India is playing it too cool in Kashmir

Columnist SULTAN AHMED thinks that India should be more forthcoming.

President George W. Bush has urged the Chief Executive Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to enter into direct talks for settlement of the disputes between them, including Kashmir.

In writing letters to the two leaders so soon after assuming office the new President has acted earlier than expected, and in doing that he has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor Bill Clinton, though not with the same flourish and sense of urgency.

Bush regards early talks between the leaders of India and Pakistan as urgent in view of the fact the neighbours are nuclear weapon states, building more long and short range missiles, and they have a sad history of three wars between them since Independence.

The Kargil crisis of 1998 showed how a very limited conventional-military conflict between them could escalate, with the threat of a nuclear war looming in the horizon frightfully.

Indian scholars who came to participate in a seminar on confidence-building measures in Karachi last week said Pakistanis initiative in Kargil had turned Indian public opinion against a dialogue with Pakistan. But the Western experts argue developments like Kargil underscore the urgency for a settlement between the two countries, particularly after they became nuclear weapon states.

A US congressional mission has also been visiting India and Pakistan led by a Republican Congressman to pave the way for US role in Kashmir under the new Republican president. The Democratic congressmen among them David Bonnier, who is a friend of Pakistan, has been talking of a possible meeting between George Bush and Gen. Musharraf in Washington soon.

And the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan may be visiting Pakistan and India soon, possibly next month, though not necessarily to discuss the Kashmir issue. Apart from expressing a wish for an early settlement of the disputes between them through direct talks, he cannot play a direct role in resolution of the dispute unless he is invited to do so by both sides. But India has usually maintained the UN has no mediation role in Kashmir, and has not even permitted UN ceasefire observers on the other side of the ceasefire line.

A fourth leader anxious to promote talks between the leaders of the two countries is Mrs. Chandrika Kumartanga, President of Sri Lanka. Her’s is more than a third party or regional state’s interest in the dispute.

As president of the SAARC of seven states for some years now she wants the SAARC summit scheduled at Khatmandu and put off in 1999 to meet to give the flagging regional organization a boost. Her’s has been a wasted period in view of the tension between the two countries following the Kargil episode and the military take-over in Pakistan of October, 1999. India then put off the summit due then and sought the expulsion of Pakistan from the Commonwealth. Instead the Commonwealth agreed to suspend Pakistan from its councils. India’s obduracy has virtually frozen the SAARC.

But following her visit to New Delhi and meetings with the Indian premier it has been agreed to hold the foreign secretary’s level meeting in May. And that can pave the way for the SAARC summit at a date to follow, if India agrees.

Meanwhile, Vajpayee has extended the ceasefire in Kashmir by three more months. This is the third extension of the ceasefire which began in November last with the beginning of Ramzan. He has also said he is ready for talks with Gen. Musharraf without specifying when or where. Simultaneously he has said India was still considering whether to allow the All Parties Hurriyet Conference delegation from Indian Kashmir to visit Pakistan for talks on the future of Kashmir.

Gen. Musharraf on his part has been saying he is ready to meet Mr. Vajpayee anytime, anywhere, including in a third country, which could be Nepal if the SAARC summit takes place there. Pakistan is anxious for early talks, and dealing with the issues between them expeditiously.

But India wants to play it cool for reasons of its own, in line with its historic tradition spanning successive regimes on both sides. It is not anxious for an early settlement on Kashmir and wants to delay tackling the issue as long as possible. Hence the Indian scholars who came to attend the Karachi University seminar urged placing Kashmir on the back burner and concentrating on cooperation in other areas, particularly economic and cultural, and people-to-people contacts.

That kind of excessive caution is behind the delay in opening talks with the Hurriyet conference leaders in New Delhi or Srinagar. First, India wanted to talk to the Hurriyet leaders alone, and without associating Pakistan in it. After demurring initially, Pakistan agreed to let the Hurriyet leaders talk to India first. But India has not begun the talks, except for a informal first round after the Hizbul Mujahideen declared unilateral ceasefire in July last year.

Evidently India does not want quick moves in Kashmir, including on the part of the Hurriyet leaders. Hence even after waiting for months they have not able to get the visas needed to visit Pakistan.

All that makes the Mujahideen groups in Kashmir to believe that India is not serious about a real ceasefire in Kashmir and it is a cover for more attacks on the Mujahideen or freedom-fighters. So two of the major Mujahideen groups like Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and Jaise Mohammadi have rejected the ceasefire. As a result 15 persons including three cops were killed on February 19. Later six other policemen were killed in Kashmir.

A Kashmiri leader Farooq Rahmani says that if India wants peace in Kashmir it should lift the harsh special law imposed on its people.

India does not have much to lose by prolonging the ceasefire for three months. What India means by that is its forces will not initiate any action against the Mujahideen or their supporters, but if the Mujahideen makes any move they will be crushed by the Indian forces on full alert. Hence the killing continues on both sides.

If India is serious about bringing peace to Kashmir it should make some positive moves quick. It should on one side open negotiations with the Kashmiri leaders ready to talk to them, and on the other side let the Hurriyet delegation to make a brief visit to Pakistan and Azad Kashmir.

Nothing was lost by India by letting Abdul Ghani Lone to visit Pakistan, though for the ostensible purpose of attending his son’s marriage. And so if the Hurriyet delegation comes to Pakistan, India’s loss cannot be significant. Instead that would convince the Kashmiri leaders that India is anxious to move towards a settlement in Kashmir.

In the absence of such Indian initiatives the Mujahideen groups will feel the solution to the issue rests in their own hands, and that solution can come only through escalation of the violence, particularly directed at the Indian troops and para-military forces and the police.

The issue by now is not only between India and Pakistan but also between India and Kashmiri leaders on the other side of the ceasefire line. If India would talk to neither, peace will be far away and escalation of the violence in Kashmir will become the routine.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to see various Indian peace missions coming to Pakistan, including a delegation of the retired soldiers and their family members. They are well received in Pakistan and they go back with many of their misapprehensions removed and a better understanding of the cause of tension between the two neighbours and how to remove them.

A number of proposals were made by the Indian scholars at the seminar on confidence-building measures between the two countries. They include steps like India and Pakistan informing each other before firing long range missiles, and not deploying long range missiles close to each other’s borders.

But the problem in India and Pakistan has been while the people on both sides long for peace and express their goodwill for each other when they meet the governments are not able to move closer and reflect the wishes of the people and reduce the gap between them.

If the people have not been able to reduce the gap, the retired foreign secretaries, ambassadors and generals on both sides have not been able to do better. Hence, the Track II has not made headway despite the large sums spent on its meetings by foreign countries like the US and Germany. In fact, when the retired gents of the Track II come to power or associate themselves with the government they fall in line with official policies instead of trying to swerve official policies towards the Track II ends and methodologies.

How to bridge this gulf? That can be done if the governments move closer to what the people want or desire, and the Track II elements try to influence official policies to the maximum possible extent instead of merely getting some position-papers ready, despatch them to the governments and leave it at that.

Disputes between neighbours unless settled, reduced or put on the back burner for a mutually agreed time, have a tendency to become worse or more explosive. Even if the principal actors do not aggravate the situation wilfully the lesser players can add fuel to the simmering fire and make the situation far worse.

In Kashmir over the years the number of players or Mujahideen groups has increased. So are the political groups. And each one has a somewhat different policy from the others and the nuisances matter. The methodologies for settling the issue preferred by various countries, too, matter.

Instead of letting the game go into the hands of these minor but militant players who over a period of time can become major players or mega problems, the major players like the governments of India and Pakistan should come forward and try to tackle the issue according to agreed schedules. If that happens earnestly the lesser players would step back and wait for the outcome for a reasonable time.

The issue is the future of Kashmir and the Kashmiris and the time-frame to settle that. If the problem could not be settled forthwith and discussions on the core issues begin soon a time-frame could be devised between the leaders of both countries. If instead India wants the issue to be pushed to the back burner for an indefinite period, the Kashmiris who have suffered for too long and lost about 50,000 lives, will not wait endlessly at a time when India is building up its military machine fearsomely at a tremendous cost to all in the region.