The Centre has decided to go slow with regard to announcing talks with all stakeholders in Kashmir as it wants to get the RSS on the same page first, highly placed sources told this reporter. This decision is likely to disappoint BJP’s ally PDP which had been nudging the national party to “move forward” on their “agenda of alliance” that includes talks with people of all backgrounds in Kashmir.
The hope for talks had grown stronger after BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who is the party’s incharge of Jammu and Kashmir, said in Srinagar recently that the Centre was ready for a dialogue with the separatists without any preconditions.
The BJP discussed Kashmir on the sidelines of its national executive committee meeting in New Delhi on 24 and 25 September. Reports said that Ram Madhav briefed the BJP leaders about the ground for talks. Sources in the BJP said that many senior leaders feel that the Hurriyat has mellowed down because of the pressure they have been facing due to NIA probe. These leaders are of the opinion that the entire separatist leadership was seeking a dialogue only to deflect this pressure.
A senior BJP minister in the Jammu and Kashmir state government said that any decision about any forward movement on the agenda of alliance would be taken only after the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha meet of the RSS in Bhopal, which is scheduled for the second week of October. The BJP leadership will take feedback from the RSS, which in turn will take feedback from their various wings operating in Jammu and Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Major General B.S. Raju, the head of Victor Force, recently told a news agency in an interview that the time was ripe for the dialogue process to start in Kashmir. He claimed the security forces have almost wiped out militancy in South Kashmir. He said that most of the people in Kashmir want an end to violence. There is feedback from the intelligence agencies also that the dialogue process should be started in Kashmir to end violence. Most of the separatist leaders have welcomed the recent offer of talks by the Central government and they are also waiting for the dialogue process to start.