The BJP has come out with an unusually strong response to what it calls reports of attempts of compromise on the issue of Kashmir in the ongoing foreign secretary level talks between India and Pakistan.
BJP’s seniormost leader LK Advani said there were reports that India plans to compromise on its stand on Kashmir and even that the compromise has already been readied and will be presented in the talks taking place in Pakistan now.
He warned that the people of India will not accept any compromise on the fact that Kashmir is an integral part of India.
“If there is any effort to turn the clock back on the issue, there will be such a nationwide agitation that cannot even be imagined today,” he said.
Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated area in the North of India, has been split between India and Pakistan since the time of independence as its Hindu ruler preferred to join the Indian union at the time the British left.
Pakistan has maintained that since it is a Muslim-dominated area, it must ideally have been merged with itself rather than with India. It has been pushing for at least a plebiscite in the Indian part of the territory to ascertain whether the people there want to stay on with India or join Pakistan.
The territory is at present more or less equally divided between the two countries as Pakistan-based militiamen occupied the territory soon after it became clear that the Hindu ruler of Kashmir would prefer to merge his territory inside Indian union.
The two neighbours have repeatedly fought wars over the territory and continue to have occasional skirmishes along the line of control. Kashmir is one of the areas where Islamist terrorism, created and funded by the US government 20 years ago, continues to hold sway.