Congress minister and former diplomat Mani Shanker Aiyar is a peacenik. Why? Because he believes that the “bureaucrats and political wrangling on both sides” (India and Pakistan) are creating hurdles so that the relations between the two countries continue to remain strained and the Kashmir problem remains unresolved.

Aiyar is a peacenik because he wants New Delhi not to make the so-called composite dialogue between the two countries “conditional”. He is a peacenik because he is an ardent champion of the July 16 Sharm-el-Sheikh India-Pakistan joint-declaration – a declaration that treats the two countries equally as far as the menace of terrorism is concerned – and wants the dialogue to be “uninterrupted and un-interruptible”. He is a peacenik because he wants India to cultivate Pakistan and give substantial concessions to the Kashmiri separatists and fundamentalists – concessions which help them achieve what they have been seeking to achieve since October 1947.

Former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral L Ramdas, is also a peacenik because he blames “Western nations for stoking flames in order to keep their arms trade afloat”. Because he wants the settlement of the Kashmir issue strictly as per the needs and aspirations of Pakistan and Kashmiri Muslims.

Pakistani barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, who is in Delhi these days to participate in a three-day-long seminar on India-Pakistan relations and Kashmir being held at the India International Centre (IIC), is another distinguished peacenik. He is a peacenik because he says that “while talking peace we cannot ignore Kashmiris” (read Kashmiri Sunnis). He is a peacenik because he asks New Delhi to accept what the Kashmiri leaders have been demanding.

Yasin Malik of the JKLF, Sajjad Lone of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference and Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party, who are also participating in the essentially anti-India seminar, held under the very nose of the Indian authorities (likely with their connivance), are also worthy peaceniks.

They are peaceniks because they attack India, paint Indians black, and demand separation of Jammu & Kashmir from India. They are peaceniks because they ask India to quit the state and give it self-rule or independence. They are peaceniks because they denounce the institution of the Indian Army and ask New Delhi to allow the state to exercise “economic sovereignty”. They are peaceniks because they say that Kashmiri Muslims have an “emotional bond with Pakistan”. They are peaceniks because they want to hit India below the belt, disintegrate it in the name of religion, and want Pakistan to exercise all rights all over the Indian Jammu & Kashmir. They, with one of them a well-known murderer, are peaceniks because they justify the use of the gun and terror tactics as a political weapon.

The likes of Mehbooba Mufti are peaceniks because they ask New Delhi not to “squeeze Pakistan as some security experts tend to believe and work for it;” they say it is time for New Delhi to realize that “Pakistan is currently doing what no nation state has done to face the terrorist menace”. In other words, they are peaceniks because they want India to give a free hand to Islamabad so it can bleed India with thousand cuts and annex Jammu & Kashmir in order to finish the unfinished agenda of the country’s Partition.

Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy, who is also participating in the anti-India seminar, is also a peacenik because he hates India; calls for a “soft border and a joint control between two Kashmirs”; tells New Delhi to “end repression” (in Kashmir). He accuses the “Indian Government of holding the whole of South Asia hostage to its whims”. In other words, Chenoy is a peacenik because he wants India to abdicate its authority in Kashmir in favour of Pakistan and its agents in Kashmir.

Former Indian Foreign Secretary Salman Haider, another prominent participant, like Chenoy and others of his ilk, is another peacenik. He hails the view of Chenoy and endorses the “idea of a joint council to unify both parts of Kashmir” and calls for “determining its structure”, of course in a fashion that suits Pakistani interests and the interests of Kashmiri separatists.

Independent MLA from Langate (Kashmir), Engineer Rashid, is yet another peacenik. Why?  Because he says Kashmiri Muslims have not sacrificed their lives for autonomy or for self-rule; because he boldly asks New Delhi to “respect the sufferings and sacrifices of the Kashmiri people”. To be more precise, he is a peacenik because he asks New Delhi to quit Jammu & Kashmir forthwith so that the Kashmiri extremists are able to establish their stranglehold over the entire state and create an Islamic Republic there – a dispensation powerful enough to exterminate the non-Muslim minorities in the state, or rid the state of all non-Muslims as they did it in 1990 in Kashmir in the case of the miniscule minority of Kashmiri Hindus.

But these are only a handful of peaceniks this essay deals with. India is very fortunate because there are many, many more such peaceniks, and they are found all over the country, and in institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University. They masquerade as trouble-shooters, conflict-managers, democrats of democrats, secularist of secularists, human rights activists, and what not. Significantly, the Indian political establishment also has a number of peaceniks. They are there in strength in the country’s corridors of power. In fact, the Indian State is making optimum use of these peaceniks.

This is the situation as it prevails today in the country. Those wrecking the Indian State, both from within and outside, are being eulogized by a section of the media and by a section of the Indian political class as peaceniks. Those seeking to break India into smithereens under the guise of so-called alienation, and those promoting separatism, giving credibility to the gun culture and communalism of the worst form and siding with extremists and radical Islamists, are being hailed by a section of the media and by a section of the Indian political class as peaceniks.

The situation is indeed horrible. The situation has climaxed to the point where mercenaries, terrorists, rapists, murderers, communalists, separatists and Pakistani agents are being eulogized as peaceniks. God save India. God save India from these mercenaries and Pakistani agents.  

The author is Chair Professor, Gulab Singh Chair, Jammu University, Jammu