Now the moderates in Hurriyat Conference have backed off talks from the Indian Govt saying that they don’t like the pre-conditions. The pre-condition they are referring to is the statement that the dialogue would be held under the framework of the Indian Constitution.
Now any Indian Minister who has sworn allegience to the Indian Union cannot hold talks with anyone outside the framework of the constitution. This was how talks were held before and then there was no issue. But then the Hurriyat are no democracy lovers. They asked people to boycott the elections because “the election process is no solution to the Kashmir problem”
Praveen Swami chronicles the latest developments in the Hurriyat. The hardline Islamic fundamentalists of the Jamaat-e-Islami ‘organisation’, backed by Hizbul Mujahideen, its armed ‘faction’ are on the ascendency. This leaves the moderate elements of the Hurriyat, which was playing peek-a-boo over talks with the Indian government, in a state of disarray.
The moderates are suffering because of their own lack of conviction. And they lack conviction because they lack representative credentials. Once the Indian government began warming up to the Hurriyat, its Pakistani architects got worried and promptly pulled the plug, leaving the Hurriyat grasping for the correct end ‘of a rotting bough’. The Islamic hardliners and their terrorist offspring had no such problems – their stand was consistently in favour of an Islamic turn towards Pakistan.[The Acorn]
Maybe this is just a strategy by the Hurriyat leaders to show that they too can be tough.
