archive: Reactive policies
Reactive policies
A P Venkateswaran
The Times of India
July 5, 1999
Title: Reactive policies
Author: A P Venkateswaran
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 5, 1999
The most prominent characteristic of India foreign policy since
Independence in 1947 is that it has always tended to be reactive
rather than proactive. Nothing illustrates this aspect more than what
is happening over the last many weeks on the Line of Control (LoC)
with Pakistan. The repeated pronouncements made at the highest levels
in India that we shall push back the Pakistan-sponsored intruders,
come what may, but that in doing so we shall not cross the Line of
Control, is a classic example of this confused approach. In taking
such a decision, we have ensured that any meaningful operation is
almost impossible, and only placed our armed forces in a very
vulnerable position. Pakistan will feel encouraged now to open up new
points of pressure along the LoC, if it so chooses. Our forces will,
then, be running all over the place, trying to contain the intruders,
and we would be, like a puppet on a string, at the mercy of Pakistan's
whims and fancies.
Islamic Bomb
The only sensible strategy in dealing with such situations created by
Pakistan is the one adopted by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in
1965, when Pakistani infiltrators were sent in their thousands across
the then Cease Fire Line (CFL) into Kashmir. India warned Pakistan
that armed intruders crossing into India, whether across the
international boundary or whether across the CFL, would constitute
aggression and be dealt with accordingly. When Pakistan chose to
disregard the warning, Indian forces counter-attacked across the CFL
as well as across the international boundary spearheading to Lahore.
Later, under the terms of the Tashkent Agreement brokered by Prime
Minister Kosygin of the USSR, India agreed to return the substantial
territorial gains that her armed forces had made in Pakistan occupied
Kashmir (PoK) as well in areas of Pakistan taken during the conflict
without seeking a quid pro quo from Pakistan.
A similar scenario repeated itself in 1971 during the Bangladesh
liberation war, when in addition to territory taken in PoK, India held
90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war (POWs). Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi had consented, under the terms of the Shimla Agreement, to
return all the captured territory as well as the POWs without seeking
any formal commitment from Pakistan in return. However, this was
agreed to only on the solemn verbal assurance of Prime Minister Bhutto
of Pakistan that he would work to convert the CFL in Kashmir into a
formal international boundary with India. That never happened and
Bhutto's subsequent policy turned out to be one of implacable hatred
towards India. Translated in real terms it led to Pakistan pushing
ahead rapidly with her clandestine nuclear weapons programme in a
secret deal struck with China for producing the so-called 'Islamic
Bomb'.
Public memory is, alas, too short and it is important to recall in
that connection the ultimatum given to India by China in 1965, during
the course of the Indo-Pak conflict, although the entire blame for it
lay with Pakistan. Whether China would have stood by her ultimatum,
or whether it was a case of bluster, will never be known since the
brief war ended well before the deadline set in the Chinese
ultimatum. However, the very fact such an ultimatum was given is
sufficient evidence of the close nexus that existed at that time
between China and Pakistan. Nothing much has happened in the
intervening period to weaken that relationship between those two
countries, and normal prudence would require that India should not
jump to conclusions and interpret China's outwardly neutral stance as
proof that she will not take sides on the pre-sent ongoing conflict.
We should also remember that in the mid-1960s an agreement was
concluded on the boundary between China and Pakistan, under which the
latter had ceded to China an area of 2000 square miles of Indian
territory in PoK. Ironically, China has no common border with
Pakistan except in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Inviting Third Party
Another crucial aspect relates to the persistent efforts made by
Pakistan to internationalise the Kashmir issue by book or by crook
ever since the problem surfaced due to Pakistan's aggression in
1947/48. It is bad enough that India has, time and again, been
shortchanged by the international community in this matter without
India herself contributing to the acceleration of this process. That
is precisely what Pakistan, together with the United States, would
earnestly desire. But what else does the recent correspondence
between Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Clinton amount to than
India herself inviting third party mediation while announcing from the
roof-tops that we are totally against it? Further, there is the
sending of high-level envoys from India carrying messages to the G-8
countries just prior to their summit in Cologne urging upon them the
need to put pressure on Pakistan to desist from her provocations along
the LoC, which gives them a direct role in what we keep on asserting
is a bilateral matter to be settled between India and Pakistan. How
can any such initiative by New Delhi go along with the public posture
that India is strongly opposed to any third-party involvement in
resolving the Kashmir question?
Perilous Diplomacy
"There is no free lunch!" is a well-known American expression which
another former US president Jimmy Carter, who also be-longed to the
Democratic Party, was fond of repeating to anyone who wanted to listen
to him. Despite the latest statements by the US official spokesman
calling on Pakistan to withdraw to her side of the LoC, it is not
clear at all as to what Washington can or will be able to do about
stopping the intruders from continuing with their depredations. But
one thing is very clear, namely, that in having invited the good
offices of the US there will be a heavy price to pay, New Delhi may
then find that the cost to India is much more than she bargained for
in embarking on this perilous diplomatic exercise with Washington.
There are no short cuts in diplomacy, as the Lahore bus trip
establishes, and involving third-parties in resolving our problem with
Pakistan is the surest way to complicate it even further. Which
brings to mind the famous statement by a past Mexican president, who
should know what he is talking about when he exclaimed in despair: "So
far from God, and so close to the United States!"
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