India’s new moves to obliterate the Kashmir issue

Columnist SULTAN AHMED examines INDIAN initiatives to put the KASHMIR issue on the international back-burner.

In the course of the protracted liberation struggle in Kashmir the government of India has from time to time decided it may be more rewarding to negotiate with the Kashmiri leaders directly instead of talking to Pakistan.

Such a move is being made again following the release of the All Pakistan Parties Hurriyet Conference in small groups from jails during the recent months. And this effort to open a door to the Kashmiri leaders in the forefront of the liberation struggle follows the post-Kargil insistence of India that it will not talk to Pakistan without several conditionalities which are manifestly not acceptable to it.

The fact is, India is under pressure from the Western world to resume a dialogue with Pakistan to avoid Kargil-like or other explosions in Kashmir or elsewhere along the India-Pakistan borders, particularly after both countries have become nuclear weapon states. And since it does not want to negotiate with Pakistan, while the latter insists on substantial talks on Kashmir, it wants to be seen talking to the Kashmiri leaders at least. If nothing else, it is a tactic to gain time and avoid the charge it is too intransigent on the issue of Kashmir or restoration of normal relations with Pakistan.

At the same time India does not want to seem it is too anxious to negotiate with the Kashmiri leaders or in a hurry to do that. So it is taking its own time. Meanwhile it re-arrested the chairman of the AHPC Syed Ali Shah Gilani and the former chairman of the Conference Mir Waiz Umar Farooq as they were going to Sopore to participate in the anti-Indian demonstrations there, and released them along with many of their supporters later.

Before making any formal moves for talks with the Kashmiri leaders India did some sounding of their views. What India wanted was negotiations with them within the ambit of the Indian Constitution, while they accept no such limitation and want to talk of the freedom of Kashmir or their right to choose their future as they will. And that is totally contrary to what India wants. While India is willing to concede more autonomy to Kashmir the Kashmiri leaders demand for more than that, and seek a settlement outside the ambit of the Indian Constitution.

Pakistan on its part has made it clear it has no objection to India holding talks with the Kashmiri leaders and whatever was acceptable to them would be acceptable to Pakistan as well. That is what the right of self-determination which Pakistan supports means.

But the fact is India will not be able to reach a settlement with the AHPC which is an umbrella organization of the Kashmir liberation parties. The fact is India was not able to reach an agreement with Sheikh Abdullah and other leaders of the Kashmir National Conference after the initial years when they supported Kashmir’s accession to India in violation of the principles of the partition of India. India had trouble with Sheikh Abdullah’s successor and others. And it has its serious differences with Farooq Abdullah, the current chief minister of Kashmir.

With over 500,000 Indian troops in Kashmir and the dominance of the Indian intelligence agencies and Indian bureaucrats in Kashmir the local administration headed by Farooq Abdullah has very little say in the state’s affairs. And that has not been to the liking of the Kashmiri leaders pitch-forked by the rulers in New Delhi.

The fact is that all the elections in the state have been spurious and designed to get the pro-Indian leaders elected. Hence the results of the elections have been rejected by the people of Kashmir, and India has always been in a quandary in Srinagar.

India’s prime concern is not winning over the people of Kashmir but consolidating its hold on the state and making the world forget Kashmir. And it has been making several moves in that direction. India recently asked the secretary general of the United Nations Kofi Annan to recall the UN Military observers from the Line of Control in Kashmir. Annan has rejected that request, and informed India only the Security Council can take a decision on that issue.

Normally the UN would be delighted to withdraw the observers in view of its extreme financial constraints, but in the post-Kargil situation when firing across the Line of Control has become frequent and death of innocents living near the Line has become too common, the UN cannot afford to withdraw its observers. The observers have to stay there if the situation has not to become far worse.

India cannot make headway in any kind of talks with the Kashmir leaders as they have not lost around 60,000 lives since 1989 to remain a part of India. They are determined to wrest the right of self-determination by any means, however high the cost. Hence the loss of eight to ten Mujahideen everyday has not deterred the Kashmiri leaders. They think that is an essential price they have to pay for their eventual freedom.

At the same time they are making the cost of controlling Kashmir, posting over 500,000 troops there and employing a large number of intelligence agents and paying large compensation to the Indian dead is very heavy. At some point the Indians may come to realise the cost is too heavy and rewards or returns not worth the large investment. India’s loss is in terms of lives, money, energy and the ill effect of the prolonged frustration and fear of death of the Indians already there is very heavy.

World pressure on India is strong for resumption of a dialogue with Pakistan. The US is in the lead in this regard following President Clinton’s visit to South Asia, in fact following the Kargil crisis of last year after the two countries had become nuclear weapon states. The US under secretary of state Thomas Pickering came to South Asia to prod India and Pakistan resume their dialogue, and finally ruled out an early dialogue.

India’s conditions for resuming the dialogue with Pakistan are increasing. In his latest pronouncement the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has said Pakistan must renounce support to the Kashmiri movement, honour bilateral agreements like the Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration and maintain sanctity of the Line of Control. He also asked the Pakistani Establishment to end its hostility to India. He maintains the ruling elite of Pakistan does not want peace and denounced Islamabad for disguising terrorism as Jehad, which is unacceptable to India.

Such varied conditionalities signify a calculated effort on the part of India to delay the talks, if not avoid them, as long as possible or to bring extraneous issues into the discussions and sidetrack the main issue of Kashmir.

The Chief Executive of Pakistan Gen. Pervez Musharraf on the other hand is emphatic the talks between the two countries should be unconditional and lead to substantive talks on the central issue of Kashmir. He does not want talks for talks’ sake.

India on the other hand wants to treat Kashmir as a closed or settled issue, and remove it from the path of its efforts to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Neither the Kashmir Mujahideen are letting India to do that nor is India’s firing across the Line of Control helpful to that. Nor can Pakistan let India to treat that as a closed issue.

It is with a view to treating Kashmir as a closed issue that it does not welcome any kind of third-party intervention in Kashmir. It would permit neither mediation nor arbitration and not even simple facilitation of the talks. Through any such means India does not want to make any concession on Kashmir.

The Indian High Commissioner Mr. Parthasarathy said in Karachi recently that secular India would not let any part of it leave on a communal basis. He also said if Kashmir was enabled to leave India it would have an adverse impact on the 150 million Muslims of India, who had been brought to the main-streak of Indian political life, after a protracted struggle.

But Pakistan wants the future of Kashmir to be decided on the very basic principle of partition and on the basis of Kashmiris exercising their right of self-determination. If India had over the last 50 years won over the people of Kashmir, if the elections there had been truly free and fair and the Kashmiris had been allowed to manage their own affairs, the situation might have been far different today. But India has failed in every step in Kashmir and alienated its people and is ready to shoot down all resistance, including through the use of helicopter gunships. Inevitably the Kashmiris want to have nothing to do with India, and want all negotiations designed to help them stay outside the orbit of the Indian constitution.

India meanwhile is strengthening its forces at the Kargil sector and using more sophisticated arms. At least 80,000 Indian soldiers are posted there, making it imperative for Pakistan to strengthen its force this side of the border. India feels it can do a great deal with the 28 per cent rise in Indian defence expenditure. But a solution to the problem does not i.e. along these militaristic lines, however resourceful the Indian defence forces have now become.

India does not want mediation in Kashmir at a time when Sri Lanka is accepting Norwegian mediation to settle its dispute with the Tamil Tigers. What other solution to the Kashmir issue has India got? India has tried to foreclose all options for a settlement in Kashmir. It rejects any kind of mediation and arbitration in Kashmir. While it welcomes the current US support for it would not let the US offer any kind of mediation. And it will talk to the Kashmiris or Pakistan on its own stiff terms, which care unacceptable to both. And its government in Srinagar headed by Farooq Abdullah is rootless, and unable to win over the people of Kashmir. And yet it stakes a claim for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.

India should normally be willing to pay a price for that coveted seat and make itself seem a reasonable country with a constructive approach to international relations, particularly relations with its immediate neighbours. India is making no such effort, and instead rejects all offers of assistance by other countries for reaching a settlement in Kashmir. And everyday ten to 15 persons are killed in Kashmir on that score. Surely such a country does not qualify to be a permanent member of the Security Council, wielding veto power to decide the destiny of the world.

Russia has supported the Indian stand on Kashmir and Thomas Pickering, too, said in India that Pakistan should cease its cross border encouragement of the Mujahideen. But such big power support or sympathy for India in Kashmir will not deter the people of Kashmir from wanting to wrest their freedom and shape their future by themselves. It is time the US, Russia and others understand that well in the light of the history of freedom movements all over the world. The Kashmiris have paid too heavy a price and they will not let that go waste after over 6,000 lives have been lost.