Author: KPS Gill
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 19, 2000
Between words and deeds
there is inevitably a hiatus. But if this distance grows beyond a certain
measure, words lose all significance, and men must be judged not by their
proclamations or their intentions, but by deed alone. Strong words have
been spoken on Kashmir in the past months, culminating in the address from
the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day. 'Warnings' have been
articulated against Pakistan on the futility of its disruptive designs
and the proxy war it has unleashed in J&K. But actions in the recent
past completely undermine the force of these pronouncements.
In the fifteen days that
followed the Hizbul Mujahideen's announcement of a 'unilateral ceasefire
more than 230 persons were killed by terrorists as the Security Forces,
on command by the Centre, discontinued all offensive operations. The humiliating
farce of implausible 'negotiations', the eventual and contemptuous withdrawal
of the Hizbul's ceasefire, the subsequent strike in the very heart of Srinagar,
and Pakistan's escalating rhetoric and threats of open war speak volumes
of the enemy's perception and assessment of the Indian state. Our self-perception
appears no better. All our policies and responses over the past year (can
we ever forget the disgrace of Kandahar?) have communicated a single, unambiguous
message to the enemy-that we are exhausted, unnerved and desperate for
a solution at any cost. That we are willing, in other words, to negotiate
with just anyone, and on our knees. I am certain that this is not the message
the government sought to communicate to the terrorists, or to their sponsors
in Pakistan. But this unfortunately, is the message that is getting across.
There is a crucial lesson
here: there are often times when talk of peace worsens conflict. When states
seek to conciliate and appease those who thrive on terror and intimidation,
this is inevitably interpreted as a sign of weakness, and the consequence
can only be greater violence. Our commitment to, and striving for, peace
must never be diluted. But they must be founded on the secure ground of
reality, not on the make-believe that has enslaved the imaginings, and
subdued the will, of those who currently command India's destiny.
The fact that the ceasefire
would fail should have been evident to anyone who had no wilfully blinded
himself to the obvious. A day after the declaration of the ceasefire, I
had expressed my unqualified scepticism regarding the enthusiasm it generated,
in an interview to the correspondent of Der Spiegel, and a few days later,
repeated my position in more than one of my writings. But nothing could,
at that time, pierce the thick cloud of euphoria that enveloped those who
were talking of a 'return of peace' and of the light at the end of the
tunnel' - not even the reality of more than a hundred murdered in a single
day's carnage.
The fact is, there was
no real ceasefire-and there could be none. With four thousand mercenaries
on your soil, and an equal number ranged along your border, ready to cross
over at Pakistan's bidding: with over a dozen disparate terrorist groups
active in J&K; and with the strings of the Hizbul itself held in Pakistan,
there simply could not be any realistic expectations of the cessation of
violence.
The difficulty is that,
in this age of instant coffee and of instant communications through the
Internet, we have come to expect instant solutions to everything that troubles
us. There are, however, certain problems to which a solution can only be
constructed painstakingly, through infinite sacrifice, and through a relentless
process of will, and out of the culmination of miniscule, almost imperceptible
gains. In War and Peace, Tolstoy wrote of General Kutuzov, who crushed
Napoleon with his 'philosophy of time and patience.' Unfortunately, our
decisions increasingly reflect an immature impatience and an unwillingness
to engage over the extended periods of time that the conflict in Kashmir
necessarily demand.
In Pakistan, however,
there is evidence of a grater understanding of the nature of this struggle.
Each immediate victory, every passing defeat, is seen there as a stage
in a struggle that is envisaged to last 'a thousand years'. Even the worst
of reverses has not brought about a pause in their strivings to bleed India
with 'a thousand cuts'. There is a constant shift in tactics, but not the
slightest deviation in the larger strategy or its objectives. The most
recent reports from that country suggest that as many as 1.7 million children
and young men are being trained in Pakistan's madarasa for the jihad in
Kashmir. To those who see themselves as the leaders of this 'holy war'
it matters little that some group has entered into a dialogue with the
Indian government. Indeed, for them, even if General Musharraf or any successor
government of Pakistan sought peace with India, this would be no more than
an act of treason against their 'scared cause'. Their course is set, and
can only be altered by the single authority that they acknowledge- their
perverse conception of God-or by the only means that they can succumb to-the
use of force. The Pakistani Army has long and correctly been regarded as
'all powerful' in Pakistan. But this is a changing reality. General Musharaff's
military regime has already been forced to backtrack on at least two occasions
in the face of a potential fundamentalist backlash-and the changes he was
attempting to introduce into the prevailing practices were only peripheral
and essentially minor. The Army in Pakistan has both weakened and been
significantly penetrated by Islamic extremism.
Under the circumstances,
to pin all hopes on a 'peace process' based on dialogue with individual
terrorist groups or their overground front organisations, or even with
the government of Pakistan, is not only myopic, it is suicidal. Certainly,
there are sane elements in Pakistan, and even among the militant leadership,
who can and must be encouraged to adopt a path of reconciliation. But their
voice is weak and their influence limited. With the fundamentalists, there
can be no dialogue- for having heard the voice of their God, they have
become deaf o human reason.
There are, consequently,
no soft options left for India. Those who seek to bleed this country, must
themselves be made to bleed; their violence must be crushed with greater
and overwhelming force; a single, unqualified message must be sent out
across the world- the Indian state will not allow terror and intimidation
to succeed, whatever the costs.
The ambivalence, the
ambiguity and the vacillation of the Indian state have, over the past year,
infinitely strengthened the terrorist cause in J&K and have weakened
and demoralised the Forces that continue, nevertheless, to stand as the
bulwark of India's free human attacks. There is increasing despair throughout
the country, and wherever I go, I am often asked whether India will break
up again into little and mutually hostile formations.
Those who are seeking
solutions in parceling out J&K into communally constituted segment;
those who believe that the cost of the conflict in Kashmir is too great
a burden for the nation to bear; those who have, in just over a decade,
been exhausted by the struggle-all these should understand that the war
in Kashmir is not about the defence of Kashmir alone, it is about the defence
and survival of India itself, of democracy, and of the diverse and unique
civilisation that has come into being in this sub-continent through a process
that spans many millennia.
