On PM’s Visit To Jammu & Kashmir

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

AT a time when the tension between India and Pakistan was threatening to give rise to an explosion in the subcontinent, the statement made by Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, during his recent visit to Jammu & Kashmir, has given to the people a measure of hope that all is not yet lost. There is no doubt that the prime minister’s promise can go a long way in normalising the Indo-Pak relations and bringing the two countries closer. 

On its part, Pakistan too has positively reacted by welcoming the Vajpayee statement. On April 21, Pakistan foreign minister Khursheed Ahmad Kasuri said at Karachi that “Pakistan is sincere and serious about holding a dialogue with India and will not waste any chance for it.” He added that his country is prepared for a talk with India “at any time, any place and at any level.”

BACKGROUND OF THE OFFER  

TO any observer, all this would appear to be in sharp contrast to the state of military preparedness along the line of actual control, which both countries had reached following the dastardly terrorist attack on Parliament House in Delhi on December 13, 2001.

The Vajpayee statement signifies a positive change in the government of India’s thinking. Just about a week or so before it, foreign minister Yashwant Sinha had made a statement that India has a bigger right to a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan than the US had to such a strike against Iraq. A similar statement was made by defence minister George Fernandes who even went to the extent of saying that Pakistan would suffer more than India during nuclear strikes. But as The Hindu editorially commented on April 21, “this imitation of the American logic in launching its war on Iraq,” followed by “equally irresponsible response from Pakistan,” only served to exacerbate tensions in the region.

It is in such a situation that Vajpayee has extended a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan and even said that, if required, he would again undertake a trip to Pakistan, prompting the latter to say that it was ready to welcome Vajpayee and was eagerly looking for his visit.

All this is unexceptionable and, with these expressions of good-neighbourly intentions, the first and the minimum requirement for starting a process of normalising the Indo-Pak relations has been met. Yet, a mere expression of intention cannot obviously be enough for the purpose. More so because the history of Indo-Pak relations is replete with instances in which similar intentions were expressed but corresponding action did not come forth. The Agra summit between Vajpayee and Musharraf three years ago is only the latest instance in this regard.

It is therefore of utmost importance that the two biggest countries of the South Asian region come to the negotiating table at the earliest and start a process that is not only in their mutual interest but in the interest of the whole of humankind. As The Hindu editorially commented, “Considering the many false starts in the past decade and the total absence of mutual trust between the two countries, a degree of caution may be in order. But in the changed and changing global situation, the two nuclearised neighbours must realise the dangers of continuing on the self-defeating path of hostility and the very real possibility it raises of motivated international intervention.”  

ONLY ADMISSIBLE PRECONDITION

THE first thing to note in this regard is that none of the two countries can afford to set any precondition for starting a dialogue. Referring to the issue of cross-border terrorism, K K Katyal correctly says that “the wisdom of making the end of violence a precondition for talks is open to question.” But if India must avoid demanding that cross-border terrorism must stop before it comes to the negotiating table, on its part Pakistan too has to give up putting Kashmir before anything else. There can be only one precondition for Indo-Pak negotiations --- that both the countries must first come to the negotiating table. In this context, a conscious boost to people-to-people contacts can take the process of confidence building much ahead.

This is by no means to deny the importance of these two issues, that is, Kashmir and cross-border terrorism. But this is also true that, given the fact that among other things vested interests too are involved in it, these are quite complex and knotty issues, and brook no easy solution overnight. Such being the case, therefore, the only sensible course for the two countries would be that they take up less contentious issues first (and there are several such issues pending between the two countries), solve them in mutually advantageous ways, build mutual confidence in the process, and then go over to more complex issues. General Pervez Musharraf’s blunt contention hitherto that he could not talk of any other issue unless Kashmir is taken up first --- and he has been more blunt in this regard than any Pakistani ruler so far --- is, to put it mildly, to put the cart before the horse.

Yet, even though the wisdom of demanding an end to cross-border terrorism before coming to the negotiation table is open to question, it does not mean that Pakistan has nothing to do in this regard. Addressing his nation on January 2, 2002, i e three weeks after the terrorist attack on Parliament House in New Delhi, Musharraf told the world that Kashmiri militants would not be allowed to use the soil of Pakistan for terroristic activities. Though he did not give up dubbing militancy in the valley as “freedom struggle,” he did make the bold statement that jehad in Islam does not mean killing the people. Then he made an announcement to the effect that five terrorist outfits would be banned; these were apart from the two outfits banned in October 2001 and included the two outfits involved in the December 13, 2001 attack in New Delhi.

As we know, these announcements were widely welcomed at that time, including in these columns, as they raised hopes about an easing of the situation in the subcontinent. But it is also true that these hopes got belied very soon. As the Dawn of Karachi said in an editorial recently, virtually all the banned outfits changed their names overnight and resumed their functioning. Their assets under seize were also released as were their leaders under arrest, on one pretext or another.

How the Musharraf regime has been unable to curb the terrorist outfits is evident from the way Hafiz Saeed, the chief of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), has sought to justify the inhuman acts of his and the like-minded outfits. In a recent interview to Friday Times, this man unabashedly said the killing of Hindus is a part of the Islamic jehad and that suicide attacks are the best form of jehad. It goes without saying that such utterances not only present Islam in a poor light but also provide grist to the mill of anti-Muslim forces. But a more important question here is as to why the Musharraf regime has maintained total silence about these utterances by the LeT chief. If only he had said the same thing in any other country, he would hardly have escaped prosecution. For, coming soon after the barbaric massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in Nadimarg village in Pulwama district, the interview was no mere misuse of the freedom of expression but a direct attack on the principles of civilised living, an open incitement to sectarian violence.

All this requires General Musharraf to show to the world that his regime is sincere about easing the situation in the subcontinent. New Delhi has already removed the curb on overflights and named its High Commissioner to Pakistan. Islamabad would do well to reciprocate these measures at the earliest.

On its part, New Delhi too would do well to create an impression that bilateral relations would not be allowed to hamper the process of strengthening the SAARC, a multilateral forum. The next SAARC summit, already postponed a few times, is to take place in Islamabad, but India has not yet showed its willingness to attend it. One has to understand the simple fact that the SAARC does not belong to only India and Pakistan but to seven countries of the region, and that the other five countries must certainly be spared the agony the Indo-Pak tensions are causing them.

ASSURANCES FOR THE STATE

DURING his visit to Jammu & Kashmir, the prime minister also made some announcements about the state. While addressing the convocation ceremony of Kashmir University, the first since militancy in the state assumed an ugly dimension in 1989, Vajpayee hailed the recent assembly polls as transparent, free and fair. He said: “The verdict has clearly shown that the vast majority of the people are fed up with violence. They want to live a normal life, a life of dignity. They voted for change, good governance, faster development and, above all, for peace to return to their state…... They will not be disappointed.” Professing “commitment to bring peace and normalcy to Jammu & Kashmir,” Vajpayee said we must learn from past mistakes and resolve not to repeat them.

During the visit, the prime minister hiked the state’s annual plan outlay by Rs 400 crore, gave job letters to about half a dozen youth, and promised that issues like more professional education institutions and central schools or more jobs “would receive our serious and sympathetic consideration.”

These assurances from the prime minister came just a few days before N N Vohra, the centre’s interlocutor, was to reach the state for peace talks with various groups. (By the time we write these lines, Vohra has reached the state and started his work.) Vajpayee’s assurances seem to be in consonance with the general thinking that while trying to improve its relations with Pakistan, India has also to attend to whatever grievances the Kashmiri people have. This is what The Hindu editorial (April 22) meant when it said that “any dialogue initiative that seeks to address the core issues of the Kashmir problem can be meaningful only if it recognised the complementarity of the internal and external tracks of the negotiating process” (emphasis added).

Yet one feels a bit uneasy to find that during his visit the prime minister did not at all touch the core issue of the state’s autonomy. How the state was assured of autonomy through incorporation of article 370 in the constitution and how this autonomy was seriously eroded over the decades, is all history and has been dealt with in these columns earlier. But if Vajpayee is serious that the past mistakes are not repeated, his government cannot run away from taking steps to restore the state’s autonomy to the maximum possible extent. At the same time, all talks about the state’s trifurcation and scrapping of article 370 must stop forthwith. This is a must if we want to win the Kashmiri people over and isolate the anti-national elements being financed from abroad. One must keep in mind that while administrative steps are essential to deal with terrorist depredations and assure the people about their security, a lasting solution can come only through a political process.

IMPERIALIST GAME PLAN

THERE remains one more aspect to be taken care of. That US imperialists have been eyeing Kashmir for the last half a century is a well-known fact. If their game plan has not succeeded so far, one of the factors was the constant support we got from the former USSR on the issue. But now that the world has turned unipolar, imperialists have gone on an offensive and this cannot but have a bearing on the future of Kashmir as well.

This became clear when Bill Clinton told the world that he would take “personal interest” in Kashmir issue. Then, even after his departure, the Bush administration has not given up the imperialist game plan for Kashmir. In an interview to New York Times on March 31, Colin Powell said, “India, Pakistan and the whole of the subcontinent problem” was part of the US’s “broader agenda” which his government planned to take up after its war against Iraq. Here, the possession of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan may well be misused by imperialist powers as a handy issue for what The Hindu dubbed as “motivated intervention” in the subcontinent.

This naturally is a cause of concern for we Indians. Moreover, rightly or wrongly, the Indian people’s apprehension at this juncture gets exacerbated by the fact that the Vajpayee visit to Jammu & Kashmir came only a little before the US deputy defence secretary Richard Armitage’s scheduled visit to the region. Once he is here, what Armitage will talk about with the leaders of India and Pakistan and what results that will lead to, only time will tell. But the need of maintaining vigil about the imperialist game plan remains.