Prof. Radha Kumar , who offered to resign from the panel of three interlocutors on Jammu and Kashmir, is working towards completing the group's final report. She and chief interlocutor Dileep Padgaonkar were criticised by their colleague, M.M. Ansari, for attending seminars on Kashmir abroad, organised by individuals accused of being financed by Pakistan. Though such allegations have served to undermine the panel and its mission, she feels the final report would be a comprehensive document that will live up to the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Excerpts from an interview to Vinay Kumar .
What is the status of your resignation from the panel of interlocutors?
The government has made it clear to me that they don't want me to resign and, of course, it is a matter of few weeks for us to prepare our final report. In any case, I had always committed that as far as report writing would go, I would be always work on that. We are looking at September to complete the report.
In the past 10 months, the panel must have made at least a dozen visits to Jammu and Kashmir.
We made 11 visits, mostly of about six days each and we have been to almost all the districts. There are a couple of districts we would like to go to again because we were not able to have exhaustive meetings there as we were in other places. For example, Baramulla town, when we visited it, was still in a state of unrest, so we could not have comprehensive meetings. Shopian, we had gone to visit the family of those ladies who tragically died. And Samba in Jammu remains for us to visit.
So are there any more visits to the State on the cards?
Well, I think that is something for the Ministry to decide. I will say this, that all of these allegations have had a very unfortunate impact. One, because they have continued for six weeks now, they have had an impact of attempting to discredit the panel and the mission and, of course, the focus shifted very foolishly on to individual problems rather than remaining on the mission. And this has, understandably, I suppose, made people quite nervous. So that means even a proper completion of this mission which would require that we cover the areas that we were able to only partially cover for the final report is now in jeopardy.
But yours will be a complete, comprehensive, final report, won't it be?
Certainly, in terms of what we have been able to do,which is that we met the entire political leadership excluding formal meetings with the Mirwaiz and with Syed Ali Shah Geelani. We met the mainstream leadership, others, dissidents, and so on. We have met opinion makers of a range of sorts from the law and media professions which, you know in Kashmir, are very influential. And we met about 600 delegations, and that is not counting the people who also came to us in Delhi or individually…. So, I can say that as far as opinions are concerned, it has been fairly exhaustive and it has covered both the leadership and the public at large. I do not think this kind of thing has been done in a very long time.
Can we assume that when the panel began 10-11 months ago, the sailing has been smooth right till the time controversies broke?
No, that is not correct. You will recall, when we were appointed there was a huge controversy which actually started in New Delhi. There were all sorts of criticism of the choice [of interlocutors], and that had its impact in Kashmir. This is something which we do not realise in New Delhi — that what happens here has a huge impact in the Valley, in Jammu and least impact in Ladakh. Certainly, it disheartened people in the Valley, so we began with a lot of doubts about what is our mandate, what was the nature of our mission, how much we will be able to achieve or not achieve. We were fortunate that within a month or two, we received a very warm response in Jammu and Kashmir which really indicates to me, the real desire for a resolution and for peace and stability in the region. So we were able to emerge out of that problem…but as you know when we were appointed, how inflamed the situation was and how much simmering violence there was. In that situation, you have to expect obstacles. I can only say that it was a very good discovery to find that the people of the region themselves are committed to somehow preventing instability.
Did you think at any point of time that allegations made by your colleague wrecked your standing as an interlocutor or discredited the panel?
Let me put it in a more abstract form. You have a group of any sort and one member asks for another member and that too the chairman's resignation. How exactly can it not be wrecked? It is extremely awkward and difficult when that happens and when that continues and there is no retraction of any sort, it creates a lot of doubt and ambiguity, especially in the people concerned. For example, people in J&K wonder what is going on, whether there is any seriousness in this endeavour. And to that extent, I am sorry to say that I do believe that a very substantive undermining of the mission and of the aspirations and hopes in Kashmir has taken place as a result of the past few weeks of allegations.
But the foreign visits by you and Mr. Padgaonkar took place three or four years ago.
I cannot exactly remember which year he (Mr. Padgaonkar) went. I went in 2006. I would like to make one distinction. I find suddenly in the last couple of days the media is saying I attended Fai [Ghulam Nabi Fai] organised conferences. That is absolutely, factually untrue. I have never been to a single Fai-organised conference, I went to one conference that Tramboo organised, in which Fai was present along with a bunch of other persons, including President Musharraf. It is an important distinction because Fai is under prosecution and Tramboo is under investigation. I would prefer never to judge somebody unless the proof is there. In my case, it is very clear that I was asked to go. And there is no question on that. I did not go on my own. So I feel [this is] something I did for my country and the government. I do not feel I have anything to explain in this instance because the facts are so very clear. I could have refused, I could have said to people in the government who advised me that I won't go.
Did the Home Minister make any assurance on removing the trust deficit from the panel of interlocutors?
What we did get was an assurance that he would try and we would try and see that no more allegations are made. And the focus remains on the report... I would like to make two or three points. One is that I believe that there is some kind of concerted campaign to discredit this panel. It appears to me to be no accident that all of this is happening at a time when we have to write and submit our report. In the worst case, the impact would be that nobody will even read our report. I believe that we are not going to get to that worst case. And I think we can make sure that the report is of such a nature that we will leave the people of J&K feeling that we have accurately reflected their sentiments and aspirations. That is the bottom line for us. The second bottom line is that this report should not create tension or add to tensions in any way. If there are existing polarisations and tensions, this report should help fulfil a bridge building function rather than a divisive function. And finally, our hope would be that we would be able to provide at least an idea of how the process of resolution and reconciliation can be initiated and come to a satisfactory conclusion.
Looking back, how would you say the panel has contributed to easing the situation in the State?
When we were appointed, it was a very inflamed situation and part of the task was to try to undo all the alienation of hearts and minds, find out where we had gone wrong. What should we be doing to rectify and how to begin to win hearts and minds.
What can we expect in the final report? Certainly, it will be much more than a compilation of your earlier reports.
I think it will comprise different sections, we will have some on Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) which were recommended over the past 10 or 11 months and then there will be a section on political contours, a road map section and, we hope, a section on development. These will be separate sections.
