Opinion
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News Analysis
Time ripe for peace parleys
(Swami Agnivesh, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, the Rev. Valson Thampu, Asghar Ali Engineer, Iqbal Ansari and Mahinder Singh write):
We are delighted that the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's new year appeal to Pakistan to return to the way of peace has now evoked a matching response from the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf.
Given the Prime Minister's stated willingness to meet the General more than halfway in the pursuit of peace and the General's firm commitment to walk his halfway, the time has come for de-escalating the explosive situation on the border and to resume parleys for peace.
We welcome the constructive steps announced by Gen. Musharraf as a belated realisation that for countries such as ours war means assured mutual destruction, even discounting the nuclear scenario. We have shed enough blood for war. Let us shed some vanity and forego the heritage of hate for the sake of peace. We can only be wiser and richer for this.
Committed as we are to a shared spiritual heritage, we remain alarmed at the political abuse of religious sentiments resulting in fundamentalist misadventures that discredit the religions they pretend to promote. Religious fundamentalism is a developmental holocaust, plunging millions into untold suffering. The facade of religion should no longer mask the cruelties and hypocrisies, violence and wickedness unleashed in the pursuit of political and economic power. The diabolic abuse of the sacred human capacity for religious devotion should no longer be tolerated anywhere in the world.
While we welcome the bold measures announced by Gen. Musharraf, we wish to salute the initiatives undertaken by the Prime Minister, whether it be the bus diplomacy, the unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir, or the Agra Summit. Even so, we wish to appeal to the Prime Minister to initiate urgent steps to bring to an end the misery of the people of Kashmir.
The window of opportunity for peace, opened first by Mr. Vajpayee in his new year reflections and now by Gen. Musharraf, must be turned into a windfall for the cause of peace. We believe there is enough on the table for our leaders to prospect for peace. Any wilful blindness or cavalier indifference to this reality can only amount to gambling with the cause of peace for some hypothetical gains.
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