Visit to Pakistan in India's interest: Lone

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, JAN. 26. The senior Hurriyat leader, Mr. Abdul Gani Lone, finds its strange that the Centre is making so much fuss about issuing travel documents to some of the APHC executive members, to the extent of distracting from the Prime Minister's ceasefire initiative. ``This passport business has become larger than life, as if this is the dispute,'' Mr. Lone told The Hindu.

As its leaders analyse the situation, the visit of an All-Party Hurriyat Conference delegation can help India and Pakistan move forward from their stated positions. While New Delhi contends that there can be no dialogue as long as Pakistan does not stop encouraging cross-border terrorism, Islamabad feels the violence will automatically come down once a dialogue starts.

``Our visit can provide a fig-leaf to everyone. Islamabad can choke up the life-support to these mujahideen groups and yet pretend that the violence had stopped in response to the Hurriyat leaders' appeal to the militants to give peace a chance,'' says Mr. Lone.

He also finds it curious that the Centre has allowed its tactical moves to be influenced by the militants' violence. ``They have not accepted the ceasefire, and therefore it is natural that they would keep up their activities. But the important thing is that the Prime Minister's bold initiative has to stand on its own logic and momentum,'' says the APHC leader.

In fact, as Mr. Lone sees it, India would gain tremendous diplomatic advantage should it allow a APHC team to go to Pakistan. ``New Delhi can tell the international community that despite the violence we are letting the Hurriyat team go.'' On the other hand, if the team is not given the kind of respect it deserves in Pakistan, ``the people back home in Kashmir would have an opportunity to judge for themselves how their own leaders were being insulted in Pakistan, and would know who was and who was not a friend of the Kashmiri movement,'' concludes Mr. Lone.

The Hurriyat leader also finds himself at a loss to understand why he is described in the media as a ``moderate'' while Syed Geelani is dubbed a ``hardliner''. ``We are both bound by the APHC constitution. The only difference between us is that Mr. Geelani thinks Kashmir is a religious issue, while I consider it a political issue.''

And, in any case, whatever the composition of the APHC delegation, ``the Executive will nominate someone as a leader, and there will be written and agreed upon agenda for the delegation, and no member can stray away from that written agreement, during the visit to Pakistan,'' asserts Mr. Lone.

Arguing that ``every citizen should have a passport in a vibrant democracy,'' Mr. Lone concedes that the Home Ministry is entitled to prevent any citizen from travelling out of the country if he was involved in a criminal activity.

It is generally assumed that if the ``criminal activity'' criterion was adopted, not all the five members named by the APHC chairman may be able to travel to Pakistan.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : It was 6.9 on the Richter scale: IMD
Next     : 'Tornadoes', aircraft steal the show