Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 13, 2003
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/may/12arvind.htm
The peace-with-Pakistan initiative
suddenly floated by poet Prime Minister Vajpayee at Srinagar on April 18
has created so much excitement all round that Karl Inderfurth, an American,
got his two articles on the subject published in The Hindu and The Indian
Express within three days of each other. And never mind that what was described
as "Special to the Express" of May 9 advocated the identically worded "longer-term
pathway" to peace that appeared in his piece in The Hindu on May 6, albeit
with a different prelude. Whether the former Assistant Secretary of State
for South Asian Affairs (1997-2001) himself or whether his publicity agent
or both took the Express for a "special" ride is immaterial. Nor is it
material to highlight how our English language press plays the good host
to the white-skinned. What is relevant is that the US of A is making capital
of our 78-year-old peace-loving poet's so-called "bold initiative" which
Ramananda Sengupta of rediff appropriately dubbed as a "gamble for peace."
So solicitous is the US on this matter that President Bush, we read, escorted
Brajesh Mishra to his Oval Office the other day. And this Presidential
act thrilled us so much that we thought that the mighty US was finally
fawning on us. The truth may well have been so different as Bush offering
candy to our PM's right hand man for enabling the inking of the land gas
pipeline project through Pakistan. (A gas pipeline through the sea is,
one understands, against America's oil interests.)
Be that as it may, Inderfurth's
published prescription is so half-baked that one wonders whether the Clinton
Administration's young point man for India and Clinton himself ever grasped
the whole truth about the post-independent political history of the state
called, not simply "Kashmir", but Jammu and Kashmir.
Thus, excepting his advocacy for
ending Pakistan's support to cross-border infiltration, Inderfurth's five
other measures for a "solution" of the interminable Indo-Pak dispute are
skewed enough to betray an ignorance of facts. His failure to even once
mention Jammu, Ladakh and the mass ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits
by fanatic Islamists is just one proof of that ignorance.
Let's come to the specifics.
His proposal for "mutual affirmation
for the respect of the Line of Control" is merely a repetition of what
President Clinton pressed on Nawaz Sharif four years ago and just too vague
as part of a "final solution" of the core issue of J&K. Why, he complicates
the issue further by advising the "monitoring" of the LOC with "international
technical assistance, including the United States." He thus forgets that
the UN Military Observers Group stationed there for over 50 years hasn't
accomplished a thing of note till now, not even during Kargil of 1999.
Second, Inderfurth wants a "significant
reduction in the Indian armed security presence in Kashmir" along with
"improved respect for human rights." This is clearly toeing the Pakistani
line along with the US' concern for human rights in all other countries
save its own where the Patriot Act introduced almost immediately after
9/11 is making a mockery of America's grand old civil rights. And why should
the strength of India's security forces in a particular state of its own
be determined by Pakistan or by Pax Americana?
There's another fact about human
rights in "Kashmir". Does Inderfurth at all know that Gilgit and Balwaristan
in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir have known no fundamental rights whatsoever?
Does he know that the so-called Azad Kashmir part of POK has always been
merely a dummy government of Islamabad? Or does he believe that the human
rights issue is applicable only to the Indian-administered territory of
J&K?
It's the same with his suggestion
about "substantial autonomy for the 13 million people of Kashmir" of which
four million are lorded over by Pakistan. This is another toeing of a line
---this time of the Abdullah dynasty. Does Inderfurth not know that the
Indian-administered state of J&K is governed by its own Constitution
since November 1957? Does he not know that this J&K state is exempted
from so many provisions of the basic Constitution of India that it has
always been the most autonomous state in India?
Next, Inderfurth wants arrangements
that would "institutionalize cooperative relations among Indians, Pakistanis
and Kashmiri representatives and institutions." Oohlala, Inderfurth has,
by a stroke of the pen, sanctioned the demands of the "separatist" groups
in J&K by the above categorization. He has obviously forgotten that
such "separatists" Kashmiris aren't located in Jammu and Ladakh regions
which, fully committed to India and India only, are much larger in area
than the Kashmir Valley which alone seems to be in his vision. What's more,
the man forgets (or simply doesn't know) that when Maharaja Hari Singh
legally signed the deed of his entire state's accession to the Dominion
of India on October 26, 1947, all Kashmiris (whether in the Valley or in
Jammu or Ladakh or Azad Kashmir or in Gilgit) legally became Indians.
Lastly, Inderfurth wants a long-term
Indo-Pak pact of peace to be made after taking into account "the wishes
of the people of Kashmir". The poor fellow obviously doesn't know (or deliberately
ignores) the fact that when the democratically elected Constituent Assembly
of J&K ratified their state's accession to India by an overwhelming
vote on February 15, 1954, the wishes of the people of J&K had indeed
been expressed once and for all. Moreover, the people of the Indian-administered
J&K are governed by a constitution wherein elections to the state assembly
based on adult universal franchise are required to be held every six years.
But it's no use blaming Inderfurth
for writing what he did and the newspapers concerned for publishing what
he wrote. After all, it was our swadeshi "poet laureate" who set loose
the dove of peace among the cats. Since that day of April 18 in Srinagar,
confused thinking has been so ubiquitous that while Vajpayee's government
is swiftly moving ahead to restore our pre-December 13 equation with Pakistan,
it also wants us, the people, to believe that, despite a Babel of contradictory
statements from those in government and from those close to it, cessation
of cross-border terrorism continues to be a pre-condition for building
our harmonious relationship with Islamabad.
So confusedly does our nation appear
to be plunging ahead with hopes of concluding peace-with-Pakistan
that no thought whatsoever seems yet to have been given by anyone to the
formation of an ultra-secret all-party think tank to formulate the nation's
precise stand of give-and-take that will surely be essential to tackle
the core issue between the two countries. Is, for instance, the LoC as
the official border the only compromise acceptable to the nation? If so,
should it not be accompanied by war reparations of, say, five billion US
dollars to India for creating a corpus from which to alleviate the various
needs of thousands of families who lost their bread winner in the open
and proxy wars waged by Pakistan all these years?
Make no mistake --- The Indo Pak
peace edifice will stand or crumble only on the agreement of the future
fate of J&K. It will just not do to bask in the setting sun's self-delusion
of grandiose destiny or to lilt with a poet's dream about the Nobel Peace
Prize so clearly dangled by Inderfurth in his piece in The Hindu. Or are
we really such dreamy-eyed suckers as the Inderfurths of India and the
world believe we are?
