Is the honeymoon with India over?
By M.P. Bhandara
THE Indians have not yielded an inch on our concerns. No movement in the frozen wastelands of the Siachen glacier or lifting the heavy military paw in the Vale of Kashmir. Indiaâs principal demand when the Vajpayee-Musharraf thaw set in about five years back was: stop government support to cross-border terrorist infiltration and come to the table with the least expectation of any further division of Kashmir. Pakistan complied; rather over-complied.
The Indians have conceded that illegal cross-border movement is down to a trickle, but, whenever they wish to stir the cauldron, terrorists are found coming out of the woodworks â such a declaration was made by the junior defence minister of India, last week.
President Musharrafâs open-ended four-point offer which is tailored to meet Indian sensibilities on Kashmir has evoked no official Indian response other than an endless backchannel dialogue. âThe sands of an expiring epoch are fast running out; and the hour glass of history is once again turned on its baseâ, said Lord Curzon in a different context. The best of intentions may yet turn to ashes.
We are squeezed on our western borders by the Americans and their demands in fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. The Indians love to negotiate on details endlessly with assurances for the future. The trouble with Indian âassurancesâ is that they have a historicity of unreliability. Between 1948 and 1953, Pakistan received six top-level assurances from India that a fair and impartial plebiscite was the most feasible means to ascertain the wishes of the Kashmiri people. The last such assurance was a press communiqué issued on the conclusion of meetings between Prime Minister Mohammed Ali (Bogra) and Pandit Nehru in August 1953; it went so far as to say that a plebiscite administrator would be appointed by April 1954.
In December 1953, the commitment to hold a plebiscite was broken by India on the plea that Pakistan was about to accept arms aid from the US. Nehru declared the plebiscite promise null and void. Never was it said anywhere that the UN resolutions accepted by India were latched to any conditionalities. Indeed, in August 1953, when the last Indian assurance for a plebiscite was given, it was well known that Pakistan was negotiating an arms pact with the US.
India broke its word to its neighbour; the end of this story is yet to be written. It can be said in retrospect that all Pakistanâs miseries, wars, religious fanaticism, alienation and subcontinental disunity can be traced back to this broken pledge. If, God forbid, there is a nuclear war some day, its origin will lie in this broken promise.
Pakistan was labelled a âlackey of imperialismâ in the so-called non-aligned club headed by Tito and Nehru. Nine years later, in November 1962, when the Indians started receiving massive arms aid from the US in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian border clash, Pakistanâs sin in accepting US arms aid leading to the abrogation of the Kashmir commitment was replicated by India. During the Sino-India clash, the US administration begged Ayub Khan to refrain from âseizing Kashmirâ â a gesture that Kennedy wrote to say would be deeply âappreciated by Indiaâ.
Oddly, the correspondence between Ayub Khan and Kennedy in the winter of 1962-63 never pressed home the logic that Indiaâs raison dâetat for going back on the Kashmir plebiscite promise was upturned by the same event. Had the Indo-Pak war of September 1965 occurred in November 1962, the Valley would have fallen like a plum in Pakistanâs lap â and all Pakistan had to do was to hand it over to the UN for holding a plebiscite. But Ayub Khan was a Sandhurst-trained gentleman officer. âYou donât attack your neighbour, no matter how much he has wronged you, if he is down and outâ.
We will now fast track to the Simla Agreement of 1972. In the preceding decade, two wars were fought with India and half of Pakistan lost. Prima facie the Simla Pact does not read like the Treaty of Versailles, which inflicted heavy penalties on Germany on the conclusion of WW-I. It does not read as if Pakistan lost the war of 1971; but, it is a masterpiece of hidden intent: It introduced the concept of âbilateralismâ in sweet-sounding language.
It was not fully appreciated at the time what it meant. Its meaning only became clear later. Kashmir was no longer an international dispute, subject to UN resolutions, but, an India-Pakistan dispute, to be settled by the victor of the 1971 war. It is thus an unequal treaty. Both parties swore that no unilateral action would be taken by either party âto alter the ceasefire line as of December 17, 1971, which would be respected by both sides without prejudice.â
True, the Siachen glacier was a no manâs land. The Line of Control stopped well below the glaciers at a point marked NJ9842 on the maps and did not extend north to the glaciers. Therein lay the ambiguity of the 1949 agreement that left delimitation vague in the glacier region. In disregard of the Simla spirit and the written words of the agreement, on April 13, 1984 India occupied two key mountain passes in the glacier which have strategic importance for Pakistan and China.
On June 17, 1989, an agreement was reached on Siachen between the defence secretaries of India and Pakistan, which reads: âThere was agreement by both sides to work towards a comprehensive settlement, based on redeployment of forces to reduce the chances of conflict, avoidance of the use of force and the determination of future positions on the ground so as to conform with the Simla Agreement and to ensure durable peace in the Siachen area. The army authorities of both sides will determine these positions.â
The agreement was repudiated by New Delhi without giving reasons. The dispute remains locked in its frozen wasteland, for the last 18 years. The Indian demand is delimitation of positions based on âground realitiesâ â this expression is code language to cover up the initial aggression and to position its claim in the future, if and when the LoC is to be delimited in the glacier region. Pakistan Kargil misadventure was essentially in response to the Siachen grab.
Let us now move to the early 1990s. Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao declared, âIf autonomy (in Kashmir) is acceptable (to Pakistan), the sky is the limit.â
President General Musharrafâs four proposals have been welcomed in the Valley and accepted by a wide range of Kashmiri opinion which includes the influential and brave, Mirwaiz of Kashmir. They do âformulate a set of proposals which rejectionists on either side would find difficult to rejectâ¦â But the above formulation needs to be revisited. It is hard to convince rejectionists such as Syed Ali Gilani or those demanding independence for the old state or the extremists in the BJP or the Jamaat-i-Islami that politics is the art of the possible; not the impossible. We have no apocalyptic visions. Therefore, the new initiative is to formulate proposals that civil society and the international community would find hard to reject. Civil society in both countries consists of businessmen, retired bureaucrats and defence officials, womenâs organisations, student and labour leaders, journalists and professional organisations.
The above groups of civil society should engage in direct confabulations with one another. To give flesh to the above inter-connectivity and a real head-start to finding solutions at the level of civil society, we should relax our visa and trade policies. The sole determinant of the trade regime should be economic advantage minus political considerations.
India must reciprocate. It must give up its mantra of âcross-border terrorismâ. For every six or seven Valley Kashmiris there is one fully armed combat soldier. The LoC is fenced (and mined); the Indian army operating under emergency laws is brutal and abuse of power is well documented. It is reported that the Indian security forces have developed self-serving interests. If India is shining, Indian Kashmir is in dark gloom. The Indians must be firmly reminded that the insurgency in the Valley is no different from the insurgencies in NEFA and Assam and other parts of India controlled by Maoists. Indeed, some of these insurgencies are today far more serious and more violent than in the Kashmir Valley. Surprisingly, our press is devoid of articles on these mutinies against authority.
To sum up, our faith in Indian âassurancesâ is a little incredulous given the history of the past. We are the injured party and Indian civil society should appreciate this fact.
But, if nothing happens (notwithstanding the unrestrained optimism of Foreign Minister Kasuri), say within a year from â well after the Pakistan elections â it will be legitimate for Pakistan to repudiate the âbilateralâ clauses of the Simla Agreement, which, as stated earlier, is an unequal treaty. India, in retaliation, may decide to walk out of the agreement altogether; so be it. This agreement has failed to provide peace or security in Kashmir. It has not avoided war, nuclear weaponisation has. So long as âbilateralismâ means an Indian monopoly in determination and interpretation being the bigger, the more powerful and in possession of the disputed area, Indiaâs own decisions will be ruled by the safest option available. The Indian song is sweet and seductive but when it comes to ground realities in dealing with neighbours, it hardly moves a millimetre.
The writer is an MNA.
murbr@isb.paknet.com.pk
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/29/ed.htm#4
By M.P. Bhandara
THE Indians have not yielded an inch on our concerns. No movement in the frozen wastelands of the Siachen glacier or lifting the heavy military paw in the Vale of Kashmir. Indiaâs principal demand when the Vajpayee-Musharraf thaw set in about five years back was: stop government support to cross-border terrorist infiltration and come to the table with the least expectation of any further division of Kashmir. Pakistan complied; rather over-complied.
The Indians have conceded that illegal cross-border movement is down to a trickle, but, whenever they wish to stir the cauldron, terrorists are found coming out of the woodworks â such a declaration was made by the junior defence minister of India, last week.
President Musharrafâs open-ended four-point offer which is tailored to meet Indian sensibilities on Kashmir has evoked no official Indian response other than an endless backchannel dialogue. âThe sands of an expiring epoch are fast running out; and the hour glass of history is once again turned on its baseâ, said Lord Curzon in a different context. The best of intentions may yet turn to ashes.
We are squeezed on our western borders by the Americans and their demands in fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. The Indians love to negotiate on details endlessly with assurances for the future. The trouble with Indian âassurancesâ is that they have a historicity of unreliability. Between 1948 and 1953, Pakistan received six top-level assurances from India that a fair and impartial plebiscite was the most feasible means to ascertain the wishes of the Kashmiri people. The last such assurance was a press communiqué issued on the conclusion of meetings between Prime Minister Mohammed Ali (Bogra) and Pandit Nehru in August 1953; it went so far as to say that a plebiscite administrator would be appointed by April 1954.
In December 1953, the commitment to hold a plebiscite was broken by India on the plea that Pakistan was about to accept arms aid from the US. Nehru declared the plebiscite promise null and void. Never was it said anywhere that the UN resolutions accepted by India were latched to any conditionalities. Indeed, in August 1953, when the last Indian assurance for a plebiscite was given, it was well known that Pakistan was negotiating an arms pact with the US.
India broke its word to its neighbour; the end of this story is yet to be written. It can be said in retrospect that all Pakistanâs miseries, wars, religious fanaticism, alienation and subcontinental disunity can be traced back to this broken pledge. If, God forbid, there is a nuclear war some day, its origin will lie in this broken promise.
Pakistan was labelled a âlackey of imperialismâ in the so-called non-aligned club headed by Tito and Nehru. Nine years later, in November 1962, when the Indians started receiving massive arms aid from the US in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian border clash, Pakistanâs sin in accepting US arms aid leading to the abrogation of the Kashmir commitment was replicated by India. During the Sino-India clash, the US administration begged Ayub Khan to refrain from âseizing Kashmirâ â a gesture that Kennedy wrote to say would be deeply âappreciated by Indiaâ.
Oddly, the correspondence between Ayub Khan and Kennedy in the winter of 1962-63 never pressed home the logic that Indiaâs raison dâetat for going back on the Kashmir plebiscite promise was upturned by the same event. Had the Indo-Pak war of September 1965 occurred in November 1962, the Valley would have fallen like a plum in Pakistanâs lap â and all Pakistan had to do was to hand it over to the UN for holding a plebiscite. But Ayub Khan was a Sandhurst-trained gentleman officer. âYou donât attack your neighbour, no matter how much he has wronged you, if he is down and outâ.
We will now fast track to the Simla Agreement of 1972. In the preceding decade, two wars were fought with India and half of Pakistan lost. Prima facie the Simla Pact does not read like the Treaty of Versailles, which inflicted heavy penalties on Germany on the conclusion of WW-I. It does not read as if Pakistan lost the war of 1971; but, it is a masterpiece of hidden intent: It introduced the concept of âbilateralismâ in sweet-sounding language.
It was not fully appreciated at the time what it meant. Its meaning only became clear later. Kashmir was no longer an international dispute, subject to UN resolutions, but, an India-Pakistan dispute, to be settled by the victor of the 1971 war. It is thus an unequal treaty. Both parties swore that no unilateral action would be taken by either party âto alter the ceasefire line as of December 17, 1971, which would be respected by both sides without prejudice.â
True, the Siachen glacier was a no manâs land. The Line of Control stopped well below the glaciers at a point marked NJ9842 on the maps and did not extend north to the glaciers. Therein lay the ambiguity of the 1949 agreement that left delimitation vague in the glacier region. In disregard of the Simla spirit and the written words of the agreement, on April 13, 1984 India occupied two key mountain passes in the glacier which have strategic importance for Pakistan and China.
On June 17, 1989, an agreement was reached on Siachen between the defence secretaries of India and Pakistan, which reads: âThere was agreement by both sides to work towards a comprehensive settlement, based on redeployment of forces to reduce the chances of conflict, avoidance of the use of force and the determination of future positions on the ground so as to conform with the Simla Agreement and to ensure durable peace in the Siachen area. The army authorities of both sides will determine these positions.â
The agreement was repudiated by New Delhi without giving reasons. The dispute remains locked in its frozen wasteland, for the last 18 years. The Indian demand is delimitation of positions based on âground realitiesâ â this expression is code language to cover up the initial aggression and to position its claim in the future, if and when the LoC is to be delimited in the glacier region. Pakistan Kargil misadventure was essentially in response to the Siachen grab.
Let us now move to the early 1990s. Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao declared, âIf autonomy (in Kashmir) is acceptable (to Pakistan), the sky is the limit.â
President General Musharrafâs four proposals have been welcomed in the Valley and accepted by a wide range of Kashmiri opinion which includes the influential and brave, Mirwaiz of Kashmir. They do âformulate a set of proposals which rejectionists on either side would find difficult to rejectâ¦â But the above formulation needs to be revisited. It is hard to convince rejectionists such as Syed Ali Gilani or those demanding independence for the old state or the extremists in the BJP or the Jamaat-i-Islami that politics is the art of the possible; not the impossible. We have no apocalyptic visions. Therefore, the new initiative is to formulate proposals that civil society and the international community would find hard to reject. Civil society in both countries consists of businessmen, retired bureaucrats and defence officials, womenâs organisations, student and labour leaders, journalists and professional organisations.
The above groups of civil society should engage in direct confabulations with one another. To give flesh to the above inter-connectivity and a real head-start to finding solutions at the level of civil society, we should relax our visa and trade policies. The sole determinant of the trade regime should be economic advantage minus political considerations.
India must reciprocate. It must give up its mantra of âcross-border terrorismâ. For every six or seven Valley Kashmiris there is one fully armed combat soldier. The LoC is fenced (and mined); the Indian army operating under emergency laws is brutal and abuse of power is well documented. It is reported that the Indian security forces have developed self-serving interests. If India is shining, Indian Kashmir is in dark gloom. The Indians must be firmly reminded that the insurgency in the Valley is no different from the insurgencies in NEFA and Assam and other parts of India controlled by Maoists. Indeed, some of these insurgencies are today far more serious and more violent than in the Kashmir Valley. Surprisingly, our press is devoid of articles on these mutinies against authority.
To sum up, our faith in Indian âassurancesâ is a little incredulous given the history of the past. We are the injured party and Indian civil society should appreciate this fact.
But, if nothing happens (notwithstanding the unrestrained optimism of Foreign Minister Kasuri), say within a year from â well after the Pakistan elections â it will be legitimate for Pakistan to repudiate the âbilateralâ clauses of the Simla Agreement, which, as stated earlier, is an unequal treaty. India, in retaliation, may decide to walk out of the agreement altogether; so be it. This agreement has failed to provide peace or security in Kashmir. It has not avoided war, nuclear weaponisation has. So long as âbilateralismâ means an Indian monopoly in determination and interpretation being the bigger, the more powerful and in possession of the disputed area, Indiaâs own decisions will be ruled by the safest option available. The Indian song is sweet and seductive but when it comes to ground realities in dealing with neighbours, it hardly moves a millimetre.
The writer is an MNA.
murbr@isb.paknet.com.pk
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/29/ed.htm#4
