India and Pakistan, the only two countries in the world that are not tired of fighting, continue to be confrontational. As we approach the first anniversary of the reprehensible terrorist attacks in India's largest metropolitan port-city Mumbai (November 26, 2008), Indian leadership seems unwilling to come out of the Mumbai syndrome.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, now on a high-profile state visit to the US, is making every effort to keep Pakistan under intense pressure by playing up what he described as the "haunting trauma" of the Mumbai attacks. He wants the world "to press Pakistan to stop supporting terrorists who continue to target India." He is using the familiar do-more US dictum in asking Pakistan "to bring to book all those people who are responsible" for the Mumbai attacks.
As it gets a sympathetic ear in the US and elsewhere in the world on the issue of what it alleges is "Pakistan-sponsored terrorism," India smells blood thinking that now is the time for a "kill." In its calculation, the time is ripe for it to pressure Pakistan to an extent where it can redefine the Kashmir issue. And we in Pakistan have only helped facilitate this overbearing confidence in Delhi by weaknesses in our own Kashmir-related stratagem in recent years.
Musharraf's 'back-channel' hurrahs for out-of-the-box Kashmir solutions have completely denuded Pakistan's principled position on this issue. Our Kashmir policy, since the very beginning of the dispute, has gone through various phases. One constant, however, remained unchanged: our total commitment to the cardinal principle of self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter. No government, elected or unelected, ever deviated from this fundamental policy based on UN Security Council resolutions.
General Musharraf made unreciprocated gestures of flexibility to India by offering his readiness for Kashmir settlement beyond the UN resolutions. His proposal cosmetically involved dividing of Kashmir in ethnic regions, demilitarising them and making them autonomous entities with a skimpy anodyne joint-body mechanism. In reality, it was only a façade behind a deceitful legitimisation of the Line of Control (LoC) with no reference to the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people pledged to them by the international community, including both India and Pakistan.
Musharraf's genius strokes evoked no response from India but our principled position on Kashmir, for the first time since independence, stood compromised. Since his ouster last year, the new civilian leadership has done nothing to repair the damage done to our traditional Kashmir position. If anything, it has only showed a lack of "strategic vision" on issues of supreme national importance. The on-going crisis of governance, including the NRO-fuelled political chaos, has left us with no credibility in our external relations.
India is taking full advantage of our domestic weaknesses. It has come to realise that the world today is fixated on terrorism, and there could be no better opportunity to exploit this global concern. No wonder, during his current visit to the US, coinciding with the Mumbai attacks anniversary, Manmohan Singh isn't sparing any effort in bringing maximum negative focus on Pakistan. He is fully exploiting this coincidence to use all his anti-terror vocabulary against Pakistan.
It is possible that India will not return to the "composite" dialogue in the foreseeable future. It will continue to exploit the international sentiment against global terrorism to keep Pakistan under pressure not only in the context of terrorism but also by fuelling scare and alarm on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. While Manmohan Singh was playing his favourite symphony, his Defence Minister A.K Antony and Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor made similar noises at a seminar in Delhi perhaps the same day. It was a well-coordinated, though ill-sounding, chorus.
The defence minister was worried about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal's safety, while the Indian army chief spoke of the possibility of a limited nuclear war in South Asia as a reality. What General Kapoor also admitted, perhaps inadvertently, is that South Asia had gradually emerged as one of the epicentres of conflict and instability, and that the situation would "further worsen since there was neither any political or diplomatic unity nor any common ground to build a consensus to fight this new war." He may have spoken an unauthorised truth.
The Pakistan-India nuclear dimension is the only nuclear equation in the world that grew up in history totally unrelated to the Cold War. It is the off-shoot of the legacy of outstanding India-Pakistan disputes and their perennial mode of conflict and confrontation. Against this backdrop, General Deepak Kapoor's nuclear "overhang" will remain a reality as long as the underlying causes of conflict and instability in this region are not addressed. In a larger perspective, the cause of non-proliferation will also not be served without resolving the outstanding issues of this region including the Kashmir issue.
In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakarya in Washington, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh restated what he has been saying all along; that there will be no redrawing of borders in Kashmir. When asked about any prospect of "productive" talks with Pakistan since he was quite close to some kind of a deal with General Musharraf, he said "the two countries could work only to ensure that these are borders of peace and that people-to-people contacts grow in a manner in which people do not even worry whether they are located on this side of the border or that side."
Although Manmohan Singh echoed only what we used to hear from General Musharraf in support of his out-of-the-box Kashmir solution, our foreign office did well by making it clear that "Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory awaiting settlement in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir." The foreign office spokesman said that India is only one of the parties to the dispute and cannot unilaterally change the status of the dispute or place preconditions in open contradiction to the right of self-determination of Kashmiris.
Regrettably, since the Mumbai incident last year, the India-Pakistan environment has only been aggravating. The composite dialogue process remains suspended. But the fact of the matter is that the India-Pakistan peace process has never been immune to domestic and external factors and has always been vulnerable to occasional hiccups. These glitches have often become bumpy speed breakers if not roadblocks. We have seen that whenever the peace talks were making headway, something untoward happened stalling the process.
This time, the situation is really murky and grim. Despite Pakistan's assurances of full cooperation in investigating the Mumbai tragedy, India is fixated in its nay bind, and refuses to return to the conference even though Manmohan Singh in his meeting with Prime Minister Gilani this July in Sharm El-Sheikh had agreed on the resumption of dialogue. Apparently, he had done so under US pressure.
In their joint statement, the two prime ministers recognised that dialogue is the only way forward, and action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. While also agreeing that terrorism is the main threat to both countries, the two prime ministers had affirmed their resolve to jointly fight this common threat. This was an opening for the two sides to look ahead. But India seems to have its own priorities.
Encouraged by its "strategic" partnership with the US, India managed to gain unprecedented influence in Afghanistan with serious nuisance potential against Pakistan, which it wants to use as its 'instrument of state policy' to 'redefine' the Kashmir issue. It is overly mistaken. Afghanistan is not Kashmir and Kashmir is not Afghanistan. The only parallel between the two is that the people in both Afghanistan and Kashmir have special unflinching historic, cultural and religious bonds with Pakistan that India can never match.
India will serve itself better by not seeking to redefine the unalterable realities of this region, and instead return to the peace process with Pakistan as an equal partner. Peace between the two nuclear-capable neighbours would be in their interest and in the interest of the region, and the world as a factor of stability. It is better for everyone to understand the history and geography of this region and not to impose hegemony or control of any sorts
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, now on a high-profile state visit to the US, is making every effort to keep Pakistan under intense pressure by playing up what he described as the "haunting trauma" of the Mumbai attacks. He wants the world "to press Pakistan to stop supporting terrorists who continue to target India." He is using the familiar do-more US dictum in asking Pakistan "to bring to book all those people who are responsible" for the Mumbai attacks.
As it gets a sympathetic ear in the US and elsewhere in the world on the issue of what it alleges is "Pakistan-sponsored terrorism," India smells blood thinking that now is the time for a "kill." In its calculation, the time is ripe for it to pressure Pakistan to an extent where it can redefine the Kashmir issue. And we in Pakistan have only helped facilitate this overbearing confidence in Delhi by weaknesses in our own Kashmir-related stratagem in recent years.
Musharraf's 'back-channel' hurrahs for out-of-the-box Kashmir solutions have completely denuded Pakistan's principled position on this issue. Our Kashmir policy, since the very beginning of the dispute, has gone through various phases. One constant, however, remained unchanged: our total commitment to the cardinal principle of self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter. No government, elected or unelected, ever deviated from this fundamental policy based on UN Security Council resolutions.
General Musharraf made unreciprocated gestures of flexibility to India by offering his readiness for Kashmir settlement beyond the UN resolutions. His proposal cosmetically involved dividing of Kashmir in ethnic regions, demilitarising them and making them autonomous entities with a skimpy anodyne joint-body mechanism. In reality, it was only a façade behind a deceitful legitimisation of the Line of Control (LoC) with no reference to the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people pledged to them by the international community, including both India and Pakistan.
Musharraf's genius strokes evoked no response from India but our principled position on Kashmir, for the first time since independence, stood compromised. Since his ouster last year, the new civilian leadership has done nothing to repair the damage done to our traditional Kashmir position. If anything, it has only showed a lack of "strategic vision" on issues of supreme national importance. The on-going crisis of governance, including the NRO-fuelled political chaos, has left us with no credibility in our external relations.
India is taking full advantage of our domestic weaknesses. It has come to realise that the world today is fixated on terrorism, and there could be no better opportunity to exploit this global concern. No wonder, during his current visit to the US, coinciding with the Mumbai attacks anniversary, Manmohan Singh isn't sparing any effort in bringing maximum negative focus on Pakistan. He is fully exploiting this coincidence to use all his anti-terror vocabulary against Pakistan.
It is possible that India will not return to the "composite" dialogue in the foreseeable future. It will continue to exploit the international sentiment against global terrorism to keep Pakistan under pressure not only in the context of terrorism but also by fuelling scare and alarm on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. While Manmohan Singh was playing his favourite symphony, his Defence Minister A.K Antony and Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor made similar noises at a seminar in Delhi perhaps the same day. It was a well-coordinated, though ill-sounding, chorus.
The defence minister was worried about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal's safety, while the Indian army chief spoke of the possibility of a limited nuclear war in South Asia as a reality. What General Kapoor also admitted, perhaps inadvertently, is that South Asia had gradually emerged as one of the epicentres of conflict and instability, and that the situation would "further worsen since there was neither any political or diplomatic unity nor any common ground to build a consensus to fight this new war." He may have spoken an unauthorised truth.
The Pakistan-India nuclear dimension is the only nuclear equation in the world that grew up in history totally unrelated to the Cold War. It is the off-shoot of the legacy of outstanding India-Pakistan disputes and their perennial mode of conflict and confrontation. Against this backdrop, General Deepak Kapoor's nuclear "overhang" will remain a reality as long as the underlying causes of conflict and instability in this region are not addressed. In a larger perspective, the cause of non-proliferation will also not be served without resolving the outstanding issues of this region including the Kashmir issue.
In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakarya in Washington, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh restated what he has been saying all along; that there will be no redrawing of borders in Kashmir. When asked about any prospect of "productive" talks with Pakistan since he was quite close to some kind of a deal with General Musharraf, he said "the two countries could work only to ensure that these are borders of peace and that people-to-people contacts grow in a manner in which people do not even worry whether they are located on this side of the border or that side."
Although Manmohan Singh echoed only what we used to hear from General Musharraf in support of his out-of-the-box Kashmir solution, our foreign office did well by making it clear that "Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory awaiting settlement in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir." The foreign office spokesman said that India is only one of the parties to the dispute and cannot unilaterally change the status of the dispute or place preconditions in open contradiction to the right of self-determination of Kashmiris.
Regrettably, since the Mumbai incident last year, the India-Pakistan environment has only been aggravating. The composite dialogue process remains suspended. But the fact of the matter is that the India-Pakistan peace process has never been immune to domestic and external factors and has always been vulnerable to occasional hiccups. These glitches have often become bumpy speed breakers if not roadblocks. We have seen that whenever the peace talks were making headway, something untoward happened stalling the process.
This time, the situation is really murky and grim. Despite Pakistan's assurances of full cooperation in investigating the Mumbai tragedy, India is fixated in its nay bind, and refuses to return to the conference even though Manmohan Singh in his meeting with Prime Minister Gilani this July in Sharm El-Sheikh had agreed on the resumption of dialogue. Apparently, he had done so under US pressure.
In their joint statement, the two prime ministers recognised that dialogue is the only way forward, and action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed. While also agreeing that terrorism is the main threat to both countries, the two prime ministers had affirmed their resolve to jointly fight this common threat. This was an opening for the two sides to look ahead. But India seems to have its own priorities.
Encouraged by its "strategic" partnership with the US, India managed to gain unprecedented influence in Afghanistan with serious nuisance potential against Pakistan, which it wants to use as its 'instrument of state policy' to 'redefine' the Kashmir issue. It is overly mistaken. Afghanistan is not Kashmir and Kashmir is not Afghanistan. The only parallel between the two is that the people in both Afghanistan and Kashmir have special unflinching historic, cultural and religious bonds with Pakistan that India can never match.
India will serve itself better by not seeking to redefine the unalterable realities of this region, and instead return to the peace process with Pakistan as an equal partner. Peace between the two nuclear-capable neighbours would be in their interest and in the interest of the region, and the world as a factor of stability. It is better for everyone to understand the history and geography of this region and not to impose hegemony or control of any sorts
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