Look beyond Wagah and UP

We have more Muslims than Pakistan, sell this to Powell

YOU cannot play with fire and not be burnt’’ my Iranian hostess, a professor, asserted in response to the general conversation on India’s aversion to third party interest on the Kashmir issue. ‘‘You want America to help you take out the terrorist bases in Pakistan but then you put up your hands: ‘‘the rest of the mess we shall manage ourselves’’.

‘‘Look, this is phase two of the operation against terror: and it started with the British Foreign Secretary’s visit to Tehran. How swiftly the British establishment has followed up; Blair and Arafat have already announced a Palestinian state. Why are you so coy on Kashmir?’’

I expected our Iranian hostess to cancel the dinner because I thought Tehran would be tense after the US strikes against Afghanistan. I was mistaken. Not only were the streets chaotic with traffic pulsating with life, but the hostess was the very picture of unruffled grace, arranging flowers and large fruit bowls on the side tables next to every guest.‘‘We have seen this before, she said in a matter of fact way.’’ But the poor ruined people of Afghanistan did not deserve this. She continued her soliloquy. ‘‘The Taliban were blackening the name of Islam — they should have been removed, but why hit the poor people?’’

Although Iranians are as disgusted with the Taliban as us, yet they have a more enduring sense of history. British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw learnt this lesson during his visit to Tehran before the airstrikes. They never tire of reminding us that both, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, were creations of the CIA and ISI. The continuing murder of Shias in Pakistani mosques at the hands of groups like Sipah-e-Sahaba, has distanced then from Pakistan. They relate to India on a civilisational basis.

‘‘This is the time we should have clasped each other’s hands’’ a senior Iranian cleric told me. ‘‘We have the same interests-to remove the Taliban and have a broadbased representative government in Afghanistan.’’ He continued, ‘‘The extent to which the West shares this interest is to our advantage — but let us not rely too much on the West. Their interests may change. We shall always be in the region and we shall always have the same interests.’’ Iran’s suffering on account of the situation in Afghanistan is on many counts: 4,000 Iranian law enforcement officers have been murdered by Afghan drug smugglers. Over two million refugees are an economic burden as well as a security threat with heaven knows how many Taliban having slipped in and scattered across the country. A further influx would be catastrophic.

Once the dust settles on the Afghan situation, divergences would surface even between Britain and the US. This would be the wrong time for Jack Straw to admit to these future conflicts of interest. But his Iranian interlocutors are convinced. For instance, British gas is already involved in the setting up of liquefied gas plants at the Assaluyeh hub as an interim measure for finding outlets for the world’s second largest oil deposits. Along with India, Britain is also interested in the gas pipeline project, both over land across Quetta in Pakistan and underwater directly from Iran to the Gujarat coast. Both, Iran and the Western hydrocarbon interests are fairly vocal that the underwater feasibility study is being undertaken simply to keep India humoured ‘because in reality the underwater project is far too expensive to be feasible. In other words part of the peace dividend from the ‘‘strike against terror’’ will be the flow of gas, critical to which is the Indo-Pak ‘‘patch up’’ on Kashmir.

Influenced by the Israeli lobby, the US would like to leave Iran out of the pipeline dividend. It would like to have a stable dispensation in Afghanistan. Turkmenistan and other central Asian republics can then access South Asia through Afghanistan.

There is a catch for India in both the scenarios. Britain includes Iran, the US excludes it. But passage through Pakistan is central to both. Does it mean that the strategic value of Pakistan remains beyond its current utility for logistics and intelligence during the Afghan airstrikes?

The unreported success of Jack Straw’s visit was that he was able to obtain Iran’s neutrality in the current conflict without the country ostensibly having to resile from its stated anti-Western, particularly anti-American positions. President Khatami has indicated a desire to mend fences with the US but the Iranian establishment would like to extract a political price.

Iran values greatly the considerable constituency it has nurtured in the Arab street by simple opposition to the mid-East peace process in which the Arab dictators and kings have acquiesced. The manner, in which Ariel Sharon has knocked the stuffing out of the peace process, make the Iranian leadership feel vindicated. They would now like to be seen to have had a role in putting together bits of the peace process with their own garnishing on the final status of Jerusalem and the question of Palestinian refugees. This, at the moment, is a non starter. All sides are privately aware of this. But the British Foreign Secretary did make an admirable bid to bring Tehran into positive spotlight by travelling directly to Jerusalem after meeting with Khatami.

For Americans the action in Afghanistan is only the first phase. The next few phases could go into the next several years. Britain is at the heart of the alliance led by the US. If Straw can publicly spell out the causes of terrorism in the Middle East, neither Kashmir nor Chechnya, Kosovo, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Columbia, Philippines are likely to escape scrutiny of an increasingly obtrusive world community. Frankly, the terrorist camps in Pakistan will be taken out. We now have to address the important task of winning the hearts and minds of the Kashmiri people - now, before an intrusive world points fingers at our poor record.

The time is to look beyond the Wagah border, rise above petty communalism and the compulsions of the forthcoming UP elections even as the larger stakes of the nation are undermined. The nation will survive without the BJP in UP but it’s path will become perilous with 150 million Muslims nursing an unspeakable grievance.

The Iranians are discreet diplomats and will not have raised the question of Hindu-Muslim tension building up in India, however much they may be sensitive to them. But he and the Iranian establishment is aware of the Indian mantra on Kashmir, one that should also be read out to Secretary of State Colin Powell; what is the mantra? ‘Indian secularism protects among a billion others, the world’s second largest Muslim population, greater than the population of Pakistan and any issue, including Kashmir must be addressed, keeping this in mind.

Earlier Columns