 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. It has been more than a year since protesters in Kashmir pelted stones against security, personnel and establishment in the Kashmir Valley. And initially unresponsive government adopted a piecemeal approach to address the concerns related to human rights violations and alienation among the Kashmiris. Has this approach managed to convince the protesters a year on? We have with us here Mr. Suryat Bukhari, senior journalist based in Srinagar and Professor Gulwani, who is a professor of political science at the Kashmir University. And we shall discuss, we shall ask these questions to them. Let me ask the first question to you, Professor Gulwani. The group of interlocutors engaged in dialogue with various sections of the Kashmiri society has come up with the report which is now with the Home Ministry. What did you make of the exercise? Do you think it has come up with something fruitful at all? It is, I think, premature to comment on the content of that report because it has still not been thrown into the public domain. And we wish that this report comes into the public domain for a wider and comprehensive discussion. Yes, of course, it initially suffered with a certain deficit, legitimacy deficit in the sense that those of the people who are essentially calling the shots on the Kashmiris political turf in 2010, that is the Hurriath and the separatist groups, were essentially not on board as far as interlocutors were concerned. Despite the fact that interlocutors did try to reach out to them, they made several attempts to reach out to them. But possibly on the Delhi-Srinagar track, there is a huge trust deficit, which is the result of years of mismanagement of the Kashmir affairs by Government of India, which essentially has led to a situation that interloc, I mean, the Hurriath leaders, separatists did not come on board. Be that as it may, there are of course, issues that the interlocutors have gone into 22 districts. They have in fact, met many delegations, many students, university teachers, trade union. And from that point of view, it is essentially, I think it is very important that this report comes into the public domain and see how essentially different issues concerning Jammu and Kashmir state, concerning to regionals and subregionals have been hammered out by the interlocutors. I think it is in that sense that the report is very important. Do you think it would have been better if a political team had gone as part of the interlocutor committee? Yes, at that time, there were very concrete suggestions considering the fact that there is a huge accumulated experience on Kashmir, as far as interlocutors are concerned. At one time, I mean, what is called as even the present governor, Vora, then Arun Jaitley, so many other people were deployed from time to time to interlocute on Kashmir. And many of these initiatives essentially did not yield positive results, either that they did not have clear mandate or that these were in fact, not in a way taken to in a manner in which they should have taken, should have been taken. It was in that particular backdrop, that particular context that the suggestion was that let there be political leaders. But then on political leaders, there were some leaders who would have been acceptable to a cross section of society in Jammu and Kashmir, but they did not accept that offer. It went like that. But in any case, I think this report is not being taken as something final. And it cannot be final, because Kashmir has dimensions. There are layers and layers of this conflict situation, there is an internal dynamic, there is an external dynamic. From that point of view, it is important that the content of this report come into the public domain for a wider comprehensive discussion, so that civil society, political establishment, political parties, people living in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir learn from it as to what essentially has yielded as far as this report is concerned. So, let me turn to you now. The core concern among the protesters was clearly human rights violations that has gone on the valley for quite some time now. And because of deep militarization, the presence of various decoding laws that has been practiced. Now, there has been talk of repeal of the AFSPA Act or even amendments in it, wherever it is in place and so on and so forth. But do you think anything concrete has happened in this? I do not think. I mean, at the time we are discussing the issue. I think the latest news pouring in from Srinagar is that the state cabinet which met today could not reach to a consensus on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. After you know that there was a lot of commotion which was happening for the last two, three days when Umarullah said on October 21st that he would order the repealment of the act from certain areas in Kashmir and Jammu. And after that the Ministry of Defense expressed its own reservations and yesterday only the Congress which is the main ally of national conference in the coalition government, they said that they have not been taken into confidence. So, I think as of now one can conclude very easily that all the parties were playing to the galleries as far as the withdrawal of AFSA is concerned. I think talking about the AFSA and its withdrawal, there is no denying the fact that withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is very important to allow people of Jammu and Kashmir and especially Kashmir Valley to breathe. Because the way the AFSA has been misused by the security forces in the past 21 years to cover up their own criminal acts, I think it is time that the people who have been responsible for those grave human rights violations like Patribal encounter, Ghandarbal fake encounter and many other cases, I think it is time that they should be brought to the book. So, for that matter I mean wherever the operational duties they are discharging, AFSA is a cover up for them and AFSA has to go in that sense. But I think the larger problem in Jammu and Kashmir is the strength of the troops on the ground. The deployment of the troops is very important to be addressed because unless and until you thin out the troops, you send the troops to the barracks. I do not think you can expect in a situation where people can say that they are free and I mean their movement is free. If you look at Srinagar, Srinagar has no problem, it is a normal place in that sense. But if you go to the rural areas to the countryside, the situation is very bad and there is I mean I would say that easily that the number of the troops who are on the ground or disproportionate to the requirements on the ground in the backdrop of the statistics which have been released by the Home Ministry only yesterday that the violence level has dipped to a very great extent, militancy is on van, infiltration is on decline. So, all these factors when you look at them, I think there is no need for so much of the troops on the ground. So, I think demilitarization has been a long pending demand of not only the political parties across the spectrum in Kashmir Valley, but largely the people have been demanding this. I do not know, I mean but unfortunately the mainstream parties like PDP National Conference have been using this as an electoral plank and they have also been using it to appease a political vote bank for that matter and obviously the separatists have this on their agenda. But I think largely the people in Jumaid Kashmir do want that if at all the peace has prevailed which I believe is not I mean permanent kind of a thing because peace in Jumaid Kashmir is very fragile, any situation like muscle-fake encounter I mean that can kick start another round of unrest in Kashmir. So, I think in order to gain as Professor Vani was rightly saying that there is severe trust and confidence deficit between Srinagar and New Delhi as far as people are concerned. So, in order to actually regain that confidence and trust vis-a-vis the state, I think it is very important that the majors like the withdrawal of the draconian laws like armed for special powers act and misuse of the public safety act by the state is very important and the thinning out of troops is also very important though the larger problem of Jumaid Kashmir is of is a political problem and unless and until you really come out with a solution to address the political problem of Jumaid Kashmir which is about the determination of the future of the state. I think that is a very important issue, but at the same time obviously the human rights violations have been the biggest source of irritation and biggest source of problem in Jumaid Kashmir. Just before I get to the political problem, there is also the issue of reparations for various crimes that have been committed by both militant and the state actors in the state. Apparently the State Human Rights Commission recently recommended that DNA profiling should be done to of bodies found in unmarked graves. Surely that is an issue you think that that has to be you know taken up immediately. I mean certainly it is very important that an indigenous native institution state human rights commission has come out with a report and remember that state human rights commission also was under cloud for a great deal of time sinister establishment of not only that many of the reports that it produced were not implemented, but because of the fact that this entire institution of state human rights commission did not have necessary infrastructure to work freely and fairly on Jumaid Kashmir state. Now, this time it has come out with a report. It is very important I mean before we start addressing other dimension of Kashmir that on the internal track we find that how these issues related to disappearances, abductions, killings, fake encounters are essentially taken up. It is expected of a country where which obviously is considered as a largest democracy in the world at this point of time that Indian state provides the necessary what is called as the larger environment for state human rights commission to play its meaningful role at this point of time so that these cases are taken up. There are other suggestions for example that truth and reconciliation commission should be established, but that entire thing is in the public domain. There is a lot of discussion going on that whether we have reached to a situation of conflict resolution or it is merely a stage which you can refer as conflict stabilization that it has been stabilized and this point of time probably TRC or truth and reconciliation cannot be thought of at this point of time. Shot out that what is very important is that if you allow the local institutions like state human rights commission that its reports are taken cognizant self and necessary mechanisms and arrangements are evolved whereby justice is not only done to those who feel in a way let down by the law enforcement machine that is over a period of time, but it is also being seen to be done. It is in that sense that that will be definitely a very credible step towards removing not only the trusted deficit, but also arresting alienation to a point. I think this all this when I say in a certain context that the entire conflict has layers and layers, but it is certainly very important that how actually you start working on the internal dynamic and in that how actually to begin with you start reaching out to those who still are waiting for those who have disappeared to return to their homes. There are very multiple questions and there is a huge writing on the wall. There are many associations that have come up as far as the association of disappeared persons is concerned. There are very sensitive issues connected to it. The issue of widows, half widows, I mean half widows a category that you find it is a type of a new identity that some Kashmiri women have that who still are waiting to know whether their husbands have disappeared they have been killed or they still can in fact can be retrieved they can come back. That being a tragic situation the core issue is still a political one. Now in the mid-2000s we saw some kind of a thaw where we had a tripartite set of talks between the Indian government, the Pakistani government and also set of actors in Kashmir and you know different ideas were thrown up even original even positive ideas in terms of soft borders in terms of autonomy and so on and so forth. But after a while these things pitted out you know what do you think needs to be done to get back that momentum that was generated some sitting I think the most important phase in the India-Pakistan relations vis-a-vis Kashmir was from 2003 onwards when the first ceasefire was announced and after that there was a sustained peace process between under the leadership of Vajpayee and Musharraf on the other side. I think that was the most important period we have seen in Kashmir when something was being actually done something we could feel that was happening on Jomu and Kashmir. Though the confidence building wages could not be the final solution in itself but these could be actually I mean a very good beginning for reaching to a level where you can have a solution which is amicable and which is acceptable to all the parties concerned. So but unfortunately I think after the Mumbai attacks the whole process got derailed but thankfully the India-Pakistan have again restarted the dialogue and they have resumed the dialogue between themselves but it's very important that the reference point for the entire dialogue process has to be where Vajpayee and Musharraf had started it in order to address the Jomu and Kashmir problem as the core problem between two countries and in that whole process I think it's very important to realize that unless and until India-Pakistan reach to a level of reconciliation or some kind of agreement on Kashmir there cannot be a workable solution to that but at the same time I think it's important to take people of Jomu and Kashmir also into confidence for a solution because if you take a decision and make a unilateral agreement between the two countries it has to be acceptable to people of Jomu and Kashmir who have given so much of sacrifice for last 64 years for the political resolution of the problem. So that is the external dimension where we say that the point of reference has to be that dialogue process which started in 2004 but at the same time I think the internal dimension is very important as Professor Vani was referring to the interlocutors report. I mean though there are so many actually apprehensions among the people's minds about that report though we don't know the real contents of the report we do take it as something as a good beginning because we have no reason to doubt them but the question is that the separatists who have the problem with the Indian union as such who say that Kashmir is not part of India in that sense I mean they were not part of this whole process. So that surely makes it's a one one sided process but at the same time I think if the interlocutors have given some kind of concrete suggestions where from you can begin the real process then I think to that extent it's a good process but I think people have a right to know that what the report is it has to be in the public domain so that it's discussed and there is some kind of implementation because for the past 60 years we have seen that whatever Delhi says it doesn't do that that's the problem because there's a crisis of confidence as he rightly pointed out. So I think Kashmiris have time and again shown that therefore the peaceful resolution of Juma and Kashmir their transition from violence to non-violence in the last three years I think is an example for their I mean sense of accommodation for finding a resolution a political resolution within the ambit of the I mean the reconciliation grant reconciliation between the people and the rest of India. To finalize both of you are trying to say that the Indian state has to win the confidence of the Kashmiri people by whittling down the layers of alienation that are set in first by addressing human rights concerns and then also looking into the answering the political resolution. Thank you so much. Thanks for the