NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, 4 August — The ruling Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday ruled out self-governance for Jammu and Kashmir while favoring "decentralization and greater devolution of powers" along with other states.
"There cannot be an autonomous state within our country," BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu asserted in his address to a meeting of the party’s national council, called to finalize the party’s strategy for the coming assembly elections in a clutch of 10 states.
Naidu said: "We are in favor of decentralization and greater devolution of power to all states, including Jammu and Kashmir.
"Our approach to the Jammu and Kashmir government’s request for more powers will be within the spirit of this," he said, referring to a resolution passed by the state assembly last year demanding autonomy as it enjoyed before 1953.
"There is no question of reverting to the pre-1953 position. If anybody wants to raise this issue the answer is a big ‘no’", he said.
"When we talk of devolution of powers we shall keep the regional aspirations of Jammu and Ladakh in mind," he said. Hindu-majority Jammu and Buddhist-dominated Ladakh regions along with the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley together form the frontier state.
"On Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP’s view is very clear. It is an inseparable and integral part of India and will always remain so.
"No force on earth can take an inch of this land. The only dialogue with Pakistan can be regarding that part of Kashmir which is illegally occupied by our neighbor," he said.
The BJP vowed to intensify the fight "to end Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism" in the disputed Kashmir.
"We urge the government to further intensify this battle... so that Pakistan is forced to back off permanently from its dangerous and self-destructive reliance on terrorism and religious extremism as an instrument of its Kashmir policy," the BJP said.
Kashmir is at the heart of a military standoff between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, as New Delhi battles a separatist revolt in the state.
Defense Minister George Fernandes, however, yesterday cautioned against attempts by "internal and external forces" to sabotage elections in Kashmir in September-October.
"There will be serious efforts by internal and external forces to sabotage the state assembly elections and for that the army has to be fully
prepared," Fernandes told reporters in Srinagar.
Fernandes also rejected the demand made in some quarters for permitting foreign observers to monitor the polls.
"No sovereign nation can accept foreign observers to sit as judges on the conduct of elections.
Amid speculation that Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani would be released ahead of assembly elections, two judicial officials met him in a prison in Ranchi.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, during his visit to New Delhi in last week, had suggested that "political prisoners" be released ahead of the elections to make the process credible.
"It seems the government is trying to ensure the participation of every section of Jammu and Kashmir in the polls. And Geelani may help the central government ensure the participation of separatists," said an official.
Meanwhile, police yesterday said they had arrested a Pakistan-based militant responsible for a massacre last month in Kashmir.
Muhammad Abdullah, also known as Abu Talah of the Pakistani city of Multan, was caught after 400 commandos combed the Raika forest for two days to find rebels believed to be behind the massacre of 28 people in a slum on the outskirts of Jammu.
