participants saw a "dynamic role" for the civil society to play in the peace process, others did not.
But more than whether the civil society, or rather "civilised" society, as renowned journalist, Sat Pal Sahni, who also coordinated the discussion preferred to call it, had a role to play or not, what came to the fore in the two-hour long discussion was the "need" to have a dialogue for peace and the scope, which the civil society had to play in it.
In the start of discussion, Professor Rekha Chowdhary, coordinator of the SAP, enlisted the objectives of the afternoon discussion.
In her address, she talked about the aims and objectives of the SAP, which is sponsored by University Grants Commission (UGC), as also that of today's event, which was the first of its nature organised by SAP.
While doing so, she asked, "Whether the people of Jammu and Kashmir were being represented in the ongoing peace process and how credible were the voices being raised?" Speaking about the perspective of the discussion, Chowdhary said that Jammu and Kashmir is a multicultural society with its differences on the levels of region, sub-regions, communities, and so on.
However, she added, despite these differences, the people of state had a common concern.
But, she pointed out, "Somehow, the civil society has not made its contribution towards the peace process, which had led to sharpening of the parochial voices in the last few months." Sahni, who coordinated the discussion, initiated, what he called a "difficult job," by informing that there were 27 individuals to take part in the discussion and present their respective views on the topic of the day.
The discussion, which took place in three rounds, was set to roll by Sahni himself.
He said, "Peace is one of the most important and primary urges of an individual," and called for "representation of civilised society" in the process undertaken for restoration of peace in the state as well as sub-continent.
Various speakers during the discussion, stressed up on peace being the only solution to the problem that existed between India and Pakistan, but, unfortunately, none of them could define what the problem really was.
Although, a speaker questioned the identity of the problem, which he called as the "problem of Kashmir" but even then, the discussion could not give a definite shape to the problem, on basis of which peace was demanded.
Even on the role of civil society in the peace process, there were contradictory viewpoints.
One speaker said, "Before presenting its views, the civil society should ask as to what authority it has to speak on such an issue." Another one said, "I do not see any role for the civil society in the democratic set up." Countering this extreme stand was a speaker who stressed, "The civil society can do everything if it wants to.
If the politicians do not listen to the civil society, then politicians should be thrown out." Similar opinion was expressed when a female spoke, "Peace can never be a reality if the civil society is not completely involved in it." Another very important condition to peace, which emerged in the perspective of discussion was that before looking for peace with Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir had to make peace within its own regions.
A speaker recalled an incident where a cultural activist from Jammu refused to acknowledge the presence of a Kashmiri minister in an event held in view of the inclusion of Dogri into the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution.
He sought to pin point the "level of unacceptability" at regional level within the state and asked that how could peace be brought in such a scenario.
Another seasoned speaker pointed out the importance of a "coherent society." He said, "The entire problem started with internal tensions, between different regions and sub-regions.
Therefore, we should seek internal harmony between the regions and sub-regions first." In the same vein, another speaker said, "We need to reduce the differences between different regions for which the discussion needs to be taken down to the ground level, where the problem lies." Shifting responsibilities also contributed towards the present state of affairs, said another speaker.
He said, "For the last 50 years, we have been shifting our responsibilities to either Pakistan or hardliners.
We need to ascertain that the problem that lies at ground level." Another important observation was made by a speaker who said, "There persists a confusion regarding the territorial dispute and whether India accepts it or not?" She further observed, "If we have to achieve peace we have to be clear in our objective." It was this clarity of objective, which the speakers stressed needed to be achieved, but, it was something very difficult to achieve.
Together, the speakers put up a discussion, which reflected the state of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir vis-a-vis the relations between India and Pakistan, but at the same time, the dynamics of the problem remained unascertained.
The speakers who took part in the discussion were M.M.
Khajuria, Chandra Gulati, Dr Zahur-ud-Din, Aparna Tandon, Colonel (Retd) J.S.
Jamwal, Dr Posh Charak, Deepak Kumar, Dr Kulwant Kaur, Balraj Puri, Dawood Babar, Professor Shashikant, Jitendra Bakshi, Zafar Chowdhary, General (Retd) B.N.
Dhar, Kavita Suri, Professor Lalit Mangotra, J.S.
Chauhan, Liaqat Jafri and others.
Earlier, in the beginning of the discussion, Sahni also called for remembrance for the victims of the US bombings in Japan, which took place during the course of the IInd World War.
He said, "It was 59 years ago that America dropped atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 in which 75,000 people died." It was in this context that the whole discussion started for the next about two hours.
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