Playing it smart in Kashmir

Columnist SULTAN AHMED surmises that there may be light at the end of the tunnel in Kashmir.

To the uninitiated it may seem India and Pakistan are reluctantly but steadily inching towards a settlement on Kashmir, or at least trying. But the fact is, as they are, they are polls apart in reality in their objectives.

India wants to retain Jammu and Kashmir as its integral part, but subject to more concessions to the Kashmiris. And Pakistan wants Kashmir to join it as a Muslim Majority area contiguous to it Ñ the principle on which India was divided and Pakistan was created in 1947. And that is subject to the outcome of the plebiscite to which India itself had committed itself in 1948 in the United Nations.

Meanwhile, two factors have emerged strong beyond the political orbit of India and Pakistan. The first is the strong representation of the people of Kashmir. Their claim to be heard and their views respected have been strengthened by the fact that 50,000 to 70,000 Kashmir lives have been lost in their uprising against India during the last ten years. And the Mujahideen groups and their political leadership, though divided in numerous factions, are strong and assertive. And they want their voice to prevail ultimately. And Pakistan which upholds their right for a plebiscite has to respect their views.

The world too is giving importance to the voice of the Kashmiris, though not formally. President Clinton, too, has repeatedly called for a settlement in Kashmir, taking into account the views of the people of Kashmir.

After too many lives have been lost, India has given up its contention that the uprising in Kashmir or the violence there is entirely the handiwork of Mujahideen sent across the Line of Control by Pakistan. So India decided in July last it might as well negotiate with the Hizbul Mujahideen leadership, arguing they were an indigenous force and they comprised more than half the Mujahideen in Kashmir.

Now instead of India or Pakistan trying to call the shots in Kashmir Prof. Abdul Ghani Lone, leader of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference, wants the working committee of APHC from Srinagar to be allowed to visit Pakistan for consultations and then India invite a delegation of Kashmiri leaders from Pakistan for consultations.

This is happening in a new environment after the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had announced a ceasefire in Ramzan in Kashmir. He did that following the appeal of the young Imam Bokhari of Jamia Masjid in Delhi to initiate a dialogue with the Kashmiri leaders. And now he has agreed to extend the ceasefire beyond Ramzan as well if the other side would respect that. But the Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar now wants a permanent truce.

As far as the Hizbul Mujahideen who had announced a unilateral ceasefire in July are concerned they are not a party to the ceasefire and are fighting the Indian troops and mining their roads and causing considerable number of deaths. They want to see India move towards serious and purposeful negotiations among the three parties instead of being content with temporary ceasefire or a longer truce.

Pakistan did not take the Indian ceasefire initiative seriously earlier, but, following pressure from the Kashmir leaders and Western governments led by President Clinton of the US, is according the ceasefire its due importance as a beginning. And it has reciprocated by announcing its own forces would exercise ‘maximum restraint’ all along the Line of Control in Kashmir and will not fire across the Line unless fired on by the Indian forces. Many innocent lives of people living along that Line have been lost through such senseless and mindless firing frequently, and it is time it came to an end.

An Indian military spokesman has admitted there has been marked fall in such incidents in recent days.

India did not find the Pakistan offer earlier good enough. Now it has come up with the argument that is good but not substantive enough. It wants Pakistan end its cross-border terrorism or sending trained Mujahideen across the border for committing violent acts.

Pakistan wants the truce to lead to earnest and purposeful dialogue on Kashmir. The Mujahideen too want that, and are pressing India and Pakistan. Pakistan is ready for an unconditional dialogue, but it is India which is avoiding that as it does not want a final settlement in Kashmir as the Kashmiris are not with it, and men like Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah have so little influence there.

The second factor which is forcing India to take one initiative or another in Kashmir is the strong pressure of world opinion. President Clinton and the European leaders are insisting that India and Pakistan enter into a dialogue on Kashmir. That pressure has increased manifold after India and Pakistan became nuclear powers and as they are developing advanced missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads. A world in which North Korean and South Korean leaders are talking and President Clinton visits Vietnam to receive a tremendous welcome finds it difficult to see why India and Pakistan leaders cannot meet, while others talk of an eventual nuclear warfare.

The world has no patience to discuss the finer details of Kashmir dispute. They want the two sides reach a settlement or at least have a perennial truce Ñ the kind that prevailed for 18 years after the Simla Pact. in 1972. When India wants much closer relations with the US and far larger economic exchanges, the Americans would want India to make a serious attempt to settle the Kashmir dispute instead of creating new hurdles. If earlier the Indian charge was Pakistan practices cross-border terrorism, since October 12 last year its stance is it wants to have no truck with the military rulers of Pakistan. In fact, India wanted at the Commonwealth meetings for Pakistan to be isolated from the rest of the world for coming under military rule.

The world takes note of the fact if a lasting conflict between India and Pakistan can have deadly nuclear fall out, it is also one of the poorest region of the world with a fifth of the world’s population. While East and West Asia have made tremendous economic progress South Asia has been floundering and languishing with 40 per cent of the people living below the poverty line and half the  people illiterate and too many of them sick and mired in various superstitions.

The new Indian strategy is to bypass Pakistan in its negotiations on Kashmir and dealing with the Kashmiri leaders. The Kashmiri leaders may agree to the first or second round of negotiations without Pakistan but not to any substantial talks without Pakistan. The Hurriyet Conference leaders, including Mir Waiz Farooq have made that clear. In fact, the unilateral ceasefire announced by the Hizbul Mujahideen in July could have made real headway by now if India had then agreed to making Pakistan a party to the talks.

India is not ready to make Pakistan a party to the dialogue as it does not want a settlement that upsets substantially the status quo in Kashmir. Any settlement in Kashmir has got to be for India on the basis of Kashmir remaining an integral part of India. Neither Pakistan nor the Kashmiri leaders would accept that. It is not to sustain status quo in reality that 70,000 Kashmiris have laid down their lives. Wrecked too many of their homes and disrupted their civic life.

India is seeking to divide the unity of Pakistan and the real Kashmiris leaders by insisting on talking to the Kashmiri leaders, or the Kashmiri leaders first. It does not want Pakistan to be at the negotiating table talking of a plebiscite or any other arrangement that disrupts the status quo.

So India avoids entering into serious dialogue with Pakistan on one score or another. And since the world is now talking of terrorism and its varied manifestations, India finds it handy to accuse Pakistan of exporting cross-border terrorism to Kashmir and be behind much of the killings there.

The fact is that if India has nothing to hide and wants a fair settlement in Kashmir it would have agreed to a UN role, third party mediation or arbitration. It has consistently spurned such offers, including by Nelson Mandela and President Clinton, for fear the outcome will go against Indian occupation in Kashmir.

India talks too often of Kashmir as a settled issue on the basis of Kashmir forming an integral part of India, but if it was really an integral part of India more than half the troops of India would not be in Kashmir committing some of the most terrible atrocities which alienates the people as much as they suppress them brutally. If Kashmir was an integral part of India every election in the state would not be a fake election or an exercise in massive rigging of the elections. In fact, the autonomy earlier given to the state with its Special Status has been watered down steadily and the state is totally under Indian control. What else could happen when 600,000 Indian troops are there with the latest equipment?

After ten years of uprising against the Indian occupation Kashmir needs peace and normality. Too many lives have been lost and the state has too many widows and orphans. Its shattered economy has too many persons unemployed while its tourism industry is in tatters. The solution to the Kashmir problem does lie in more deaths, more explosions and more mined roads, rockets in the air or helicopter gunships used by India against the people.

Pakistan wants peace in Kashmir and peace with India so that it can focus on its development and its poverty reduction programme financed by heavy borrowing. It does not have the means for an arms race with India and keeping its forces eye-ball to eye-ball with the Indian troops. It needs to provide for better life for its 140 million people with 40 per cent of them living below the poverty line.

India whose economic growth is slowing down and which is facing enormous budget deficits, while over 40 per cent of the people live below the poverty line, cannot afford to keep 600,000 Indian troops in Kashmir and pay heavy compensation for every soldier lost or civilian killed.

But India’s intransigence keeps the issue alive or the fires burning in Kashmir. But the people of Kashmir are not going to give up. Nor can Pakistan afford to abandon them.

In such a context the world has to assert itself in the manner it did in Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The world can’t say it can’t intervene in South Asia as India is large and powerful. The fact is any tragedy in the region, even if not nuclear, would affect a large number of people, far more than in the Balkans. So the world should have a more positive approach to Kashmir and prevail on India entering into a purposeful dialogue on Kashmir with the Kashmiri leaders and Pakistan. The UN must also assert itself.

Meanwhile, Pakistan should play a smart game in Kashmir. It should reciprocate any gesture for peace in Kashmir by India. If India wants to have an initial round or two of talks with Kashmiri leaders let it have it. India knows there can be no final settlement without Pakistan.

If India wants to hoodwink the world it can succeed for little while only. As long as the Kashmiri leaders are with Pakistan in negotiating with India, Pakistan has little to lose by responding positively to small Indian gestures. (PS. India has now formally rejected tri-partite talks on Kashmir and prefers to meet the Kashmiri leaders and Pakistani representatives separately. Clearly it does not want to find itself one against two at the conference table, with the two sides joining hands.)

At the same time it has stated that it is committed to a composite dialogue with Pakistan under the Simla Accord and the Lahore Declaration which means it will discuss not only Kashmir but also all other issues. And when the meeting takes place it will give priority to other issues and Kashmir will come last as India had done earlier or be treated as one of the many issues.

The reply to the Indian tactics has come from Laskhar-i-Tayyiba whose suicide squad killed six Indian police at the Central Reserve Police Force Headquarters and fought a 22-hour gunbattle. Delay on the part of India to enter into serious negotiations will increase the bloodshed in Kashmir and result in loss of far more lives, including those of various Indian forces. The choice for India is clear. It cannot just have its way in Kashmir, however hard it tries, and how devious are its tactics and deceptive its moves to divide the people and leadership of Kashmir and efforts to drive a wedge between them and Pakistani leaders.