Advani

New Delhi, April 20: L.K. Advani has said he believes India and Pakistan will at some point come together to form a confederation to solve the Kashmir dispute.

“I conceive that there would be a time when decades hence, both the countries would feel that Partition has not solved matters. Why not come together and form some form of confederation or something like that?” the BJP leader said in an interview aired tonight by Pakistan’s Dawn news channel.

Asked if he believed this was possible, he replied: “A day will come, I think so. But it would be a confederation of two sovereign countries by mutual agreement.”

The BJP and RSS have always rejected the Partition and their leaders have often spoken of Akhand Bharat (undivided India), suggesting an amalgamation of the two countries. But a confederation — Mulayam Singh Yadav has spoken of it — is not an idea they are known to support.

Advani argued that the Kashmir issue should take a back seat to commerce and information exchange for now. “Kashmir later,” he said.

He pinned the blame for the failure of the 2001 Agra summit on President Pervez Musharraf. The problem had been, he said, that Musharraf had refused to admit there was “any such thing like terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, or in Punjab, which has been inspired by him or his country”.

Advani also said that having an Islamic republic as a neighbour bothers India, and regretted that Pakistan did not follow the vision of the “secular” Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

The BJP’s shadow Prime Minister the Pakistani TV channel that had Islamabad put into practice the principles outlined in Jinnah’s speech to the constituent assembly on August 11, 1947, it “too would be a secular state”.

Advani stressed that “Jinnah was inherently a secular leader”, echoing comments he had made during his Karachi visit in June 2005, which cost him the post of BJP president.

Excerpts from the interview were carried in Dawn newspaper’s internet edition of April 20 — Advani was asked if Pakistan’s theocratic status bothered India.

“A theocratic status does bother us... it does,” the BJP’s shadow Prime Minister was quoted as saying.

BJP sources said that in the “changed scenario”, Advani’s Jinnah comments would not “raise dust, leave alone a controversy”.

“Our focus is on winning the next Lok Sabha elections under his leadership and we will not allow anything to distract us,” a party official said. “Besides he was speaking to a Pakistani audience… so the dynamics are different.”

In his address, Jinnah had said, “We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.”

In the interview, Advani was quoted as saying he was “saddened” by the Babri demolition. He made a distinction between the demolition and the Ram temple movement, which he had led. “I believe a temple should have been built at the site. But the demolition disturbed me.”

Asked why he kept supporting Narendra Modi despite the 2002 Gujarat violence, Advani cited the attacks on Sikhs after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.

“They were not riots. Not a single Hindu was killed. (The) Congress said, ‘So what? When a huge tree falls, the earth is bound to shake’,” he said.

“How can I find fault with the (Gujarat) government then? I am bound to say that this is not fair to the Gujarat government and this is why I defend it.”

He said the votes Modi received in the following elections spoke for themselves and added that he agreed to an extent with the “action-reaction” theory that linked the violence to the Godhra train fire.