Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: May 5, 2002
The Prime Minister's evocative words
on the proposed Indo- Pak dialogue should in no case lead one to conclude
that the peace is about to break out between the two estranged neighbours.
Vajpayee's stirring performance in Parliament on Friday, which forms the
foreground for " a decisive and conclusive" dialogue with Islamabad, should
not delude anyone, least of it the US, that the accumulated bitterness
and hatred of over 50 years is about to dissolve. It is not. For, making
Pakistan give up its obsessive anti India mindset and its congenital hatred
of all things Indian, is far more difficult than, say, for a one-year-old
toddler to scale the Himalayas. Despite all the talk of a thaw in the Indo-Pak
relations, one should keep one's fingers firmly crossed as to the outcome
of the proposed US-induced dialogue. Both countries find it hard to resist
the US pressure. And from the Indian point of view, as long as this pressure
is limited to nudging us towards the negotiating table we should not make
much to-do about it. It is only if the US seeks to push us into a compromise
which ill-serves our cause that we have to be extremely wary. India cannot,
and will not, surrender its vital national interest to please anyone, not
even the US. On that point, we hope, the Opposition is one with the Vajpayee
Government. Indeed, the starting point of the dialogue with Pakistan should
be the clear enunciation of the vital national interest on which India
will not budge whatever be the pressure from any quarter.
Having said that, the US owes it
to itself, especially given its role as the self-appointed sole policeman
of the world, that Pakistan refrains from playing mischief, at least in
the days before the Indo- Pak talks. The reported move by Islamabad to
exploit its position as the current chairman of the UN Security Council
to rake up the Kashmir issue is, therefore, all the more troublesome. It
vitiates the atmosphere for a dialogue. The Pak move to equate Kashmir
with Palestine and to debate both in the Security Council is wholly at
odds with its proffered hand of friendship to this country. Trying to internationalise
the Kashmir problem while insisting on a bilateral dialogue underlines
the insincerity, nay, hypocrisy of the ruling establishment in Islamabad.
The onus is on Pakistan to create the right atmosphere for the proposed
talks. Also, despite the promise to halt infiltration into Kashmir if India
agreed to talk to it on the entire gamut of issues that have bedeviled
relations between the two countries, Islamabad seems to have done precious
little to check its militants from perpetrating mayhem in the Valley. The
cycle of terrorist killings and violence continues unabated. This should
stop if the talks are to be fruitful.
Admittedly, whether under the US
pressure or otherwise, India has not only agreed to talk to Pakistan in
a clear reversal of its earlier no talks till Pak-terror-ends stand, but
it has gone more than half way to `normalise' relations with its perennially
estranged neighbour. The Prime Minister's announcement on Friday to resume
full diplomatic ties and land, rail and air links with Pakistan was widely
greeted in world capitals. Pakistan too has welcomed the PM's decision
and decided to resume full diplomatic relations. There was even the possibility
of sporting ties between the two countries resuming at an early date. While
all these pre-talks measures are most welcome, it is a moot point as to
what the actual talks will yield. For, given the ingrained Pak intransigence
and t he near impossibility of any mutually acceptable solution to the
vexed Kashmir dispute emerging from the talks, there is the real danger
of mutual recriminations and bitterness to poison the Indo-Pak relations
once the two countries are through with the process of formal talks. Therefore,
it would have been better for these so-called confidence building measures
to be taken after the first round of talks. That would have kept the hope
of a positive outcome alive after the preliminary round of talks.
Meanwhile, a section of the people
are rightly concerned about India's ability to withstand pressure from
the resurgent Americans who after their walk-over victory in Iraq seem
to be all the more assertive in seeking to re-arrange world order. In this
context, the ill-mannered remarks of General (Retd.) Jay Garner, the US
Administrator in Iraq, that his country would ensure the de-nuclearisation
of both India and Pakistan by 2004 have further aroused suspicions about
Washington's real agenda in South Asia. Though it was officially denied
that Garner had said those horrible things, doubts did persist in several
Indian quarters that the US was arm-twisting us. It is here that the strength
of national will and character will be tested. If we resist the US pressure
to sign on the dotted line in order to appease the Kashmir-hungry Islamabad,
we will become another banana republic, ready for a Jay Garner type character
to order our affairs. If, however, we display the collective will and determination
not to sacrifice our national interest at the altar of a US-driven peace
agenda in the region we would have earned our place in the comity of nations
as a self-respecting sovereign nation capable of guarding our vital interests
without being ordered about by the self-styled policeman of the world.
Therefore, talk by all means with Pakistan, but do not crumble under pressure
of the US or anyone else.
