Esteemed speakers, members of the panel and all distinguished participants, at the very outset let me hasten to heartily congratulate the members of ‘Vigil’ for having conducted this seminar in so excellent a manner.

In fact, I was very impressed with the form and content of the seminar. Not that alone, I congratulate ‘Vigil’ for the meticulousness with which they have conducted this seminar, and for their choice of speakers and members of the panel, very distinguished persons, each one of them, with very long years of service in public office.

I am particularly indebted to ‘Vigil’ for this reason - I know a little about the problem in the state of J&K but this seminar has informed and educated me immensely with the wealth of information, facts and figures and details of history with which our speakers and panelists have informed this seminar.

I assure you all that if ever this issue features in the Lok Sabha I will certainly base my presentation on the information given to me at this seminar and please make use of me by passing on to me whatever intellectual input you can give me on this issue and I assure you all, I will place it before the parliament.

I represent the AIADMK, the single largest party in Tamil Nadu by virtue of its cadre strength and its vote bank and therefore it is the AIADMK, which can truly represent all sections of the people of the state in the parliament.

As Shri. Raman put it, it is a war that is being waged against us in Kashmir. And this is not a recent happening. Pakistan has fought three conventional wars against us over Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism in Kashmir itself is twelve years old. It is incomprehensible why this has been allowed to drag on for so long. Shri.Raman laid bare the statistics and other facts relating to Islamic terrorism very clearly and authentically. I am sure he and some others must have presented all these facts to this and previous governments.

If that be the case, why have successive governments failed to act decisively to end terrorism in the state? It seems to me we do not have a political leadership equal to the task. We need a political leadership, which will exercise political will and steel to deal with terrorism ruthlessly.

When our party leader Dr. Jayalalitha assumed responsibility as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, when she had just taken over, in 1991, it was in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and the Chief Minister was determined to nab the killers. I was then the Home Secretary in the Tamil Nadu Government and the situation in Tamil Nadu then with regard to the LTTE was very grave. The LTTE had the support of political parties and functionaries, they had supporters in the police, bureaucracy and among some sections of the people of Tamil Nadu who were providing them with hideouts and other logistical support. We knew that without the political will to break the backbone of this network, we could not even begin to deal with the menace of the LTTE and its domestic agents.

Dr. Jayalalitha made it clear to the top brass of the state police that she would give them six months to curtail, control and ultimately stop the free movement of the LTTE in the state. With her full support, we were able to rid the state of the LTTE within three months. What I am trying to say is that although the problem of terrorism in Kashmir has become complicated because of the mishandling of the state by successive state and central governments, we can still deal with it if the political leadership exercises political will.

We have one of the world’s best armies in our country and if they had the full freedom to act and the full support of the political leadership, I have no doubts in my mind whatever that our security forces will rid the state of terrorism. What is Pakistan’s size and capability in comparison to India? But from the way this problem has been allowed to drag on, I do not know what it is that we are lacking.

Our party has opposed the declaration of ceasefire by the Indian government and the extension of the ceasefire. As was repeatedly pointed out today by speaker after speaker, Pakistan does not appreciate the niceties of international relationships, nice gestures have no effect on them. We should speak to them in the idiom and language they understand and my plea to the government is, for heaven’s sake, deal with them, deal with them and end the tragedy of Kashmir.

I represent here the Tamil Maanila Congress, the TMC, a regional party with a national outlook. We understand the aspirations of the region but we also understand that no region within a nation is an island because every region is only a part of the whole and is the inheritor to the same history and heritage, particularly the history of our freedom movement.

The Kashmir problem thus cannot be treated as a regional issue or an issue, which concerns only the state of J&K. It also impinges on our foreign policy and the TMC in its election manifesto, in spite of being a regional party, has devoted significant space to define what ought to be the contours of our foreign policy. We have always said that in a federal structure like ours we cannot afford to have weak states or a weak center. The center and the states have to support and strengthen each other to make national security invincible.

Our strength derives not just from military strength alone but also from economic strength. Economic and military strength alone will give us the backbone to resist the strong arm methods adopted by the USA and other developed nations to force us into doing things which are not in our best national interests. The prerequisite for strengthening India politically, militarily and economically, is political will and a national mind on this issue. And that is why I commend ‘Vigil’ for having arranged this seminar on this complex and tragic issue. The tragedy of Kashmir cannot be resolved by the central government or by the Kashmiris alone. I remember, I think it was during the Second World War that Eisenhower said, the war is too important to be left to the Generals. Similarly, a problem of this magnitude has far too many implications for this nation to be left to the Kashmiris alone or for that matter to the politicians alone. Until I attended this seminar, I was not in possession of the volume and the details of the information, facts and figures that have been given to us all by the expert speakers today and for this I express my deepest gratitude for having conducted this excellent seminar with a view to informing us all on about the problem in J&K, with such an eminent group of speakers and panelists.

It is now the duty of all of us to disseminate this information widely among the people of this country. Informing the people is the most effective way to keep any government on its toes. And this alone can summon the political will about which so much was talked today. Shri Malaisamy told us all how effectively the AIADMK government in the state could control the LTTE; this they were able to do because the people of Tamil Nadu extended complete support to the state government on this issue. People’s support is essential for political will. I therefore request ‘Vigil’ to conduct similar seminars and meetings in different parts of the country to inform not only the people at large but also to inform the intellectual elite. I for my part will inform my party and my leader Shri Moopanar on the details of this seminar. I thank you all once again for having invited my party to participate today and for giving me this opportunity to spell out my party’s stand on this issue.

Friends, I am speaking here today not as a spokesperson of my party but as a member of the National Executive Committee of the BJP.

I am reminded of a conversation I had once with Hon’ble Rimpoche, Speaker of the Parliament In Exile of Tibet. He said he thought all political parties in India, without exception, were uncomfortable about the presence of Tibetans in India as refugees and particularly, the presence of the Dalai Lama because this was creating serious strains in our relationship with China. He also said that he and all the other Tibetans would gladly end their lives collectively, one day, if that would resolve India’s problems with China.

It is the same with our problems in J&K and our relationship with Pakistan. An almost identical example may be given of Israel, Palestine and the Gaza strip. Resolving this alone is not going to normalize Israel’s relations with Palestine and the rest of the Arab world. Therefore no matter what the compromise we end up making with Pakistan over the state of J&K, it will not, it will never resolve the inherent antagonism between India and Pakistan, given Pakistan’s pathological hatred of our country.

The tensions between India and Pakistan go beyond Kashmir. It is not just a property dispute which is causing this tension and for us, Kashmir is not a territorial dispute, no matter how the rest of the world views it.

The problem goes back deep into the history of Hinduism and Islam covering several centuries - the world view of different societies, religions and civilizations and how they react when they come into contact with other religions, societies and civilizations. Therefore adjusting the LoC, two feet on this side or two feet on that side, is not going to solve India’s problems with living with Pakistan. We cannot therefore rush into some kind of a half-baked solution with regard to J&K thinking that any measure, which will give us a reprieve from terrorism is good enough in itself, and leave future generations to deal conclusively with Pakistan.

My submission is, if we are not in a position to deal with Pakistan and Islamic terrorism today, then let us also not attempt to resolve the question of J&K. As Dr. Swapan Dasgupta put it, the problem today in J&K and other parts of India is Islamic terrorism and Islamic terrorism is directly linked to Pakistan and therefore we cannot deal with any of these issues in isolation. We can resolve all three only if we can deal ruthlessly with Pakistan’s stated agenda for India.

Therefore we do not need to be apologetic nor do we need to mince words when we say that religion is a major component of the tension between these two countries. An ostrich-like attitude is not going to make Islamic terrorism or Pakistan go away. Veer Savarkar used to say, and he was so right, it is ‘satguna vikruti’ which afflicts our thinking and paralyses our will from action. We are unable to accept and acknowledge the murderous exclusiveness of the Abrahamic faiths because respect and acceptance of all modes of worship is etched deep into our civilizational psyche. Therefore when a tolerant religion like Hinduism is confronted with a doctrinally intolerant religion, we have to work out strategies of offence and defense.

To do this we cannot take refuge in posturing that Hinduism is a tolerant religion, which only makes us ignore, underplay and even deny the unhealthy aspects of these doctrinally intolerant religions. It is this persistent refusal to acknowledge the true nature of the problem in Kashmir where politics is compounded with religion, that has prolonged the tragedy for over a decade and why it is still not close to resolution.

We should also keep in mind the history of Partition and the very nature of Pakistan. Pakistan has defined itself negatively, only in opposition to India. I am not a rabble rouser nor am I indulging in any kind of hate campaign against any religion but the intellectual class in this nation seems to suffer from selective amnesia when it is confronted by Islamic terrorism.

If Kashmir is not merely a property dispute but is a full-scale war, then it calls for appropriate qualities of the mind and appropriate strategies. It is simple to be a martyr in this war - all you need to believe in is that you are assured of heaven if you die doing your religious duty. But it calls for greater strength of mind and purpose to develop skills, patience and perseverance to craft a victory in the war.

Retreating, or taking a step back may make sound sense as a strategy when one is waging a war. I therefore request you all not to jump to conclusions or be hasty when you the judge the various measures that this government is taking, including the ceasefire, to bring the situation in J&K under control. But this much I will say, our security forces should not comment upon any measure that the government may take. I refer to the statement made by the Army Chief Gen. Padmanabha, welcoming the ceasefire and its extension.

As for the word ceasefire, the government never used that word when it said that it was halting all proactive measures against domestic terrorist organizations.the government never declared that it would halt operations against foreign terrorists or that it would not strike at Pakistan if Pakistan kept up its offensive across the borders. It was the media, which labeled this move as such without forseeing the depression, anger and outrage it would cause to the people of this country.

Coming to Article 370, of which much has been said today and the religious dimension to this war about which Smt. Nancy Kaul ji has spoken so passionately, I will only say, keeping in mind all these facts and emotions, we need to work out what Shri Raman called covert-war strategy. We do not need to speak of the details of it in public nor do we need to speak of it from every forum.

But what we must do is disseminate whatever information we have on the issue of the war in Kashmir, to the people of this country. One of the most important things, which people should know is the Parliament Resolution of 1994 on Jammu and Kashmir. If our people can be reminded of the fact that our Parliament, which is ultimately the only true voice of all the people of this country, declared that India was determined to vacate Pakistan from the territory it has forcibly occupied, and will bring, what is termed PoK back into the Indian union, it may perhaps caution forces, which are advocating converting the LoC into the international border. This will mean that the Parliament Resolution will be rendered meaningless.

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