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New York: Indian Member of Parliament Karan Singh, who was the ruler of the former princely state of Kashmir that declared its accession to India, said it was an "unacceptable" proposition that Kashmir should break away from India because of its Muslim-majority population.
Singh told journalists here that there is an argument that because Kashmir was a Muslim-majority area, it has to be broken away from India. "That is an unacceptable situation because we have 125 million Muslims in India and Kashmir has hardly about five million," Singh said at a brief session with the press at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Singh's father, Maharaja Hari Singh, as the then ruler of Kashmir signed the state's accession to India in 1947 after the state was attacked by hordes of Muslim tribesmen from Pakistan.
Replying to questions of American journalists on the fringes of the World Millennium Peace Summit, he said the tradition of pluralism existed in India much before it came to Europe or America. "You get the impression that there are conflicts everywhere in India between Hindus and Muslims all the time, but this is not true," he said.
"Do not forget that millions of Muslims and Hindus live in perfect peace and harmony in India," he said, adding, "There are certain areas where conflicts are developing that are funded by outside money."
But he said he did not believe the summit would have a direct impact as far as the resolution of the Kashmir issue was concerned.
"I don't think this summit is directly going to address the question of Kashmir, but hopefully better sense will prevail (in Pakistan)," Singh said.
Referring to the mention of Kashmir by a Muslim religious leader at the peace summit at the United Nations he said although he heard about that, he did not want to attach much importance to that. "We should not blow it out of proportion," he said.
"The important thing is that while there have been inter-faith dialogues many times in the past, for the first time the United Nations is taking cognizance of it. This is something important and I am positive about it," he said.
Singh, who presided over the first session on "A Call to Dialogue" at the United Nations on Aug. 29, said while the continued killings of innocent civilians in Jammu and Kashmir state was a sad and unfortunate affair, he believed a dialogue with Pakistan had to be started by India.
"But for that to begin, I think it is important that constant support to what we call 'cross-border terrorism (from Pakistan)' must be stopped," Singh said, adding that he did not subscribe to the theory that India could not talk to a military ruler, alluding to General Pervez Musharraf, who described himself as the chief executive of Pakistan.
"We have talked to General Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan and many other military rulers around the world. We cannot dictate what form of government another country should have. As long as there is a legitimate government, we have to talk," he said.
Earlier, Singh said in his address to the summit that the plurality of paths to the divine is one of the most striking features of human history and no single formulation had ever been able to establish its superiority over all others. He said tragically more people had been killed and tortured, persecuted in the name of religion than in any other name. "This is a negative legacy which we must decisively shed," he said.
"The first major commitment of those of us gathered here, therefore, has to be to move towards a culture of peace and conflict resolution, and this must necessarily be based upon a creative and continuing dialogue between the great religions of the world," he said.
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