Modi invokes Vajpayee for people of Kashmir

Congress, Left and other parties demand an all-party delegation visit Kashmir to ease grievances of the people there

Prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday appealed to the people of Kashmir to reject violence. He invoked former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenets of insaniyat (humanity), jamhuriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat to indicate his willingness to hold dialogue with the people of the Kashmir Valley under this framework.

Congress, the Left, and other parties have been demanding an all-party delegation visit Kashmir to ease grievances of the people there. Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, who runs a coalition government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, had on Monday said Modi should take a leaf out of Vajpayee's three tenets to bring normalcy to the Valley.

This was the first time Modi has spoken on the crisis that has engulfed Kashmir for over a month, with as many as 55 people dead and hundreds injured, several of them having received injuries because of pellets fired by security forces. Protests in Kashmir had started after 21-year-old militant Burhan Wani's death in a gun battle with forces.

Modi on Tuesday addressed a public meeting in Bhabra, the birthplace of freedom fighter Chandra Shekhar Azad, and also saw the launch of the government's and Bharatiya Janata Party's celebrations on the seventieth anniversary of Independence Day and seventy-fourth anniversary of the Quit India Movement of 1942.

Modi said it was painful to see that innocent youngsters, who should be holding laptops, books, and cricket bats, have been given stones. He appealed to them to maintain peace and harmony in the "heaven" on earth. Modi said the Mehbooba Mufti government and the Union government were working together to solve the problems of Jammu and Kashmir, but some people, who are unable to digest it, are clinging to the path to destruction.

"When Atal Behari Vajpayee was the prime minister, he had adopted the path of insaniyat, jamhuriyat, and Kashmiriyat, and we walk the same road. I want to tell the brothers and sisters of Kashmir from this great birthplace of Chandra Shekhar Azad that Kashmir has the same strength that has been given to (other parts of) India by our freedom fighters. Kashmir has the same freedom that every Indian feels," Modi said. Opposition termed Modi's outreach as "belated". Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said the statement showed lack of understanding of Modi that the present turmoil was not due to lack of development but unwillingness of the Centre to address the Kashmir issue.

"Herein lies the crux of the problem - the unwillingness to accept that development doesn't solve all problems," Abdullah tweeted.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), BJP's partner in the state's ruling coalition, welcomed Modi's statement. "We welcome the Prime Minister's intervention and hope that it will mark a fresh beginning in a sustained dialogue process for addressing the issues confronted by the state," senior PDP leader and Education Minister Naeem Akhtar said.