{"id":594,"date":"2012-04-02T10:09:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T04:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=594"},"modified":"2012-04-02T10:11:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T04:41:26","slug":"a-word-with-kashmir-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/a-word-with-kashmir-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"A Word With Kashmir Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

\"Mirrwaiz<\/a>Some hard thinking is required.\u00a0 Each one of us has to do it. In fact, every one owes it. I owe it as a kibitz columnist and leaders owe it as men who lead and shape the destiny of people.<\/p>\n

Sitting in one-day seminar organized by the Kashmir Bar Association on Tuesday on the subject, \u201cKashmir Freedom Struggle in the Current Global Political Scenario and Prospects of A Solution\u201d and listening to learned speakers, I started pondering: Where have we erred during the past sixty four years? \u00a0Are we as the people responsible for the perpetuation of the uncertainties that have been consuming us within like some deadly diseases? Have \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0leaders failed us?\u00a0 Are we paying for their amateurish approach, failing to rise to the occasions, and taking right decisions at the right moment?\u00a0 If investing in one leader and one party has done wrong after wrong to us and led us from a murky pond into \u00a0\u00a0marshy one. Alternatively, was the idea of collective leadership and the \u2018forum politics\u2019 right answers for correcting the past mistakes? Has the collective leadership proved counter-productive and for their working at cross-purposes at important junctures defeated the very purpose for which people offered innumerable sacrifices. Has forum politics \u00a0a class of political parasites that have been fattening at the sufferings of the common people.<\/p>\n

The big question is if the mistakes committed in the past are not being repeated and repeated dauntlessly.<\/p>\n

My trepidations sharpened as I heard speaker after speaker filling the air with despair, disappointment and nothing but pessimism. Some speakers called for incremental approach instead of the holistic one that has been the refrain of a larger section of the lawyers\u2019 fraternity for past many years. Some streaks of hope were discernable in the speech of a law teacher from the University of Kashmir. His optimism emanated from the changed geo-strategic scenario in the region. It would be too early to comment on the post 2014 scenario when USA is expected to completely withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The emerging scenario that indicates tilting of power balance in the region with Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan likely entering into a strategic partnership has a couple of caveats like, if China joins such a strategic partnership.\u00a0 Moreover, if subservience of Iran and India relations \u00a0\u00a0to that of the \u00a0India-US- Israel strategic partnership increases as the date for withdrawal approaches. \u00a0It is a wait and watch situation- in this wait and watch where does Kashmir stand is the question. In this wait and watch situation if Kashmir leadership is not again caught on a wrong foot that will lead into yet another cul-de-sac<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Caught up in the web of questions, believing that history is the best guide, I started filliping through the pages of history. That opened up like a bible revealing causes of our predicaments and their perpetuation.<\/p>\n

Six decades narrative of this land is tormented with leadership working at cross purposes at the cross roads of our history. It in fact has been this working at the cross-purposes at the critical junctures that I see as one of the main contributory factors to the messy situation that Kashmir is caught up in. \u00a0And that has steered us from one uncertainty to another, and continues to do so even to this day. To illustrate my point of view let me cull out a few glaring incidents from the pages of our history that I believe have contributed to the birth and continuation of Kashmir agonies:<\/p>\n