“I desperately want to visit Jammu and Kashmir, the land of my ancestors. My family belongs to Anantnag and my wife’s, to Pulwama,” says a work-weary and jetlagged Mian Nawaz Sharif who landed in Pakistan on October 14 from London where he was away for his wife’s orthopaedic treatment for nearly a month. The next day, he invited The Indian Express for lunch along with other PML-N heavyweights.

Security threats, travel fatigue and anxiety emanating from the Kerry-Lugar Bill notwithstanding, Sharif expresses his longstanding desire to visit Kashmir. “My urge to offer fateha (prayers) at the graves of my ancestors is beginning to catch on as time passes by,” he says. As the tone of this meeting is set on Kashmir, a recent and important strategic development in PoK can’t be left untouched.

In September, the PPP-led federal government rechristened Kashmir and Northern Areas as Gilgit-Baltistan and accorded autonomy to it. For the first time, this region has been brought under the purview of an acting governor and a Giligit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self Governance Order has been passed to this effect.

“Giving them autonomy is a step in the right direction. However, I feel they could’ve have brought about a better package. Frankly, I am personally ill at ease with this because they just announced this decision to the country,” says Sharif. When he is told that The Indian Express was told by the acting governor, Qamar Zaman Kaira that all stakeholders will be kept on board, Sharif shrugs his shoulders and resorts to his typical Punjabi humour saying: “which board is he talking of? The blackboard? To keep us all in the dark? Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani called me just before the announcement and informed me about this. This step is unprecedented in the history of Kashmir as a whole. If the government had no ulterior motives, it should’ve created space for debate over this. This pertains to Kashmir, after all”.

... contd.