No More Credit
until the Liberation of Kashmir
By G Mujtaba
Canada
“No more credit until the liberation of
Kashmir” was the new notice in 1990s displayed
at a general store in my neighbourhood replacing
the earlier conventional one that used to be marked
with the traditional description saying, “Seeking
credit kills solicitude.”
That decade saw the heightening of struggle for
the liberation of Kashmir after a long lull following
the Simla Accord that effectively turned it from
an international issue to a bilateral dispute.
This further facilitated the Indians to avoid
any dialogue on Kashmir with no pressure from
any international forum. The hot conflict in Kashmir,
however, led in 1999 to the Kargil adventure along
the LoC attracting the influence of the third
party into the scenario to stabilize the situation.
The 1990s was also the decade when the military
and civilian leaderships of Pakistan remained
at odd with each other on the questions of Kashmir,
Afghanistan and the nuclear program. This situation
favoured India while it remained anxious to develop
a nexus with the political leadership of Pakistan
to forge economic relationship at the cost of
the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. An early
such attempt was made in 1989 when Rajiv and Benazir,
both proud to be born to ‘great’ prime
ministers enabling them to form an easy equation,
came closer to have a tidbit that did not go beyond
swapping the support from Pakistan to unrest in
East Punjab with the one from India to troublemakers
in Karachi. Both the leaders nevertheless agreed
to postpone the matter of Kashmir.
The Indians were too successful in their attempt
to escape their responsibility to resolve the
Kashmir dispute when the Gujral doctrine was formulated
which entailed indulging neighbouring countries
into a continued dialogue instead of genuinely
resolving the conflicts. As an arch example of
this doctrine, IK Gujral, the then PM of India,
developed a special liaison with Nawaz Sharif
and motivated him to foster family business links
with Indian businesses like Tata Steels. This
served as a precursor to convincing the then political
leadership of Pakistan to strike a deal with India
despite a great deal of reservations from the
Army. The fruits of the effort of Gujral were
borne when Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif signed the
Lahore Declaration emphasizing cooperation in
all other areas of bilateral relationship except
meeting obligations on Kashmir.
This dichotomy of the Pakistani leadership on
the issues of security concerns was resolved with
the induction of the Army in the corridors of
power when Gen Musharraf became the Chief Executive.
He maintained a consistent pressure on the Indian
government to initiate a dialogue on the issue
of Kashmir but the Indians preferred instead their
forces to be bled in the valley just because their
position on the table as well as on the ground
had weakened.
The situation radically altered after 9/11 when
Pakistan, after a thorough assessment, risked
its regional stakes by deciding in favour of supporting
the American ‘war on terror’ in spite
of the popular ambitions against this adventure.
This failed the Indian desire of getting the struggle
in Kashmir to be internationally declared as a
terrorist activity and of taking a chance to join
the American bandwagon with the hope of crushing
its neighbour. Pakistan, certainly by paying a
heavy cost of sacrificing its strategic assets
in Afghanistan, in turn succeeded in bringing
international pressure on India to start a dialogue
though a composite one but that should include
the issue of Kashmir on its agenda.
In order to win the process of dialogue with India
on all matters including the core issue of Kashmir,
Pakistan had to accept the demand of withdrawing
support to the freedom fighters in the valley.
India also capitalized on the situation by erecting
a fence along the LoC to ensure plugging any possibility
of ‘infiltration’ in future. On the
other hand, the Indians have yet not shown even
explicitly their willingness to accept the Kashmir
issue as a dispute between the two countries despite
yearlong sessions of talks at all levels.
The Indians are too keen to make an early progress
on all fronts of mutual concern without any preconditions.
But regarding Kashmir, they are too sensitive
to Pakistan’s demand of agreeing on a time
frame and a format of the dialogue. They are also
touchy on the question of including Kashmiris
in the talks process. Instead they are making
desperate efforts to woo the Kashmiris by alluring
them with offers of generous economic support
and a ‘vast’ autonomy within the framework
of Indian constitution.
So far the Indians have miserably failed in even
developing a liaison with the genuine Kashmiri
leadership. The only point that the Indians have
discussed and agreed to so far with Pakistan is
the running of a bus service between Srinagar
and Muzaffarabad. However, the Indians wanted
the carrying of passports across the LoC but Pakistan
insisted on the use of local permits, as was the
routine before 1953. The Indians badly failed
when the Kashmiris on both sides of the LoC themselves
opposed the use of passports.
Feeling the pressure on the Indians, President
Musharraf threw a feeler of ‘softening’
the stand on Kashmir provided the Indians also
came up ‘half way.’ This was to prove
that Pakistan was serious about the dialogue on
Kashmir and had fulfilled all the expectations
of the world community. The Indians could not
match the move and not only there was no discussion
on any level in the Indian media to discuss Pakistan’s
proposals, the Indian leadership started reiterating
their conventional position on the question of
Kashmir. This, however, confirmed that the Indians
have been under pressure to say something on the
mutual dispute which they are now obliged to do
due to new realities of the regional scenario.
In building such a pressure on India, the track-two
diplomacy is also active behind the scene. As
a part of their confidence-building strategy,
Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC and
has allowed the representatives from all walks
of life to exchange their visits to each other
country. But there is more to such activity in
recent months. The most important was the informal
dialogue between all parties to the conflict of
Kashmir that took place in Kathmandu by the end
of last year under the auspices of Pugwash International
and which was participated by leading representatives
of India, Pakistan and both sides of Kashmir.
It emphasized the need to consider Kashmiris as
important stakeholders to the process of dialogue
on Kashmir.
There have been important conferences participated
by the Kashmiris themselves, one in London by
the Kashmir Council and the other recently in
Islamabad by the European Union Parliamentary
Committee. The latter one will have yet another
corresponding session to be held in New Delhi
during April of this year. Meanwhile, a landmark
Kashmir conference with two-day marathon sessions
and a roundtable was held toward the end of February
at the UN Headquarters building in New York. These
conferences are mainly the results of the relentless
efforts of a network of Kashmiri Councils in Washington,
London and Brussels that represent Kashmiris on
both sides of the LoC, and have played a pivotal
role in bringing forth the consensus of the Kashmiris
on the question of the future of Kashmir through
a three-party dialogue.
Although the Indians are acting under vanity of
arrogance and might to deal with their neighbours
yet the key factor behind the question of Kashmir
is the will of the Kashmiris themselves to choose
their destiny. Until the Indians are able to woo
them on their side, Kashmir will remain a problem
for them to settle with their neighbour. The sooner
it is settled, the better it will be for the two
countries to get rid of the security burden and
unleash the great potential for the betterment
of their people.
But if the Indians are thinking of gaining time
in the hope of a change in the strategic balance
of forces in their favour, they will lose a historical
opportunity to settle the dispute. For Pakistan
there are only hopes that the will of Kashmiris
will prevail over the arrogant and mulish attitude
of the Indian leadership. In case, the current
process of dialogue fails, Pakistan will not hesitate
to go back even to square one to continue supporting
the struggle of Kashmiris.
Though it will take time to revitalize the movement
at a later stage but the world community will
see the sincerity of Pakistan to resolve the dispute
amicably. The intentions and attitude of the Indians
not to budge from their positions of interest
have been demonstrated by their stubbornness on
the issue of Baglihar Dam that is but one example
that the issues between the two countries cannot
be settled without arbitration by a third party.
While the Indian media has been too hypocritical
on discussing the pragmatic side of the peace
process between India and Pakistan, and has been
showing criminal dereliction on journalism except
mischievous and derisive reporting, recently there
was a sign (probably the first and so far the
only one) of breaking ice on the Indian intellectual
front.
And that is a striking article “Joining
the dots in J&K” by Kuldip Nayar, published
on the first of February in the Indian Express.
Nayar, a veteran Indian journalist, has been very
close to the Pakistani media for more than two
decades and is said to have intimate access to
policy makers in both India and Pakistan. He is
known to have a 'rational opinion' above the 'political,
ethnic and sectarian' extremist taboos in the
subcontinent but ironically has recently been
fiercely criticizing Pakistan for its support
to the Kashmiri cause since it lacked the same
'democratic' spirit at home.
Nayar has been a delegate to the Kathmandu and
Islamabad Conferences on Kashmir and was expected
to be at the NY Kashmir Conference as well. He
has been interacting with almost all the Kashmiri
leadership ostensibly in pursuit of finding recreants
among the Kashmiris that can do 'business' with
the Indian establishment. He has thus served as
an informal interlocutor between the Indian government
and the renegades of the Kashmiri cause.
But he has finally seen the writing on the wall
that despite of all the 'incentives' and 'democratic
indoctrinations', the Kashmiris are not willing
to give in to the ambitions of the Indian elite.
He has therefore spoken his mind 'honestly' to
declare that: (1) India has to recognize the Kashmir
conflict while negotiating with its neighbor Pakistan;
(2) India has to admit that Kashmiris are the
third and essential party to the conflict; and
that (3) Indians have to come to terms with Kashmiris
who are not happy breathing within the confine
of the Indian constitution despite massive incentives.
During recent months, two Indian personalities
IK Gujral and K Nayar who have developed sufficient
inroads into the Pakistani elite, visited Pakistan
and got mixed up with the intelligentsia there.
They discussed every issue of mutual interest,
even hypocritically claiming that India has all
along been sincere to settle the Kashmir issue,
but also both of them retorted that they did not
envisage any solution to the conflict other than
maintaining the status quo and that of course
is implicitly forging the LoC.
The track-two diplomacy and the liaison, though
not at a full swing, between the Kashmiri leadership
from both sides of the LoC, courtesy the Kashmir
Council and other sympathetic organizations around
the world, are gradually approaching a situation
which India would not be able to evade. The first
such sign has recently become evident when the
Kashmiris, and not only Pakistan, have won the
right of the people on both sides to move across
the LoC without any passports. Even the most desperate
person in this game, President Musharraf, also
acknowledges seeing the light on the other end
of the tunnel. Only those will obviously reach
this other end that remain steadfast with their
true cause. The qualitative change is bound to
occur suddenly at any moment of history that can
hardly be perceptible immediately before that.
For India it may be a game of ladders and snakes
that they think they can win by cheating all the
parties concerned but for Pakistan it will be
a final phase of interacting with its neighbour
peacefully. The Indians are living under the false
whims to subjugate Pakistan by fostering the so-called
confidence-building measures. They must know that
the issue of Kashmir will not submerge under the
pond of CBMs but rather the CBMs have been initiated
as part of the process to resolve the dispute
of Kashmir. The Indians must not expect that they
would continue to gain time or seek more concessions
from the Pakistan side to improve their strategic
position around Kashmir. By far they should have
clearly read the notice: No more credit until
the liberation of Kashmir.
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