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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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