Date:09/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/09/stories/2009010959081300.htm

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India, Pakistan intellectuals oppose war talk

Special Correspondent

New Delhi: In a statement issued at the end of a roundtable held here under the aegis of the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, a group of Indian and Pakistani intellectuals urged their governments not to allow the current standoff to affect people-to-people relations between the two countries.

The statement said the group shared the anger of people over the Mumbai terrorist attack and stressed the need for the guilty to be punished.

Appreciating the restraint “the Indian government has exercised on those who have advocated reprisal,” the group urged it “in the strongest possible terms, to refrain from taking any steps, and discourage members of the government from making any statements that will weaken the bonds that have developed between civil societies in our two countries over the past five years.”

War, they said, is not an option and “all talk of partial or targeted action are ill-informed and dangerous given the nuclearisation of the sub-continent.”

Among the Indian signatories to the statement are Rajmohan Gandhi, Salman Haidar, Air Vice Marshal (retd.) Kapil Kak, Wajahat Habibullah, Professor Amitabh Mattoo, Prem Shankar Jha, Dr. Syeda Hameed, Teesta Setalvad, Sushobha Barve and Siddharth Varadarajan.

The two Pakistani signatories are Dr. Humayun Khan, a former Foreign Secretary, and Aziz Ahmad Khan, former High Commissioner to India.

“Encouraging signals”

The recent elections in Jammu and Kashmir provide some “encouraging signals” such as “the high turnout, deliberate eschewing of violence by militants and the freedom from externally inspired disruption,” the group said.

“We realise that the State elections by themselves cannot provide a solution to the larger issue of Jammu and Kashmir. They do, however, offer an opportunity for achieving consensus amongst Kashmiris of all shades of opinion.”

The group urged all Kashmiris to enter the dialogue process that the new Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has indicated he is ready to initiate with the separatists.