Harkishan Singh Surjeet

THE failure to achieve any substantive result at the Agra summit between Atal Behari Vajpayee and General Pervez Musharraf has given the fundamentalist-communal elements of all hues a chance to rejoice --- in both India and Pakistan. The terrorists too have intensified their depredations in the Kashmir valley.

This is but natural, as all these elements have their own axe to grind and do not want a normalisation of relations between the two countries. But it is here that they seem to be standing against the heart-felt wishes of the two peoples and their vital interests.

The people’s urge for peace in the subcontinent and for better Indo-Pak ties was evident from the very day Vajpayee sent his invitation to Musharraf to visit India for talks. This urge found reflection in various civic forums, in newspaper editorials and comments, in statements issued by political parties, and the like. It was a veritable upsurge of public opinion in favour of better Indo-Pak ties. The immense success of the Indo-Pak solidarity conference, held at Delhi at the time of Musharraf visit, proved the same point. Barring a few stray groups like the Shiv Sena, all other sections wished for the Agra summit’s success. Even the hawks in the RSS chose not to voice their opinion in public.

From day one, our party, the CPI(M), extended hearty welcome to the proposed summit and sought to impress that the process of dialogue between the two countries must continue. We were also of the opinion that nothing much could be expected from a single summit in view of the complexity of the problems involved and the history of mutual distrust between the two, but yet Agra could well become and should become the starting point of mutual negotiations. In fact, this is the only guarantee that peace will be ensured in the subcontinent, people-to-people contacts will be forged, Indo-Pak trade relations will be furthered to the mutual advantage of both the countries, and even complex issues like Kashmir could be tackled and effectively solved one day.

There are indeed reasons for this optimism. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were after all one and the same country only half a century ago, and have a common history and common culture that span over several millennia. Pakistan is of course an undeniable reality today, but there is no reason to believe that the two countries cannot live like good neighbours. More so because there are in each country lakhs of families who have relatives and friends on the other side of the border. The post-partition separation has been particularly traumatic for these families.

A case in point is the story recently narrated, amid tears, by the editor of an Urdu daily in Patna. He says his mother died before partition, when he was only 9 years old. Before her death, her mother entrusted him to the custody of his elder brother and his sister-in-law who were then newly-married. The couple brought him up, but migrated to Pakistan after the partition. However, a few years ago, when this editor’s mother-like sister-in-law died, he was unable even to have a last glimpse of her and attend her burial as he was denied a visa for the purpose. He had the same tragic experience again when his niece died in Pakistan.

This is, however, not an isolated incident; lakhs of families in both countries are living through the same trauma. Betterment of Indo-Pak relations is a natural desire of all such families.

It is in view of such realities that the real value of any attempt to better the Indo-Pak relations could be grasped. However, this is what President Musharraf, himself a Muhajir, failed to pay due attention to. What President Musharraf did was to harp on the issue of Kashmir, to the exclusion of all other issues. The fact is that if only other and less controversial issues had been tackled first, it could have gone a long way in creating an atmosphere of mutual trust in the subcontinent and prepared the necessary ground for tackling the knotty issues like Kashmir in a better manner. In fact, even though President Musharraf was all praise for Vajpayee and paid him a visit before his departure, he harped on the same theme of Kashmir being the "core" issue when he held a press conference at Islamabad. Subsequent events also go to show that throughout the summit he had been over-conscious about media management.

On their part, leaders of the government of India also did not display much maturity. In her briefings to the media at Agra, Mrs Sushma Swaraj mentioned several issues being discussed between Musharraf and Vajpayee, except Kashmir, while the fact is that nothing except Kashmir was under discussion. It was also reported that one day before the Agra summit, home minister Advani met Musharraf and displayed some brinkmanship.

The overall result was that even though President Musharraf had hinted at the possibility of some give and take --- that could be a hint of communal division --- and the government of India kept projecting that something positive will come out of the summit, there was not even a joint statement at the end of the summit, leave alone a declaration or a joint press conference. This was indeed a disappointing outcome. Yet no introspection is there in Vajpayee’s statement to the parliament, as to why the hopes were aroused till the end.

And now, if Kashmir is the "core" issue for Musharraf, the government of India is busy projecting as if cross-border terrorism is the only substantive issue between India and Pakistan. The prime minister’s statement, made in parliament, was therefore correctly criticised by several parties.

The sad failure of the Agra summit also highlights the failure, primarily on part of the government of India, to prepare for the summit in advance. During the couple of weeks between Vajpayee’s invitation and Musharraf’s India visit, not even a single minister level or secretary level talk between the two countries was organised. If anything, after the Pakistani foreign minister visited the US, his Indian counterpart was more concerned about conveying his viewpoint to the Bush administration than about preparing for the summit or holding discussions for the purpose.

Yet, disappointing as it might be, there is no reason to think that everything has been lost. As said earlier, there has been a groundswell of public opinion in favour of better Indo-Pak ties, and that factor is still alive. Indeed this is something to build upon. It is hoped that the coming annual session of the UN General Assembly and the SAARC summit will provide a valuable opportunity for resumption of talks and that both the leaders will not squander it.

The most important point in this regard is that it is the Shimla accord of 1972 that can serve as the only viable basis for bilateral talks between the two neighbours. The main stipulation of the accord was that the two countries would try to solve all their disputes through cordial negotiations and not allow any third party to intervene. This was something the world community had welcomed when the accord was signed in 1972, and is all the more relevant today when both India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear strike capability.

(Incidentally, at the time of signing the Shimla agreement, late Shri Z A Bhutto had even said that the line of actual control (LAC) could be made the de jure border between India and Pakistan. His only plea was that, in view of the situation in his country, time had not yet arrived for doing so.)

The Shimla accord had also effectively nullified the UN Security Council resolution on Kashmir. The importance of the Shimla accord also lies in the fact that it prevented an open war between the two countries for over a quarter century, and even the Kargil war cannot rob it of its utility.

At the same time, the government of India cannot afford to ignore its home front either; if it does, it will be at the cost of the nation only. Paying attention to the needs and feelings of the Kashmiri people has become quite imperative today, particularly in view of intensified terrorist activities in the post-summit phase.

There is of course no substance in Pakistani claim that it should get Kashmir in view of the commonality of religion, as religion cannot serve as the basis of nationhood. The people of Kashmir had themselves rejected the two-nation theory when they, with guns in their hands, fought the Pak-sent intruders. It was but a people’s war against intrusion; the Indian army reached the valley only much later. It was the same Kashmiri people who foiled the Maharaja’s design to carve out an independent state for himself, and decided to join secular India in order to fulfil their aspirations. Because of their specific culture, they maintained calm and communal harmony in the state when the rest of north India was witnessing a terrible communal riot of the worst sort.

What happened later is a part of common knowledge and has been dealt with in these columns several times. The only thing to remember is that if the makers of our constitution promised to give maximum possible autonomy to the people of Kashmir, and incorporated article 370 in the Indian constitution, it was no act of charity on their part. The state of Jammu & Kashmir cannot be equated with other states in this regard. But these very promises were broken one after another, and the sense of alienation that has gripped the Kashmiri people today has its origin in this very series of broken promises. And it is this very alienation that is preventing an active mobilisation of the state’s people against the terrorist mercenaries whom Musharraf has chosen to describe as Jehadis. The Kashmiris do not approve of the acts of these mercenaries. But the question is: How to arouse them against these terrorists?

This is precisely the crux of the problem. Any talk of scrapping the article 370 can only go against the nation’s integrity, even if it is cloaked in nationalist jugglery. On the contrary, it is only by restoring the maximum possible autonomy to the state that the people can be mobilised against foreign mercenaries. After all, if the Kashmiris had fought the intruders in 1947-48, why cannot they fight the marauders once again? It was the same people who defied the terrorist threats in 1997 and took part in the elections in substantial numbers. The fact of 52 per cent voting was no mean achievement in that atmosphere, especially if we think that only 40 to 65 per cent polling takes place in any election in India --- even in those constituencies where no such threat exists.

The economic situation in the state, already in a shambles, is deteriorating day by day. The Jammu-Kashmir government has failed to tackle it. All efforts must be made by the state and the centre to tackle this problem and initiate developmental efforts.

Initiating measures to enable the J&K people to meet their relatives and friends in the Pak-occupied Kashmir, and creating a congenial atmosphere for the return of Kashmiri pundits to their homes, also deserve to be tackled on priority basis.

Of late, the prime minister gave indication that he would consider the need of giving autonomy to the state. Even though it was his own government that had rejected the J&K assembly’s autonomy resolution without even bothering to deliberate upon it, the latest announcement is welcome. But the thing is that it must not remain a verbal promise and that concrete steps must be taken in this direction. It is only then that Kashmir, described for centuries as the paradise on earth, can regain its lost glory to again become the same thing --- a paradise.