|
On Kashmir,
make haste slowly
I spot
that gleam of hope in the eyes of the second and third track-wallas
and two, seemingly unrelated, images surface in my mind.
It
is a turbulent morning in Hangzhou. Ambassador Ram Sathe is seated
in a distant chair in a makeshift tent glued to a transistor radio,
keeping track of BBC World Service giving a progress report on China’s
attack on Vietnam. This, precisely, is the outcome foreign minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee has come to China to try prevent. The Chinese
have taken five embassies into confidence, including the Pakistanis
and the Yugoslavs. But the Indian foreign minister on a path breaking
visit has been left out of the loop. The only response to this insult
is to cut short the visit. Arrangements are made to ferry Vajpayee
and his delegation to Hong Kong, en route to New Delhi.
The
second image is a recent one: February 1999. Prime Minster Atal
Bihari Vajpayee is embarked on an epoch making bus journey to Lahore.
Media arrangements are elaborate. There will be a TV camera in the
bus to record every statement of the prime minister as the bus rolls
into Lahore. But wait a minute! There is no bus journey to Lahore,
as such. The prime minister will only drive up to the Wagah border.
The Indian media is flown to Lahore from New Delhi, then driven
back to Wagah to cover Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif receiving the
Prime Minister of India in the no-man’s land.
Ideally,
the Indian media would have been happier crossing the land border
and positioning themselves at Wagah for the historic event. But
this the Pakistani government would not allow. Why? Because hundreds
of reporters and TV crews recording images of the very plain and
ordinary land border for millions of viewers on both sides would
demystify it which is sought to be projected by Islamabad as the
world’s most difficult land crossing for the citizens of the
two countries.
Vajpayee
is flown in Sharif’s helicopter from Wagah to Lahore. The Pakistanis
are clearly giving a signal. Vajpayee’s visit is not popular
with the Pakistani people. Implicit in this is another statement:
how brave of Sharif to stage the visit against all odds. The theme
is amplified the next day when anti-India rioters hold up the traffic
for hours before Vajpayee’s entourage can reach the Lahore
fort for the official banquet. The seeds of Kargil were strewn all
over the streets of Lahore.
The
lessons from the two instances are the same: a laudable foreign
policy initiative has to be backed up with a great deal of homework.
In the first instance, it has been argued, the advice of ambassador
Ram Sathe was disregarded. In the second, a complex series of factors
operated but the basic error was an over reliance on American pressure
on Pakistan.
And
now, once again, all sorts of well meaning players, ranging from
second and third track optimists to a range of professionals including
those in North and South Blocks, are furnishi- ng all manner of
advice on Kashmir and Pakistan.
The
July 24 unilateral ceasefire declared by the Hizbul Mujahideen was
immediately seized upon by New Delhi and within days the Union home
secretary was in Srinagar for further negotiations. Immediately
Syed Salahuddin was ousted from the chairmanship of the United Jehad
Council and as the leader of the Hizb in Pakistan at Islamabad’s
behest he quickly threw the spanner in the works.
Prime
Minister Vajpayee’s Ramzan ceasefire, now extended up to February
26, despite the attempt on Farooq Abdullah, the attack on Srinagar
airport and the Red Fort incident, has invited no reassuring response
from Islamabad.
Agreed,
General Jehangir Karamat comes across as a reasonable man on the
second track, as do many others. I have always maintained that there
is great deal of good sense and goodwill in Pakistan and, if put
to the test, the overwhelming majority would express a sense of
fatigue with this pointless tension with India. The problem all
along has been the Pakistani establishment, the armed forces, ISI,
religious groups, their ardour magnified by the process of Talibanisation
of important segments of the Pakistani people.
Take
this observations by Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir, former directorgeneral
of the ISI in The Nation in an article of January 23. ‘‘The
best solution for Pakistan and Kashmir is Kashmir as part of Pakistan
being the unaccomplished part of the Pakistan movement in the sub-continent.’’
In other words the perpetuation of the two-nation theory.
Contrast
this with the resolutions passed by the four regional Pakistani
parties at the Acton Town Hall in London on September 17: ‘‘The
partition of India was the greatest blunder in the history of mankind’’.
Now comes Benazir Bhutto’s sensational interview in the Herald,
giving details on how Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have,
with a sense of purpose, undermined democracy in Pakistan all along.
In
the evolving scenario, there is just not need to plunge headlong
into some hasty initiative. Let us see the Pakistani response to
the ceasefire. The results so far within Kashmir are encouraging.
Let us also wait and see the American dramatis personae (who will
play a role in determining Washington’s stance on the issue).
Of course, there will be continuity in American policy but it is
in the nuances that the critical differences will lie.
|
