Delhi needs to realise Kashmir issue political: Valley MP

NEW DELHI - No power can permanently integrate Jammu and Kashmir with India till the politicians in Delhi accept that the Kashmir issue is political in nature, an MP of the ruling National Conference (NC) in the state said Thursday.

NC leader Mirza Mehboob Beg said the Kashmir issue was political in nature and Indian politicians need to realise that.

“Till you don’t do that, no power in the world will make the state a permanent part of India,” Beg said during a parliamentary debate on the prevailing situation in the Kashmir Valley were 64 people have been killed since June 11.

Jammu and Kashmir, he said, acceded to India on the condition that its “fully autonomous status” would not be tampered with.

“When Kashmir acceded (to India), there was a negotiation on the future of the relationship… The accession was with a fully autonomous Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

Beg said the state had “consciously” merged with a secular India and “rejected the offer from the founder of Muslim Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah”.

“It was not the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)… it was the National Conference and its leader Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah who preferred to accede to India of (Jawaharlal) Nehru, (Mahatma) Gandhi and Moulana Abul Kalam Azad,” he said.

“If you don’t accept this, it means you are distorting or misunderstanding history. So please don’t compare Kashmir with the northeast and Punjab,” he said.

Demanding that the autonomy to the state be restored, Beg said: “Elected representatives from Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh had passed a resolution that the autonomy be restored.”

“How would you feel when the resolution from your state assembly is discarded like this,” he asked.

“Today my Kashmiri asks where that autonomy is… My Kashmiri asks how the government of India relegated the resolution to the dustbin. This has broken the trust,” he said.

“We have to return to the fundamentals that define the Kashmir and India relationship… You will have to do this,” he said.