Muscular policy doesn’t yield positive results, Immediate statehood to J&K is in the immediate interest of Delhi: AS Dulat

KNT: India’s former Intelligence Chief AS Dulat said that restoration of statehood to Jammu Kashmir is in the immediate interest of the Government of India. He said the longer Delhi takes to grant the statehood the worse it will be for its credibility.

‘There is an elected government in Jammu and Kashmir with a sweeping mandate. There is a dire need to restore the people’s faith and restore the statehood without any delay,’ Dulat said.
He also said that Omar Abdullah would face an embarrassing situation If Delhi backtracked on statehood but that would also not be good for New Delhi.
Dulat said Omar Abdullah is very understandable, very kind, and who wasted no time in meeting the PM and HM in New Delhi after assuming the charge.  “If it would have been Farooq Abdullah he would have never gone so immediately to Delhi, unless he would have got some signal from there. Let us not forget that Omar Abdullah wants a cordial relationship with New Delhi,” he said and reiterated that statehood to Jammu Kashmir should be restored immediately.
In response to a question, AS Dulat said that muscular policy doesn’t work for a long time. He said engaging with people instead of pursuing an iron fist policy always bears fruitful results.
“The government of India should decide whether the muscular policy or the engagement policy will solve the Kashmir problem. We should not forget that past Delhi governments led by Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh pursued humanistic approaches. They were more empathetic. Advani had two rounds of talks with the Hurriyat leaders in Srinagar. Kashmiris notice everything and are now keenly aware of the lack of empathy in current policies.”
To a question, Dulat said that the abrogation of Article 370 episode in 2019 has not gone out of Kashmiris’ minds and it’s a very unpopular decision and remains deeply ingrained in the minds of Kashmiris. [KNT]