The thought that comes to my mind is: cowardice does not a statesman make. And Indians, especially the Hindu variety, are rank cowards. For instance, do you have an answer to Dr Abdullah's "You never demonstrated the guts to wage a war and liberate what is our part"...? No we don't, for we never had any. Kargil came and Kargil went and what did we do? We released Masood Azhar, of course, but we also released, as a "goodwill gesture," five separatist leaders who were among the 25 hardcore members of the Hurriyat Conference detained under the Public Safety Act.

A month later, the newly-released Yasin Malik called for a Palestinian-type intifada against India: "The British gave freedom to India but we have been deprived of our legitimate right by New Delhi... As long as pre-conditions are put by Delhi, there will be no negotiations." And what were the nationalists doing? We were trying to "clear the hurdles" for the proposed talks with the Hurriyat... In the meantime, the Hurriyat office (why does one exist??) was busy exchanging messages with the Kashmir Media Service, an ISI enterprise that handles anti-India propaganda campaigns, one of which was intercepted by Indian intelligence and which contents showed up in a PTV news bulletin. So we said " naadaan baalak" and continued with clearing the hurdles - one of which has always been Dr Abdullah.

Fact is, if Farooq Abdullah hadn't been pushed to the wall by the PM's "goodwill gestures" and desperate need to be recognised as the avatar of Gandhiji, the autonomy report would have stayed put gathering dust. Dr Abdullah always was against the Centre holding a dialogue with the Hurriyat ("The government of India is ready to discuss azadi with the people who want it"), and yesterday, after the inauguration of a branch of the J&K Bank at Bangalore, he let it rip: "Who the hell am I to stop them? Am I God?! You think Hurriyat is a great panacea to India? Part of Hurriyat wants to give Kashmir to Pakistan; part of them wants independence from India. Go ahead and give them! They must talk to them [Hurriyat] so that the people of India would realise what Hurriyat is all about."

Whatever critics may say about Farooq Abdullah's politics and motives, one thing is certain: He has been consistent in his demand for India to meet the threat from Pakistan and from terrorists head-on. A sampling of his statements over the last three years:

Point is, India never followed the eye-for-an-eye policy that every nation, including the US, does. So, yes, I do believe that it wasn't just the fear of losing the support of his people to the Hurriyat that spurred the CM; anger at this anti-violence government - which has done nothing to contain terrorism in Kashmir and, instead, set free the deadly carriers of bloodshed - played a major role. As every practical and defence-conservative analyst had predicted, since January, terrorist attacks have multiplied. Has a day gone by when you haven't seen a report of murder and mayhem in Kashmir...? Someone *has* to be accountable for this! That someone is not Farooq Abdullah; it is the triumvirate responsible for India's security - M/s Vajpayee, Advani and Fernandes.

I have this uncomfortable feeling that the Mahatma and his home minister are working towards an agenda... Hadn't Mr Advani asserted that "parliamentary democracy was not among the basic features of the Constitution"? In 1998, while defending a review of the Constitution, he had said: "The Supreme Court in Keshavanand Bharti case has ruled that democracy does not mean only parliamentary system of government. It could be presidential form also, though both have plus and minus points..." One has no way of knowing which way Dr Abdullah's autonomy roller-coaster will go - perhaps Parliament will approve it. Then, after Assam and Punjab, what's to stop other states from making a similar demand? I ask you, could this be a back-door entry to a major overhaul of the Constitution...?

I have *nothing* against a Constitutional restructuring because, one, there's nothing sacred or infallible about anything that's drafted by Man, and, two, anything that pinkos oppose has to have a lot of good in it. But will the BJP's gamble pay off ? What if it backfires and we see a Balkanisation of India...? What if autonomy, indeed, becomes a mere starting point...? Noooo... this is a Pandora's box! It was the duty of the Mahatma to keep it locked...

Varsha Bhosle