People's Democracy

US Makes Intent On Kashmir Clear

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

ROUGHLY half a century after the infamous Dixon plan of the mid-fifties, the cat is again out of the US imperialists’ bag. While in New Delhi on July 28, during the first leg of his Indo-Pak tour, US secretary of state Colin Powell categorically said that the US views the Kashmir issue as a “global issue.” Thereby Powell has made clear what was only implicitly understood hitherto --- that the US is itching to intervene in the Kashmir dispute in a full-fledged manner.

PERENNIAL US INTENTION

During his India visit, this representative of US imperialism also made a few ‘suggestions’ to the Indian government of the day. One of these was that international observers (!) must be allowed during the impending Jammu & Kashmir assembly polls to ensure its “credibility.” This is as if no election process is credible unless and until the US imperialists certify it as such.

In fact, this strident demand in the name of a ‘suggestion’ is perfectly in accord with the perennial US intention to intervene in elections in any part of the world so as to influence their outcome. Not to mention the scores of earlier examples, the way the Americans and other NATO powers subverted the Yugoslav elections after having illegally ousted the popularly elected president, Slobodan Milosevic, is still fresh in people’s memory. And in the same way they are preparing to ‘observe’ or even subvert the Afghanistan elections that are due to take place in a few months time!

And what is the biggest farce of the day? That this talk of credibility comes from the representative of a US president whose own election the whole world knows was the result of a falsified verdict!

As for the release of political prisoners in the state, it is also a matter of mutual dialogue between the governments in New Delhi and Srinagar on the one hand and various constituents of the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) on the other. Even at the time of the unilateral ceasefire announced by the GoI, the CPI(M) had expressed its opinion that such a dialogue must be held at the earliest, and that the government of India must itself take initiative for it. We have also been saying that all those who subscribe to the principle of Indian unity must be allowed to take part in the impending elections. Thus the US has no locus standi here either. And if US leaders are today making so many ‘suggestions’ to India, where were they when Pakistani authorities debarred the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) from taking part in the elections in the Pak-Occupied Kashmir (POK), simply because the JKLF refused to agree to the POK’s merger with Pakistan? Surely the US imperialist double standard knows no bounds!  

DUBIOUS CREDIT FOR BJP LEADERS

As for Powell’s contention that Kashmir is on the “international agenda,” this too lends credence to our worst fears that the nation’s unity and integrity are not safe in the BJP-led government’s hands. Needless to remind, this is the first time US imperialists have openly expressed their desire to meddle in Kashmir affairs. And the dubious credit for it goes to the BJP-led government that always tried to take the unenviable place of Pakistan as the American watchdog in the South Asian region. The very day in May 1998 when Advani linked the Kashmir issue with India’s possession of nuclear weapons, was the saddest day in the history of Kashmir. For, it was that very statement on the issue that paved the way for the Kashmir issue’s internationalisation.

This was in total contrast to the opinion cherished by democratic forces in both India and Pakistan that the two countries must try to solve their mutual disputes through peaceful bilateral negotiations, without giving any third party a chance to intervene. This was what late Mrs Indira Gandhi and late Shri Z A Bhutto formalised in their Shimla agreement that they signed in August 1972. As we know, the world opinion on the whole welcomed this agreement as it was expected to go a long way in reducing tension in the subcontinent. The efficacy of the agreement can be judged from the fact that it has prevented a war between the two countries; even the Kargil scuffle cannot detract from this significance of the agreement.   

One significant aspect of the Shimla agreement was that Kashmir was included among the bilateral issues pending between India and Pakistan, and it was expected that, given political will and a saner attitude on part of leaders of both the countries, it would be solved sooner or later. But the tragedy is that while the leaders of Pakistan did not show any such will or attitude, leaders of the BJP-led government too adopted a most belligerent attitude on the issue, and even threatened Pakistan to behave as India was now a nuclear power. It is an another matter that Pakistan’s leaders soon retaliated with their nuclear tests in the Chagai hills.

Here it is pertinent to note that US imperialists and the Jan Sangh/BJP leaders had a virtually identical attitude to the Shimla agreement when it was signed, and even later. They both hated the agreement.

DISSERVICE TO THE NATION

And now Powell’s statement does make it clear, beyond any iota of doubt, that the issue of Kashmir has been internationalised. This way the BJP’s and its central government’s leaders have rendered a singular disservice to the nation. And the ignominy for it goes to the BJP and its remote control, the RSS, both of whom never tire of moralising others about patriotism! 

The BJP’s excessive, rather overwhelming, love for American imperialists is also clear from the way the government of India behaved after Powell’s statements in New Delhi and Islamabad. While in Delhi, Powell expressed concern that terrorist infiltration into Kashmir valley has not stopped though the level of tension between India and Pakistan has decreased. But as soon as he reached Islamabad, Powell (not for the first time) changed his tune, and tried to downplay the importance of infiltration issue. There he said:

“Everybody agrees infiltration has gone down. Some say it is significant, others say it is only temporary and not significant. The US is monitoring the situation carefully. We still are not able to say that it has been stopped….. We will be watching it very carefully. At the moment there is a difference of opinion whether it has ended or not. The important thing is that tensions have gone down significantly” (Hindustan Times, June 29).

This way, for the US secretary of state, as far as the evil of infiltration is concerned, the glass is half empty as well as half filled up. It all depends on whether he views the glass from the New Delhi side or from the Islamabad side.    

HEIGHT OF SERVILITY

But despite all these pontifications, ‘suggestions’ and antics on part of Powell, the way our ministry of external affairs (MEA) reacted, was a class in itself. An MEA spokeswoman said India could not accept outside mediation in Kashmir issue. So far so good. She said any number of people may come to Jammu & Kashmir to see the election process taking place, but they cannot be given the formal status of observers with a power to certify its validity. So far so good, again, though only two days ago external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha had said the government was prepared to allow international observers in the state. But, all said and done, the government of India’s MEA took pains to laud the Bush emissary, saying that he fully understood the views put across by Indian leaders.

In fact, as The Asian Age (July 29) put it, the GoI not only “brushed aside the view that the US was playing a role of mediator to resolve the issues between India and Pakistan,” and it not only “expressed satisfaction over the outcome of the talks.” To cap the BJP government’s servility to the US, the MEA spokeswoman also said after Powell had left for Islamabad:

“We did not detect any false note during the visit” (emphasis added).

That is perfectly understandable. The saffron brigade’s very vocabulary is such that there is no “false note” in Powell’s contention that “the US is monitoring the situation very carefully” and “we will be watching it very carefully” (see the HT quotation above). Nor is anything surprising in it. For, it was prime minister Vajpayee himself who had, three years ago, approved the text of Bill Clinton and Nawaz Sharif’s joint communiqué, even before it was issued from Washington. One may recall that Clinton had, in that communiqué, officially announced that he would be taking “personal interest” in the Kashmir affair. After all, Powell has not said anything different from what Vajpayee had asked Clinton to say and do!

PRONOUNCED

MYOPIA

But the BJP government’s myopic attitude appears all the more pronounced when we turn our gaze inward and ponder over what the former is doing to solve the Kashmir problem. As we have said several times earlier, the problem of Kashmir is a unique problem of Indian democracy. The autonomy that was given to Jammu & Kashmir was no gift from the government of India. It was in fact a recognition of the important role the people of the princely state played in fighting the Pak-sent armed raiders and also in forcing the Maharaja to accede to the Indian Union, thereby giving a lie to the pernicious two-nation theory. This is what the whole country recognised, except the communal RSS and its outfits including the Jan Sangh earlier and the BJP now. The fact is that a section of our population did hope that the BJP would behave responsibly once its came to power, but all their hopes stand belied. Whether it is the Ayodhya dispute or article 370, clearly the BJP has not, by any means, given up its anti-national stance.

This is evident from the way the BJP and its government treated the Kashmir issue after it came to power. Now the RSS has again raised the issue of the state’s trifurcation on communal lines and threatened to press its demand in a strident way. The centre has summarily rejected the J&K assembly’s resolution on autonomy, without even holding a discussion on it either with the state government or in an all-party meet. And now the government has appointed BJP spokesman Arun Jaitley as its interlocutor on Kashmir, at the same time asserting that he would only discuss the issue of devolution of powers to the state and not the issue of autonomy.

All this is certainly going to further alienate the people of Kashmir and thereby jeopardise our unity and integrity. Here, without repeating our views about what must be done in relation to the state (see the eight points in my article in July 21 issue of the paper), we can only say that if any harm comes to our unity and integrity, the BJP’s central government and its opportunist partners will be squarely responsible for it.

However, this is not what the secular, democratic and patriotic forces may remain content with. On the contrary, they have to intervene with full force to see that such a tragic situation does not arise, in the first place. And they can be quite sure that the people would be solidly backing their fight for preservation of our unity, amity, secular ethos and of our composite Indian culture, of which Kashmiriyat forms an integral part.