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The Indo-Pak summit has concluded as a
non-conclusion. Musharraf left Agra in a huff in the middle of the night of July
16-17. He was not even allowed to address the ceremonial last press conference,
which is generally held at the end of such meets. The Indian administration
later tried to play down this unhospitality, in contravention to the seeming
hospitality shown during Musharraf’s visits to historical and public places in
Delhi and Agra, with the rationale that it was impossible to make security
arrangements at such a short notice. The stark reality was that both the
countries had failed to reach an agreement on the centrality of the issue over
which the talks should have been held. Thus the summit in itself remained a
non-starter in spite of the fact that the two leaders and their respective teams
had met several times and several hours. Musharraf’s visit to Ajmer Sharif was
also cancelled in a desperate bid to find out common ground between the two
countries. Even one-to-one last hour talks between Musharraf and Vajpayee could
not break the stalemate. The end was a non-issuance of a joint declaration or
even a statement at the end of the much-hyped summit.
The Indian rulers have shown the same intransigence
and stubbornness to recognise the centrality of the Kashmir question as a key to
peace in the sub-continent. During the summit too the Indian attitude has been
the same as it had been throughout years of the freedom struggle in Kashmir. All
along, India has been maintaining that the problem in Kashmir is the creation of
Pakistan and has no roots among the Kashmiri people, that the struggle for
freedom is a "proxy war" being waged by Pakistan and hence it is
"cross-border terrorism" that is the real problem. The adamant denial of the
ground reality in Kashmir by India is the main reason for the hindrance towards
a solution of the problem. For Indian policymakers the source of the problem is
outside of the State of J&K and to eliminate this source ‘confidence building
measures’ with Pakistan can also be tried if state terror, repression and
war do not help. The invitation for talks to the ruler of Pakistan was an
exercise taken up after the continued failure of the Indian armed forces to
break the strong Kashmiri resistance to Indian occupation, and due to
international pressure that was being put by the US, primarily, and other
powers. The dead end reached at Agra is not surprising, given the Indian rulers’
obstinacy that was visible right up to the day of Musharraf’s arrival on July
14th.
The Wild Run-Up to the Summit
Onward May 23, when the invitation to Musharraf was
extended, the behaviour of the Indian rulers never betrayed a genuine
inclination to resolve the Kashmir problem. Firstly, the announcement of the
invitation accompanied the simultaneous announcement for stepping up military
operations in the valley to show the Pakistani State that Indian business with
Pakistan has no business with Kashmir. That the blood letting in Kashmir will go
on ‘irrespective of any Indo-Pak rapport’ invited sharp criticism from the
Pakistani press and administration, which demanded that Indian operations in
Kashmir should cease so that a cordial atmosphere be built for the talks but; it
fell on deaf ears. Secondly, the GoI declared that no compromise on the
‘unity and integrity’ of the country will be done because Kashmir was "an
integral part of India" and "at the core of Indian nationhood." This
invited sharp reaction from Pakistan which made it clear in no uncertain terms
that Kashmir was the "core issue" between India and Pakistan and "a
key to peace in South Asia." To this the Indian prime Minister again
responded that stress would be laid on taking back the Pakistan occupied
Kashmir. Thirdly, India scornfully refused to consider Kashmiris as a party to
the conflict and rejected the Hurriyet demand to be included in the talks to
find a lasting solution to the Kashmir question. India said that the talks with
Pakistan will be bilateral, and on bilateral issues, thereby projecting that the
Kashmir question was not a matter of any dispute between the two countries and
it was only an internal matter concerning India and hence only "confidence
building measures" were required to ease tension between the two neighbours.
To this Pakistan responded that no lasting confidence could be built between the
two peoples unless the people of Kashmir were given their rights and the Kashmir
question is resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiris. All this
pointed to the pre-summit bitterness between the two countries.
State Terror during Ceasefire
A report of an
All-India Fact Finding Team into the Human Rights situation in J & K during
the 6-month ceasefire period, released on June 2, 2001 revealed the farcical
character of the ceasefire and the extent of brutalities even during this
period.
Firstly, the
report revealed that the ceasefire only applied to the Central forces and not
to the State Police, in particular the most ruthless SOG (Special Operations
Group — the anti-insurgency wing of the state police). In fact, during that
period, in many places army camps were replaced by SOG camps. Regarding the
army too, the report said that the general opinion expressed was that it
implemented the ceasefire only in the first month — i.e. Dec. 2000.
The report then
goes on to outline numerous instances of brutal torture, custodial killings,
vengence killings and large number of instances of rape. In addition the
report presents a picture of the extent of state terror in the intire Doda
district of Jammu.
The report says :
"The district is
huge in size, being equal in area to the whole of the Kashmir Valley. It is
hilly and difficult to traverse. Our visit to the villages of Bihota and
Mangota on the hills of Doda tehsil revealed the most despicable behaviour by
the army and the SOG. We can only summarise the allegations here without
listing out the numerous individual details we gathered.
Forced labour or
begar is extensively resorted to in this area. If a camp of the army or the
SOG is set up in a village, residents of that and neighbouring villages must
provide unpaid labour in sweeping, cleaning and especially bringing logs of
wood from the forest. In winter month, they have to clear the snow. People are
detained in the camp for days togather, beaten and forced to labour without
payment.
About the SOG
camp in Bihota, it was said that throughout the six months of the ceasefire
when the SOG replaced the army in the camp, the SOG men did not have a single
meal at their own expense. At each mealtime they would raid one of the
villages, fire in the air claiming to be searching for or following militants,
and then settle down in the village and force people to cook and provide then
with a meal, with meat and wheteve else they wanted.
Torture at the
camps and the police stations all over the affected area is indescribable in
its intensity. People are hung upside down by their ankles from the trees and
thrashed. Their heads are forced into drains until they gulp the stinking
fluid. They are given electric shocks. They are detained for days on end,
given little or no food, and thrashed again and again.
The people of the
Doda villages also complained of extensive destruction of houses and
despoilation of household goods including foodstuffs. Everytime there is a
raid, the people suffer such destruction leading to loss of thousands of
rupees worth of property.
Molestation and
rape of women in the Doda region by the army and the SOG is routine. In the
course of a day in the Doda district we heard of at least 20 instances of
grave molestation and rape over the last two years. As this was the first
human rights team to visit the area, we heard of cases of gangrape prior to
the ceasefire period, in which even when women have complained and FIR lodged,
they are being pressurised daily to withdraw charges."
Finally, a few
days after the team left the area, people of the mountain villages of Doda who
deposed before the fact-finding team (particularly those who spoke of the
incidents of rape and molestation of women of Bihota) were picked up and
inhumanely tortured.
If such is the
nature of state terror during ‘peace’ times, one can imagine its intensity
now, when it is on a full-fledged offensive.
Also, there were statements which indicated that in
spite of the prevailing bitterness both the countries were eager to have a
‘solution’ of the "thorny" problem that has antagonised them for 53 years.
Before coming to Delhi Musharraf talked to various sections of the people and
rebuked some Pakistan religious organisations to stop talking about hoisting the
green flag over the Red Fort. He also declared that if India reciprocated well
he would create history along with Vajpayee to bring peace to the sub-continent.
Another significant matter was that both the countries sent high emissaries to
the United States to discuss about the summit. Later, both Musharraf and
Vajpayee talked on the telephone to mutually stop issuing biting statements to
build a cordial atmosphere for the talks.
Yet, the differences over what will be the central
issue at the negotiating table were visible for everyone to see. The groundwork
for the summit was far from satisfactory, which reminded us that both the
countries were poles apart and little would come out of the talks.
Euphoria and The Aftermath
Just before and on the first day of the Musharraf
visit euphoria around the visit and talks were created as if there had never
been any bitterness between the two neighbours. Hopes were raised for easing
tension, increasing mutual trade, communication between writers, journalists and
intellectuals, a controlled opening up of the line of control for the Kashmiris,
opening of the border for visitors and relatives and a road map for a settlement
on Kashmir. Pakistani commissioner to India Jehangir Kazi said that on all nine
points of the agreement an understanding had been reached. But a last minute
hitch appeared by the inclusion of the term "cross border terrorism",
insisted by India, which slammed the prospects and the summit ended without any
declaration or a statement being issued. India had also demanded that an
extradition treaty be reached between the two. By the night of July 16 the
euphoria evaporated and the traditional bitterness came back again. Scathing
statements and claims and counter-claims came from both sides. The papers
declared that a major bloodbath in Kashmir was on the cards. In fact the Indian
security forces had already killed a record number of militants during the
two-day summit. The carnage never ceased. In fact, prior to the summit, the two
months of June/July witnessed the highest ever killings of militants in this
eleven-year freedom struggle. According to Army figures, 450 militants were
killed in just these two months, together with hundreds of civilians. These
killings have been further stepped up during and after the summit.
In the aftermath haze, full of toxicity, came a
statement from the US State Department on the morning of 17th declaring the
summit not a failure but a ‘good beginning.’ A similar statement from the
Indian foreign minister had already been released saying that the process of
negotiation would continue from where the thread had snapped at Agra and that
the Indian Prime Minister had accepted Musharraf’s invitation to visit Pakistan.
Pakistan too toned down its rhetoric and ‘operation salvage’ started.
Yet, again on 18th July, the spokesperson of the Indian ministry of external
affairs announced that Agra was a total failure and the new process would have
to start from the Shimla Accord of 1972.
In the ‘operation salvage’ the print and
electronic media of India, and also Pakistan, busied itself again on how to
bring the two countries closer to peace. Here, the money, the market and the
local advocates of the neo-liberal ideology of the present day world have come
to occupy center-stage. Their arguement keeps the interests of the common
Kashmiris and the question of their liberation off, and talk only of the
confidence building measures which are meant to fill the coffers of traders and
big businessmen and fulfil the interests of the liberal intellectuals and elite
sections of the society. After all, an FICCI delegation visited Pakistan before
the summit, and Reliance has the maximum to gain from the proposed Iran-India
gas pipeline, that crosses Pakistan. They argue that let money, goods and
‘goodwill’ flow freely across the border and this will automatically take care
of the struggle for the independence of Kashmir. The Indian Prime Minister
rejects the theses of political rights and says that the ‘fundamental right’ of
the Kashmiris is economic progress and not independence.They think that this
business angle will make the political and national aspirations of the Kashmiris
die their own death. They want rivals to close ranks for the TNCs and Indian
compradors to more fully exploit the regional market. It is a golden bait to
trap Pakistan in its web, as Pakistan is already hard pressed due to a severe
financial crunch and has even been forced to drastically slash its military
budget recently. Within Pakistan too, the vested business community is raising
such voices to bring ‘peace’ to the region. The ‘world community’ of rich
countries have been watching the developments in the sub-continent with
interest. The US declared that it wants a settlement reached between the two
countries. It wants India recognised as the regional boss and Pakistan ‘helped’
to avoid the catastrophe of a "failed State." For the US a settlement
will create an atmosphere "to tame the Muslim militant fundamentalist forces"
in the region. The US Secretary of State has again repeated the wish to mediate
between India and Pakistan on Kashmir or any other issue if both parties agree.
Russia and the EU have also said that the summit is not a failure and the
dialogue should be continued. For all the major powers an independent Kashmir is
unwelcome.
How far Musharraf will be prepared to bite into the
‘golden’ bait and for how long the "core" and "centrality" of the
Kashmir question will affect Musharraf’s future behaviour will remain an
important aspect to be seen in the coming months. Meanwhile, Kashmir is passing
through the worst of times, as the summit has not brought it any respite from
repression and State terrorism.
The Kashmiris Not Recognised
The rulers do not recognise the Kashmiris as the
principal party to the conflict. Although Musharraf stressed that "the
Kashmiri representatives will have to be involved at some stage of the
negotiations", India vehemently refused to include Kashmiris in any
"bilateral" talks between the states. India even resented the Pakistani high
commissioner’s invitation to the Hurriyet for a get-together at tea. For India,
Kashmir is an "internal matter" and it does not want the issue to be
‘internationalised’ though it is always ready to discuss Kashmir with powers
like the US. Many times it has pleaded before the ‘international community’
to help stop "Pakistani interference" and declare it a terrorist State
just on account of the turmoil in Kashmir. Musharraf defied the Indian
government and had an audience with the Hurriyet at the Pakistani embassy.
Later, the Pakistani foreign minister told the press in Delhi that Musharraf
pledged the Hurriyet to continue Pakistan’s support for the Kashmiri struggle
"politically, diplomatically and morally." Musharraf, like his predecessors,
rules out the possibility of an independent Kashmir.
The Hurriyet had even decided to suspend its
agitation against the Indian authorities to create a congenial atmosphere for
the summit. It also appealed to the militants not to use religious places, as it
gives a pretext to the Indian forces to enter these places and destroy them. As
per the negotiations between the two countries, the Kashmiris have found no
place on the negotiating table, though Kashmir remained the main issue
throughout the summit. Indian stubbornness not to recognise the centrality of
the Kashmir problem as a key to easing tensions in the region stands in the way
of a "negotiated solution." India thinks that for the Kashmiris, only the
gun is the right way. Refusal to recognise the Hurriyet as the representatives
of the Kashmiris, refusal to recognise that Kashmir is a problem to be sorted
out among the three concerned parties, and refusal to consider it as a basically
political question and not merely a problem of law and order, make India opt for
repression and the gun. Vajpayee has again said that the "struggle in Kashmir
is nothing but terrorism." Though it is clear that the Indian government can
never impose its will on the Kashmiris through the barrel, yet its reactionary
and anti-people character forces it to not
listen to the reality.
Indian hopes to bring ‘peace’ in Kashmir
through deception,but, and the subterfuge of a so-called political process have
received a major setback.After the summit the Indian occupation forces have
stepped up the military operations. The killing of militants and ordinary people
in the name of fighting insurgency has increased. For the Hurriyet and the
people of Kashmir things stand as they were. Given the obduracy of the Indian
rulers the occupation of Kashmir is not going to be ended through any kind of
negotiations. Guns forced India on to the negotiating table and only guns can
make it recognise and listen to the reality that it is a struggle for
independence.
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