Can Gorbachev succeed where others had failed?

Columnist SULTAN AHMED looks at the initiative by the former President of the Soviet Union vis-a-vis Kashmir.

India is again drifting towards a possible settlement of the 52-year old Kashmir dispute through talks, with a marked preference for talks with Kashmir leaders within its orbit.

After some bellicose statements by Indian officials, like the new Indian Army Chief of Staff Gen. Suderrajan Padmanabhan, including talk of a nuclear war in the region, two of the major Indian ministers on a visit to Kashmir have spoken of the need for a negotiated settlement.

In fact, Gen. Padmanabhan himself had admitted after his earlier militant pronouncements that “no insurrection has ever been solved by the army. It is a political problem which must be tackled by all the organs of the state, with the army there to help.”

He also tacitly admitted that the Indian army had failed to combat the Mujahideen, and a political solution of the issue was imperative. He said: “This moment when a big number of Kashmiris youth is joining the ranks of the Mujahideen, nothing could be predicted about how long the movement will continue.”

After over 10,000 or more Indian soldiers have died in Kashmir, and the high cost of operating in a very difficult terrain in Kashmir with the people against the Indian army, it is not surprising Gen. Padmanabhan prefers a political settlement, which he sees as the lone solution for the issue.

Such statements which he made after his visit to Kashmir were quite different from those he had made a week earlier in New Delhi when he took over command of the Indian army. He had then said his men would defeat the nefarious designs of the Kashmiri freedom fighters. And “though there may be odd hiccups, we have got a good grip on the situation. We will defeat the nefarious designs of these mercenaries.”

The Indian Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani on a visit to Srinagar has said, India is open to talks with the Islamic militants, but they should lay down their arms before talks began.”

The breezy Indian Defence Minister George Fernandez on a visit to Srinagar along with the Home Minister has also expressed himself for the talks with the Mujahideen. He says he was in favour of the talks even before he joined the Indian cabinet. “I have been stressing the point that Kashmir is a political issue and it needs a political solution. And the solution has to come through a dialogue. These types of disputes have been settled through dialogue only.”

As far as they are concerned —which is also the position of the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee — direct talks with Pakistan is out at the moment, or even associating Pakistan with the talks, as proposed by Hizbul Mujahideen when the earlier move for talks failed, and violence was resumed in bog way with over a hundred persons dying in a day.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s Chief Executive, on his part, has again offered to talk to India anywhere, any time at any level. But India is insistent that what it calls cross-border terrorism indulged in by Pakistan should end before talks with Pakistan begins.

But the Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest Mujahideen group in Kashmir, which had announced a ceasefire in Kashmir on July 24 prior to entering into talks with India, has now said it would not negotiate with India without international guarantors to ensure a positive dialogue.

Hizbul Mujahideen has also rejected the demand of Mr. Advani that the Hizb lay down its arms before entering the talks. It is not prepared to do now what it did on July 24 unilaterally; but  then too the ceasefire collapsed 15 days later and massive violence was resumed.

The Hizb has also gone back to the Muttahida Jehad Council from which it was suspended after it announced unilateral ceasefire. Amir Salahuddin of the Hizb, who was dismissed as Chairman of the Muttahida Jehad Council, has now promised the Council the Hizb would not take any unilateral decision in respect of the freedom movement. So Salahuddin is the Chairman of the Jihad Council again.

Salahuddin also announced the Mujahideen had produced an indigenous anti-aircraft missile which could defeat the Indian Air Force. If they have the missile, that could be a serious threat to the Indian military planes which may not be able to locate the missiles and their operators in mountainous areas with high hills and trees.

Clearly India’s conditions for talks with the Mujahideen in Kashmir, in preference to negotiating with Pakistan, are not acceptable to the Mujahideen. New Delhi’s strategy of divide and negotiate is not working. The Hizb is not ready to lay down the arms before talks begin. Nor do as the Hizb agree to exclude Pakistan from the talks. So no basis for the talks exists unless India comes down a great deal from its eliptical stand.

Meanwhile, external pressure is mounting on India for talking to Pakistan. If it was President Clinton of the US who sought to persuade India to enter into negotiations with Pakistan earlier, the last foreign leader to do that was President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation. He called for “concrete efforts” to restore peace talks between India and Pakistan and defuse tension in the region.

He told a press conference at the end of his important visit that “great attention was paid to the situation in South Asia. We have expressed our hope that concrete specific efforts will be further applied in order to renew the process of negotiations between India and Pakistan in order to weaken the military and political tension in the region.”

But India is not ready to negotiate with Pakistan and prefers the side road of talking to the Mujahideen leaders. But the Mujahideen are not ready to play the Indian game, and so the Indian efforts have been clearly stymied.

Meanwhile, the Indian Junior Foreign Minister Ajit Kumar Panja has said that Gen. Musharraf was the only world leader hostile to India. “Only one person does not wish to have good relations with India, and that is the so-called military leader who is creating all the problems.”

He said that Gen. Musharraf was a “thorn on India’s side,” and relations with Pakistan would improve only after an elected government came in Pakistan.

That is not what some other world leaders think. If Vladimir Putin could not induce India to talk to Pakistan, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is willing to try his hand. He is reported to have decided to form a study group to explore the options for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Naseem Rathore, former senior official of the UN is reported to have met Gorbachev in Moscow and discussed the move in detail after he had prolonged consultations with officials in Islamabad. And Gorbachev’s assistants are reported to have taken up the issue with New Delhi.

The study is to be undertaken by the Gorbachev Peace Institute and is to be funded by the Turner Foundation of the US and Rotary International based in Chicago. The first meeting of the group may be in New York in June next year. That means the group has a lot of time to study the history of the dispute and various options for a settlement.

If the move succeeds in gaining steam what we may have will be another Track II diplomacy, which like in the past, will be funded by the Americans. The German foundations, which are spending a good deal of money to promote better understanding between India and Pakistan, may join later.

May be where the ruling officials of major countries, beginning with President Clinton failed, the non-officials or ex-officials may succeed.

Track II diplomacy in Pakistan had mostly former foreign secretaries like the present foreign minister Abdul Sattar and Former Army Commanders like Gen. Mohammad Arif. And evidently what they could not do while in office they cannot do out of office. And Sattar is back in office again, not as ambassador or foreign secretary, but as foreign minister but has not been able to establish a track to New Delhi.

The Gorbachev effort is a good one and can make a great deal of headway. And he has all the time for the pursuit of peace in the area which is gravely threatened by the nuclear arms in the region and frequent talk of nuclear war without realising their total disastrous cost.

Meanwhile, India has asked the Commonwealth for sterner measures to restore democracy in Pakistan soon. India urged such action at the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group in Samao. A spokesman of the Indian Foreign Ministry has said India told the Action Group that while the Commonwealth has given until October, 2001, for restoration of democracy in Pakistan they need not wait until then. “The time is to act now.”

All this is part of India’s efforts to discredit Pakistan for not having democracy, and delaying that process by three years instead of the two provided by the Commonwealth heads of governments.

India is trying to counter the odious reputations it has around the world following its high handedness in Kashmir by trying to tarnish the image of Pakistan as much as it can. It is also coming closer to the US under the guise of combating terrorism and working together in that area. Reports from Washington say the intelligence agencies of the two countries may now share their intelligence on terrorism.

Meanwhile, violence in Kashmir continues. On October 16, 26 persons were reported killed in a string of gun battles, out of which 18 were reported to be Mujahideen. India may win the war of killing but that certainly would not make it more popular or more effective in Kashmir. The relatives of these young men killed are bound to hate India far more, and the alienation of the government in Kashmir from the people increase.

In such a context India is proposing to conduct village-level or Panghayat elections in Kashmir. And the All Parties Hurriyet Conference has called for a boycott of the elections in the manner it had successfully boycotted earlier higher level elections. India may still go through a sham elections; but that will solve no problem for it nor gain any political advantage for it when even the State Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah is totally powerless there.

In such a context the lone fruitful option India has in respect of Kashmir is to enter into negotiations with Pakistan and make it a real success.