India has called off foreign
secretary level talks with Pakistan- a week before they were to be held in
Islamabad as a follow-up to Nawaz Sharif’s presence during PM Modi’s swearing
in. The immediate provocations were meetings, despite forewarnings, between
Pakistani envoy to India & separatist leaders of J&K. Since such interactions
did not take place for the first time, therefore speculation about the real
reason for calling off the talks dominated Indian media debates. While the
supporters of BJP govt. overwhelmingly saw it as an assertion of strength by
the new prime minister who sent a clear message to Pakistan that it will have
to choose between Indian govt. & a motley group of its supporters in Srinagar
under the umbrella of Huriyat Conference. The Opposition, mainly Congress,
initially criticized the govt. for going ahead with talks notwithstanding
continuing ceasefire violation by Pakistan but changed track later highlighting
that the decision should have come sooner if at all.
The truth is that India has been
found wanting in dealing with a rogue state like Pakistan, which has been
hell-bent on creating trouble in J&K since 1947 when Pakistan invaded it to
ensure merger of a Muslim-majority state with itself while its Hindu Maharaja,
keen on independence, opted for accession to India to save it from the same
fate. The festering dispute, which has taken a toll of several thousand lives
and valuable resources during the last 66 years, could have been resolved on
several occasions had the Indian political leadership of the day risen to the
occasion. Unfortunately, it did not happen!
When Indian forces landed in Sri
Nagar following the signing of the Instrument of Accession by Maharaja Hari
Singh, they were just in time to stop the Pakistani tribesmen from capturing
the valley. But the time was also ripe to carry on the military operation to
its finality. However, the idealist in Nehru got better of the strategist.
Nehru thought and not wrongly at that time that Kashmiris will prefer to opt to
live in a secular India than in the new nation born out of religious bigotry, hatred
& violence. As a liberal humanist & a Kashmiri Pandit himself, Nehru
had confidence in his people. He took the issue of Pakistani invasion of
Kashmir to U.N. and the rest is history. India could and should have carried on
the military operation to its conclusion and reclaimed what is now called POK
or ironically, Azad Kashmir by Pakistan.
The 1965 war with Pakistan was
fought when Lal Bahadur Shastri was at the helm of affairs in India. Objective
analysts believe that military gains were shared by both the parties. While
Pakistan made some territorial gains in J&K, India neutralized them in
other sectors. A ceasefire followed & USSR intervened to bring the warring
nations to bargaining table. The
Tashkent agreement, ostensibly forced upon a reluctant India, enjoined upon
India & Pakistan to retreat to positions held before the war started.
Therefore, it was another diplomatic disaster, which also tragically ended our
prime minister’s life abroad.
The third opportunity to resolve
the Kashmir issue presented itself following Pakistan’s rout in 1971 war.
Indian military also made significant gains on the western front while taking 80,000
soldiers as POWs following the famous Dhaka surrender by Gen. Niazi. The stage
was ripe for a lasting solution to Kashmir but Indira Gandhi frittered away the
gains on the bargaining table in Simla next year. Bhutto pleaded that India had
inflicted enough damage by finishing East Pakistan. India offered to return
either the territories in the western sector or the POWs held during the war
under the false impression that Pakistan would prefer the latter. Bhutto
promptly asked for the former and explained later that India could not hold on
to its men indefinitely. If Indira Gandhi were as cunning as the wily Sindhi
from across the border, she would have insisted on Pakistani withdrawal from
POK as the only precondition for both.
India was fourth time unlucky
when it was let down by the NDA govt. at Agra in 2001. Pakistani
dictator-cum-president, Parvez Musharraf, was being hosted at the summit by
Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Gen. Musharraf, an army man and architect of Kargil war
during Vajpayee’s Lahore Bus Yatra, was keen to go down the annals of history
as a game changer. He appeared willing to rule out solutions unacceptable to
both India & Pakistan and look for unconventional ideas, including making
borders porous and irrelevant. Musharraf was a hard core military commander who
was determined to accomplish a difficult mission in a flamboyant style. When
the agreement was about to be inked around midnight, Musharraf’s move was checkmated
by our Sindhi. L.K. Advani, then PM
Vajpayee’s deputy, reportedly fielded Sushma Swaraj to address a press
conference around midnight, which scuttled it.
With Advani’s bête noir Modi as
PM and his protégé, Sushma Swaraj as the MEA calling off the talks now, will
another opportunity to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio present itself anytime
soon? Only time will tell!
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