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Talks offer to Hurriyat

By Harish Khare

New Delhi Aug. 9. The Deputy Prime Minister, and Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, is reported to have indirectly issued an invitation to the ``separatist'' leaders in Jammu and Kashmir for a dialogue on any ``relevant'' issue. Mr. Advani indicated this to the ``Kashmir Committee'', headed by the former Union Law Minister, Ram Jethmalani.

After a 45-minute meeting with Mr. Advani this afternoon, the ``Kashmir Committee'' claimed in a statement that Mr. Advani had ``authorised and requested the committee to declare publicly that he would welcome anyone from Jammu and Kashmir with any relevant issue to discuss with him and that no one need wait for a formal invitation.''

According to Mr. Jethmalani's statement, Mr. Advani wants the ``invitation'' to be particularly ``communicated to the Hurriyat leaders and to Shri Shabir Shah of the People's Democratic Movement''. Though the committee is not very optimistic about an immediate positive response to the ``invitation'' from the separatist camp, Mr. Jethmalani has opted to interpret Mr. Advani's remarks as an endorsement of the panel's self-assigned agenda. Nonetheless, doubts persist whether the committee enjoys the ``blessings'' of the entire Government.

In its interaction with Mr. Advani, members of the Kashmir Committee are believed to have made the point, once again, that if next month's elections for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly have to carry conviction, then the exercise must be held under Governor's rule. The committee publicly lauded the National Conference president, Omar Abdullah's challenge that his party would not mind a spell of Governor's rule provided the All Party Hurriyat Conference agreed to take part in the elections. The separatist camp has been uncompromising in its demand that the elections be held under the watchful eye of ``international observers'', a demand the Centre has categorically rejected but Mr. Jethmalani had publicly endorsed. The Jethmalani Committee is said to be of the view that the elections ought to be postponed and the State brought under Governor's rule in order to entice the separatist camp into the electoral fray.

Mr. Jethmalani could not convince Mr. Advani to change the Centre's stated policy that it would try its very best to hold free and fair elections and that it would continue to hold a dialogue with the winners of that contest. Mr. Advani did not swerve from the underlying assumption of that policy: it is up to the separatist camp to prove its democratic/representative credentials before it could ask New Delhi to engage it in a dialogue. Nonetheless, Mr. Jethmalani is believed to have secured a promise from Mr. Advani that even if the jailed Hurriyat leader, Yaseen Malik, is not to be immediately released, he would get medical attention.

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