Volume 2, No. 8, August 2001

An euphoria is being created around the so-called Indian imaginativeness in statesmanship that has "reflected" itself in the Indian Prime Minister’s invitation to Pakistan’s Chief Executive Officer, General Pervez Musharraf. The media is full of praise, suggestions, possibilities and opportunities, and of course, "the traps and mines". The ruling elite is churning out all kinds of statements, sometimes contradicting the allegedly "warm and friendly spirit" behind the invitation, bringing out the real purpose of this acrobatic exercise of "real politick" to the fore.

The announcement of the invitation to the General was sudden as all reports indicated that further continuation of the ongoing cease-fire should be announced on May 23. But the invitation and a cease to the cease-fire came like a new somersault and it was not less dramatic than the Hizbul’s announcement of cease-fire in July 2000. Though the Summit will take up many issues yet Kashmir will remain the central contentious subject between the two rulers.

Announcements may come dramatically but a solution to the long-standing national question of Kashmir is outside of the scope of theatrical games. The hard facts are never sensational; however, they may be quite tragic or stone dead or humorous to different people at the same time. And the Kashmir reality has a number of such facts for all the three concerned parties.

The rulers on both sides are caught up in a situation of conflicting State needs with no one ready to abandon the interests one represents, nor are in a position to forcibly push the rival out. They have decided to meet to sort out something, though not immediately, that may serve their mutual interests jointly and those of the "international community" generally. The backdrop to this new development, though not new in the sense that leaders of both the countries have met (and fought) many times with each other, is not singular. A multiple of factors have pushed them on to the negotiating table.

With it steadfastly becoming clear that the Indian armed forces are unable to contain the insurgency and the Indian attempts to woo insurgent groups to surrender and join the mainstream bourgeois political set up producing no results, the Vajpayee government has opted for directly talking to the "rogue military regime in Pakistan". The other important factor which has played its role is the outside pressure. Primarily it has been from the US, and also Europe, on both the countries to settle the "dispute" through negotiations. In fact, the actual dates of the Summit was first announced in Washington, when the Indian media was still claiming that are not confirmed. Today, the US no longer wants to use Pakistan as a counter force to India because after the disintegration of the Soviet State the Indian and Russian political affinity no longer exists. On the contrary, India has come closer to the US. The newfound friendship of the two is so strong that the US has changed its decades old position on the question of Kashmir. Now it rejects any plebiscite or referendum and declares null the right to self-determination in Kashmir.

And also, there have been continuous suggestions from Russia to India, due to the growing danger of resurgent Muslim movements in Central Asia, to rout the "terrorists" like the former did in Chechnya or make a settlement that may paralyze the "Islamic threat". And the Chinese demands on Islamabad in view of the increasing influence of nationalist Muslim forces in Xinjiang, also had their impact. Moreover, the Taliban connection of Pakistan has particularly been annoying to the US which wants to see Pakistan veered away from the anti-US Afghani fundamentalist regime unless Afghanistan surrenders Osama bin Laden and starts cooperating with the US imperialists to pay back its political debt to the US. The spreading fundamentalist effect of the Taliban has the potential to disrupt the present balance of power in south and Central Asia very much to the annoyance of the powers that be. So everyone is pitted against it or striving to tame it. The US pressures on Pakistan are very much connected with this "threat". Not declaring Pakistan a "rogue state" by the US despite many threats to do so, and in spite of blacklisting many Islamic groups having roots there, is due to the US need to use Pakistan against the Taliban regime. And this has not been without results. Pakistan has taken many measures to pressurize and restrict the Taliban including closing down its bases and asking the Taliban to hand over Osama to the West.

All might have gone well with the Pakistani authorities, had the Taliban not come into conflict with the US and had the changed international situation not demanded of the US a policy reversal over Kashmir. Then the US pressure on Pakistan would not have mounted. The Clinton Administration had insisted on a negotiated settlement. Nawaz Sharif too wanted a dialogue. He also tried to restrict the Taliban’s influence. But the Kargil war entered the scene. Now Musharraf, in spite of his role in the Kargil conflict, too has to step on to the track of his predecessor. The all pervasive US influence on the political elite, the pressures of the international situation and the precarious economic scene, are hard facts for Pakistan. Musharraf has been demanding a dialogue between the two countries and pleading his inability to control the militants until some progress is made over the question of Kashmir, but India has been spurning his offer. After the Kargil war, which saw the pulling-out of Pakistani troops from the line of control at the behest of Clinton, the US has also been advising India to proceed further on the "Lahore road" for a compromise notwithstanding the "military nature" of the Pakistani regime. He even offered to "mediate" between the two countries. But India "rejected" his mediation offer on the ground that it was "not an international issue" and should be handled between the two concerned parties mutually. But ‘mutuality’ did not work because the "stopping of cross border terrorism" did not work and the position that "Kashmir is an integral part of India" acted as a major roadblock. India adopted the strategy of subduing the militants by strong military methods and simultaneously tried to woo militant organisations for a "within India" solution. It rampaged the valley through killing and burning sprees but failed to achieve the desired results. The desperation of failure and the foreign pressure has made it listen to the "international" aspects and ramifications of the Kashmir issue!

Will they be making way for a settlement according to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people? That is the only question on the minds of the Kashmiri people who need peace more than India or Pakistan does. Peace for them means freedom from national oppression and from foreign interference in their internal matters. They are paying a heavy price for it, with their life and blood. India keeps repeating peace, more than anybody else involved in the conflict, making it look as though it only wants peace. Advani says that whenever a chance comes for peace the forces inimical to it "destroy" it. His notion of peace means a restoration to the old times when there was no insurgency in the state. He does count the violence of national oppression through which the Kashmiris have been subjected to for the past 54 years. He doesn’t want to accept that it was this oppression that led to the insurgency in 1989. He avers, "Let us look into the future." …… And forget the past!? This is a unique (!) sense of history and its connection with the present. And one can imagine what promises he has stashed in his pocket for the future. For the Kashmiris, peace does not mean reverting to the old days, as it can only be realized through a correct solution to the problem.

The then Clinton, and now Bush administration, have insisted that the dialogue should advance on the lines of the Shimla Agreement of 1972 and the Lahore Declaration of 1998. Both these agreements do not take into consideration the will of the people of Kashmir.

India interprets the Shimla Agreement in a way that an understanding of converting the line of control into an international border is built into it in spirit. Pakistan refutes this on the ground that there is no mention of it in the agreement. But then there is also no blue print for ‘taking the people of Kashmir into confidence’. The Lahore Declaration too is more concerned with the ‘confidence building measures’ between the two countries than to provide a solution to the Kashmir problem. There is the general rhetoric of solving the mutual problems, including Kashmir, through cooperation and negotiations, through peaceful means. But the reality is that this peace gets shattered now and then on the border and belligerent clamour is heard time and again from both sides.. Neither Nawaz nor Atal thought it wise to look into the real causes of the on going conflict which was less cross-border and more "indigenous". The fact is, they did not want to, and hence, discounted it. Moreover, for them it is a "complex problem" whose resolution they find difficult to arrive at. It is not possible without the participation of the principal party to the conflict and both wanted to keep this party at a distance so that its "complexity" may not get more perplexing.

For the last two years the Indian rulers attitude towards Pakistan was: ‘who are you? We never met.’ It tried to crush the liberation movement with all its might. It tried to coax the Hurriyat but never allowed it to visit Pakistan as promised earlier on the plea that it will lend strength to the Hurriyat position that for a proper solution all the three parties should sit together. India adopted the stand: "We will talk to our own people" and not to the "rogues". But formal talks with the Hurriyat were never initiated. Then India deputed KC Pant to ‘take care’ of the Kashmiri opinion. The Pant mission was as yet preparing to leave for the valley that bang came the 180-degree turn of the diplomatic somersault and the invitation was sent to Musharraf, ‘the Kargil culprit’. Now, in the wizardry words of Advani the new approach is: "Had Musharraf dipped his hands in the Indus river down the stream in Pakistan last year he would have felt Vajpayee’s warmth and friendship then and there." He forgot to add that Musharraf would have also observed a change in the colour of the Indus from frothy white to unmistakably red due to the numerous streams of blood that end up in the great river.

Hypocrisy has no bounds and Advani can excel anybody else in Machiavellian statesmanship. On the other hand, the attitude towards one of "our own people", the Hurriyat, has changed into a sort of ‘Hurriyat! Which Hurriyat? Never knew.’ And they have shrugged off their shoulders advising the "sundries" to approach Pant to air their grievances.

Quite on the heels of the announcement of the invitation the Indian external affairs minister has done a better job than Advani. He made everyone raise his or her eyebrow in the home circles as well as in the ‘international community’ with his statement that the "whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. And that stand remains unaltered." He did not talk of the ‘warmth and friendship’ and was cold and straight enough in enunciating the reality of the Indian approach for the coming "fiesta". Perhaps, he has yet to learn fully the art of bourgeois diplomacy. He ruled out any bargaining on Kashmir by declaring, "Jammu and Kashmir is at the core of the nationhood of India." For the Indian ruling classes without J&K India ceases to be a country so there is ‘no prospect of any give and take’. It is a message not only to the Pakistani ruling classes but also to the people of Kashmir that they should forget about freedom or breaking away from India. The diplomat in Mr. Singh was quite undiplomatic. To wish the ailing Mehndi Hasan well and gun down a dozen liberation fighters in Kashmir is the way the ex-cop should learn from the Bade Wazir and the Chhote Wazir. He only talks of a kill while the Prime Minister and the home minister can masterfully camouflage their intentions. The present Indian Prime Minister is well versed in poetry like some of the ex-ones in the sub-continent, Hazrat Gujral and Mia Nawaz. All the three recite the couplet: guftgu band na ho baat se baat chaley. But the appropriate couplet for an Indian Prime Minister is: "guftgu chalti rahe goli barsti rahe, hath se hath milein aastin phadkti rahe" (keep the conversation going continue the firing, shake hands in friendship carry on the killing). It is not without reason that he has ordered the termination of cease-fire simultaneously with extending an invitation for the talks. The first Indian Prime Minister too had applied the same approach. On the one hand he demanded sternly from the Raja to sign an instrument of accession in lieu of military assistance, and on the other, he had the philanthropic vein to promise the people of Kashmir of "respecting their will". The double face of the oppressors’ politics combine philanthropy and viciousness into a single entity. If the West had its pronouncedly wily Machiavelli we had our cold and cunning Acharya Chanakya long before him. But a combination of deceitfulness and cunning with humanitarianism and the warmth of poetry can definitely be more rewarding!

Another important development that has taken place during these days is from Pakistan. In the Pakistan occupied Kashmir 80 candidates of the JKLF (Amanullah Khan) have been barred from contesting the elections. All these candidates had filed their nomination papers but had crossed out the condition which asked for allegiance to Pakistan. These candidates wanted to commit themselves only to an independent Kashmir. They were termed anti-national in the same vein as the Indian rulers declare pro-independence activists and fighters in the Indian occupied Kashmir. On both sides of the line of control the concept of Hurriyat or Azadi confront the same attitude. Two years back when Clinton had ruled out self-determination for Kashmir the authorities in Pakistan had raised a big hue and cry declaring independence for Kashmiris as their birthright. Strangely, this birthright disappears within Pakistan the day a voice is raised for an independent Kashmir.

The ruling classes and their hired opinion makers, in the hope that a way out from the impasse may be carved, create the euphoria around the Indo-Pak Summit. Both sides are coming together to work out a deal mutually beneficial to them and to chalk out a common strategy, if possible, to keep the movement for a greater and independent Kashmir in check. The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan too has declared the UN resolution for a plebiscite as "irrelevant". He echoes his imperialist masters and represents the opinion of the ‘international community’.

The rulers stand exposed on the question of Independence of Kashmir. The ruling class controlled media has played a major role in manufacturing the opinion of the common man on both sides of the Indo-Pak border. "Kashmir belongs to India," and "Kashmir belongs to Pakistan" are the only voices that are heard inside both the countries. Only a few persons say, "Kashmir belongs to the Kashmiris." This voice reverberates only in Kashmir on both sides of the line of control. Then, primarily, it is the Kashmiris who are facing the problem and only they can force its solution.

In India an overwhelming majority of the people is misled by ruling class propaganda and they are of the opinion that if it is impossible to take back the whole of Kashmir let the line of control be converted into an international border. This is the dominant opinion in the media and the ruling circles which sees its reflection in the minds of the people. Likewise, the Pakistani liberal press also talks in the same tune along with a certain freedom of movement for the Kashmiris across some border posts. A major part of public opinion, created by the fundamentalo-religious groups, stands for accession to Pakistan. In both the countries a public opinion for independence is almost non-existent. One wonders whether the people of both countries really know what freedom is! And this is the situation after more than half a century has passed when the rulers of both the lands had proclaimed: "now the people are free."

To counter the voice of freedom in Kashmir the Indian authorities launched another mission recently, the Pant mission. He mainly met a wide range of individuals and leaders of the organizations to hammer home the "fact" that a majority of whom he met were not for the independence of Kashmir. This is another build up of Kashmiri opinion in the "rest of India" right before the Summit and will be used by the Indian side, while the more important fact is, the liberation forces boycotted Pant’s mission and it does not reflect the ground reality in its totality. It had another purpose .......... to strengthen the argument that the regions of Jammu and Ladakh do not stand for secession from India. This is the same as the colonialist policy of divide and rule. Let the people of the whole State of Jammu & Kashmir decide about their fate and democratically solve the problems of regions, religious minorities and national minorities. It is another significant field where the Indian rulers themselves have utterly failed and they have no moral right to speak for the rights of the others. They refused to give the right to self-determination to various nationalities, denied autonomy to the regions and dishonoured and repressed the minority religions and communities literally turning the whole country into a vast den of crimes against these people. Now they dare to speak for Leh and Ladakh. The Kashmir, the Northeast, numerous regions and minority religions within India have for long been struggling against the oppressive polity India stands for. The people of Kashmir are to learn from the negative experience of India and, for that matter, of Pakistan to avoid pitfalls in future. The problem of different regions in no way reduces the significance of national liberation for Kashmir. On the contrary, it poses itself with a greater urgency before the movement, on how to scientifically deal with this sensitive issue right now and also after liberation is achieved, so that a truely democratic set-up can be achieved for all the citizens of a future J & K. The Indian leaders, and the Summit for that matter, are least expected to take up this issue in any earnest.

The fiesta, or the wrestling, whatever the scene may be at the Summit the people of Kashmir stand little to gain from it. They will have to continue their fight and enrich their understanding of the whole complex issue to advance towards victory.

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