Observer Research Foundation (ORF) chairman Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was sprayed with black paint by Shiv Sainiks for organising former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch in Mumbai, will travel to Karachi next week to attend the book launch.
Kulkarni said he had accepted Kasuri’s invitation to join the launch of his book ‘Neither a Hawk nor a Dove’ in Karachi on November 2, along with a number of prominent Pakistanis and Indians.
Kulkarni said this at a panel discussion during the Tata Literature Live festival held in the city on Thursday night.
Both Kasuri, who was in Delhi earlier this month in connection with his book launch, and Kulkarni, who had invited him to launch his book in Mumbai, were repeatedly threatened by the Shiv Sena to cancel the event. However, they refused to bow down to this pressure. Later, Kulkarni became the victim of a paint attack by Sena members ahead of Kasuri’s book launch in Mumbai on October 12. The Shiv Sena had vehemently opposed the event and threatened to disrupt it.
Prior to it, the party had also forced the cancellation of Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai. Kulkarni said he was “both delighted and excited at the opportunity to visit Pakistan next week (November 1-4).”
“I thank Mr Kasuri for inviting me to participate in the function to launch his book ‘Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove’ in Karachi on November 2. His book is a major contribution to the India-Pakistan peace process, since it provides a detailed narration on the large degree of consensus reached between the previous governments in New Delhi and Islamabad on resolving the vexed Kashmir issue,” he said.
Kulkarni said he had the privilege of organising the launch of Kasuri’s book in Mumbai earlier this month.
He also thanked the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations for inviting him to participate in a seminar on Pakistan-India relations on November 3. “I have vivid memories of my last visit to Karachi in 2005 when I accompanied LK Advani. It was a visit that became unnecessarily controversial because of his perfectly appropriate tribute to Qaid-I-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.”