Press the reset button on Kashmir
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Asif Ezdi
After the victory of the Congress party in the Indian parliamentary elections, Pakistan has again called for a resumption of the 'composite dialogue' which India suspended after the terrorist attack in Bombay last November. India has responded by expressing a desire for normalisation of relations. Delhi's official posture towards Pakistan after the elections has in fact been strikingly conciliatory and moderate.
In his first meeting with the press after taking office, S M Krishna, the new foreign minister affirmed India's readiness to extend its hand of partnership to Pakistan. India has also been softening its conditions for a dialogue with Pakistan. In some of his statements, Krishna has played down the earlier insistence that Pakistan must first "dismantle the terror network." Instead, he has indicated that it would be enough if Pakistan were to bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. The Indian reaction to the release of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed has also been restrained. It has only expressed 'disappointment', the mildest form of protest in diplomatic parlance. India's silence on Geelani's speech to the AJK Council on June 2 in which he called for a resolution of Kashmir in accordance with UN Security Council's resolutions and the aspirations of Kashmiri people is also in the same vein.
Delhi's softer stance towards Pakistan in recent weeks does not imply that India has given up its long-held strategic goals towards Pakistan. It only shows that India is prepared to be flexible in the choice of the means for the achievement of those ends. What those goals are is not a mystery. If anyone is in doubt, he should read the scores of Pakistan-bashers who write in the columns of the Indian press everyday. Most of them can barely suppress their rage at the fact that Pakistan possesses nuclear capability. They waste their writing talents fantasising about the day when this 'failed state' will end their misery by 'imploding' before their eyes. In a recent article, my favourite in this crowded field – whom I will not name – blasted Pakistan for playing 'nuclear poker to shield its export of terrorism and still get rewarded with $23.6 billion in international aid commitments just in the last six months.' The article ended with a frenzied call upon the 'international community' to 'disable Pakistan's nuclear terror.'
Indian leaders have also been agonising about this 'problem' and have not failed to remind the international community of its 'responsibilities.' According to the Times of India, Manmohan Singh recently told Obama that nuclear sites in NWFP were already 'partly' in the hands of Islamic extremists. Similarly, the Indian army chief has said that the world must put pressure on Pakistan to 'cap' its nuclear capabilities. Despite this, there are signs that Delhi would like to return to the 'peace process', even though the conditions it had been demanding have not been met. There are several reasons for this.
First, India has drawn whatever diplomatic mileage it could out of its 'restraint' after the Bombay attack. The world is now more focused on the fight against the Taliban. While pressing Pakistan to punish the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Bombay, Washington and others in the west give a higher priority to helping and encouraging Pakistan to fight the Taliban. Indian analysts have themselves acknowledged that the longer the dialogue is suspended by Delhi, the greater are the chances of pressure on India, rather than Pakistan.
Second, Washington has been urging Delhi to ease the pressure on Pakistan so that it is in a position to shift more troops from the border with India to the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the western border. Strengthening the strategic partnership with Washington is a very high priority for Delhi. It would therefore like to take some step to accommodate Washington's wishes. Resuming talks with Pakistan would serve this purpose.
Third, India realises that it will never get a more amenable government in Pakistan than the present one. Zardari has given enough evidence that Kashmir is not a matter of priority for him. He has equated the Kashmiri freedom fighters with terrorists, called for putting the issue on the backburner and in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, dismissed it as a 'land dispute', forgetting – if he ever knew – that it is about the right of 13 million Kashmiris to self-determination.
Lastly and most important, India – with the support of Washington – would like to reopen the back channel with Pakistan on Kashmir. Recent disclosures to the media by Kasuri, Musharraf's loquacious foreign minister, and by Manmohan Singh and an article in the New Yorker magazine by Steve Coll have brought to light the broad outlines of the 'solution' that envoys of Musharraf and the Indian prime minister more or less agreed upon in about two dozen sessions held between 2004 and early 2007.
Manmohan Singh has described the settlement proposed in the 'non-paper' negotiated by the two sides as 'non-territorial'. In other words, the current division of the state along the Line of Control would not be affected. All that the Kashmiris would get would be 'porous borders', i.e. some freedom of movement and trade across the Line of Control, a measure of autonomy for the different regions of the state and a joint body consisting of local Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians to discuss issues affecting people on both sides.
Such a settlement would be nothing but a sell-out of the Kashmiris and a betrayal of their aspirations for azadi. Now that Musharraf has been removed from the scene, the government should make clear where it stands on this issue. Zardari's own views are well-known. In his first press conference after assuming the presidency (September 9, 2008), he expressed support for back channel diplomacy and promised 'good news' about the Kashmir dispute before the Indian elections in 2009. (Pakistan has fortunately so far been spared the 'good news' promised by Zardari.)
According to Steve Coll, Manmohan Singh is keen that the bargain made with him by Musharraf should hold and took steps last year before Bombay to reconnect the back channel with Tariq Aziz. The Indian prime minister was concerned, in particular, about whether the new government would stand by the non-paper or insist on renegotiating it. Five months after Bombay, the Indian side is again very interested in returning to the non-paper. They would like to show some progress on reactivating the 'peace process' before Hilary Clinton visits the region in late July. Therefore, there is considerable diplomatic activity going on to arrange a meeting between Manmohan Singh and Zardari on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SC summit being hosted by Russia at Yekaterinburg on June 15-16.
The Pakistani leadership is therefore called upon to take a decision whether the back-channel diplomacy on a Kashmir settlement started by Musharraf is to be resumed. If so, the question also arises whether the negotiations would be on the basis of the non-paper worked out under the Musharraf regime or a new framework has to be elaborated. These matters are far too important to be left to the Zardari government alone. Instead, a national consensus needs to be developed, after careful deliberation and with the participation of parliament and political parties. In addition, the Kashmiri representatives should also be consulted. It is regrettable that none of the political parties, including the PML-N, the largest opposition party in the country, has given any thought to these questions.
The best course would be to return to the pre-Kargil position: political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people for a settlement under the UN Security Council resolutions. It would be in consonance with the wishes of the new generation of Kashmiris which has grown up in the shadow of Indian bayonets and is not prepared to accept indefinite Indian occupation of the state. Implicit in this stance would be a rejection of the Kashmir non-paper hammered out during the Musharraf regime. In the diplomatic newspeak popularised by Joe Biden, it is called pressing the reset button.
