Secularism Goes to Dogs: Now Sri Sri Fart of Living is Delhi's emissary in Kashmir

The Hindu
August 14, 2008


Centre’s emissary in J&K

by Praveen Swami

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar meets Islamist leaders in Srinagar

Photo: Nissar Ahmad

CONTINUING DISSENT: Women stage a protest in Srinagar on Wednesday after the death of a person who was injured in a police firing during the march to Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, on Monday. —

SRINAGAR: Hindu spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar arrived here on Wednesday for a controversial eleventh-hour peace mission supported by the Union government.

Mr. Ravi Shankar met Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who heads the hardline Tehreek-i-Hurriyat, as well as the Srinagar cleric and All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairperson Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in a back-channel effort to hammer out a peace deal between Islamists in Kashmir and Hindutva groups in Jammu.

Few details were available of the meetings, but sources in the Tehreek-i-Hurriyat said Mr. Geelani urged his visitor to persuade Hindu groups in Jammu to end their violent protest.

Governor N.N. Vohra’s office was unavailable for comment on Mr. Ravi Shankar’s mission, but official sources said Mr. Ravi Shankar had been accorded the status of an official state guest for the duration of his visit. The spiritual leader was received at Srinagar airport by the staff of the State government’s protocol division, normally handling high-level political visits, and then taken to an official guest house.

The government said Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had been in touch with both secessionist leaders since the outbreak of the Shrine Board violence in July.

In identically-worded letters sent to Mr. Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq last month, copies of which is with The Hindu, Mr. Ravi Shankar had asked that whether through the government or anyone else, the Shrine Board or any other institution, basic sanitation, medical treatment, food, shelter and other facilities must be provided to the yatris.

He asked that just as the Haj pilgrims enjoy the support of the government, basic facilities must be provided to the pilgrims visiting the Amarnath shrine.

However, he also made the suggestion that if the majority of the population in Kashmir is in favour of autonomy, Jammu and Kashmir should be made into separate states, a highly-controversial long-standing demand of the Hindu religious right.

Mr. Ravi Shankar is the latest in a long series of quasi-official mediators deployed by the Government of India in so-far unsuccessful efforts to open lines of communication with Islamists in Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier figures in this back-channel dialogue have included Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, lawyer Ashok Bhan, commentator Prem Shankar Jha and former Research and Analysis wing chief Amarjit Dulat.

However, Mr. Ravi Shankar is the first spiritual leader to be involved in this dialogue.