Author: Maya Mirchandani
Publication: NDTV.com
Date: May 29, 2003
As India and Pakistan inch towards
peace, the great game, as its being played out on the subcontinent, is
being watched keenly in the United States.
And it's just not the US government,
but also a small group of Kashmiri Americans.
The total Kashmiri American population
is not very large. According to available information, it's only between
50 and 60 thousand people, the bulk of then from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Pro-Pak lobby
Even though traditionally Kashmiri
expatriates in the United States have not had much of an impact on Washington,
there are a few who have doggedly lobbied with Congressmen and Senators
for well over a decade now.
Ghulam Nabi Fai of the Kashmiri
American Council, better known for his strong Pakistani connections and
affiliation with the Jamaat-e-Islami, believes that apart from its post
9/11 foreign policy, increasing US involvement in South Asia is also a
direct result of his own efforts.
The Indian government has accused
him of actively raising funds and sending money to Kashmir to fuel militancy.
But in the last few years, Fai has been instrumental in arranging and managing
visits of Hurriyat leaders to the US.
"I would like you to understand
that America is persuading them to talk, settle issue through peace. I,
as a Kashmiri American, want to be part of negotiations. So ours is a very
simple demand - whenever serious negotiations happen between India and
Pakistan, they must also talk to the principal party," said Fai.
Pandits ignored
Also lobbying in Washington is the
little talked about Indo-American Kashmiri Forum, a conglomeration of various
Kashmiri Pandit groups based in America.
Their main political interlocutor
is Vijay Sazawal, who's been advocating the conversion of the LoC into
the international border. He feels that no one has really focused on the
plight of the Pandit community.
"They do have a lot of money and
in a sense money does talk, but the more crucial issue for us is that they
have the entire Pakistani apparatus making their case here in Washington.
I say with some regret that the Indian government also tends to highlight
the case of Kashmiri Muslims, apart from the odd nugget or two for the
Pandits when the massacres happen now and then," said Sazawal.
Kashmiri groups say that increasing
involvement by US foreign policy makers in India and Pakistan indicates
their success in keeping the Kashmir dispute alive in the American government.
But even though they see recent
developments as a chance to expand their relevance in Washington, the US
government for the moment, is clear that its immediate priority is to bring
India and Pakistan back from the brink of war to the negotiating table
- not necessarily on a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
"There is a very small group of
people concerned about South Asia as such. Larger groups of people are
worried about nuclear war in South Asia. They identify, I think incorrectly,
Kashmir with nuclear war, so I think the circle of people has expanded
somewhat. But most of them are Americans of South Asian origin," said Stephen
Cohen, South Asia analyst.
Soft borders
A couple of hundred miles away in
New York is Farooq Kathwari, a Kashmiri American businessman who Washington
seems to be listening to intently - at least for the moment.
Together with a group of Western
policymakers, Kathwari set up the Kashmir Study Group in 1997 under the
patronage of the Clinton Presidency.
This administration too has been
giving serious thought to KSG's proposals, which suggest the reconstitution
of part of Jammu and Kashmir as a sovereign entity, in the same way as
Andorra, a tiny state that lies on the borders of France and Spain.
The idea is essentially of soft
borders, with free access to and from both of its larger neighbours.
Under the proposal, there would
be no change in the present line of control, but the whole entity would
become a de-militarised zone and it would have its own secular, democratic
constitution, citizenship, a flag and a legislature which would pass laws
on all matters other than defence and foreign affairs.
"I believe that the opportunities
we have to give them ideas and break the paradigm is the most important
contribution we can make. What we have done here we couldn't do in India
or Pakistan," said Kathwari.
Officially though, neither India
nor Pakistan seem willing to consider the soft border option.
But in the final analysis, in spite
of the urgency and the stakes involved, the tradition of immigrant parochialism
hasn't escaped the voice of the Kashmiri American which remains a community
as divided away from Kashmir as it is within.
