Immediately after the failed Agra Summit of 2001, a joke did the
rounds on the internet and on mobile SMSes in Karachi and Lahore. It
went like this. General Musharraf, Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee, Margaret Thatcher and Madhuri Dixit are travelling together
in a train compartment. The train goes through a mountain tunnel and
as everything goes dark, the sound of a kiss followed by a slap is
heard. When the train emerges into light once again, everyone sees Mr
Vajpayee sitting sullenly clutching his reddened cheek.
At that point, Margaret Thatcher is thinking: "These subcontinental
people! Always unable to control their urges! Vajpayee must have
kissed Madhuri and she slapped him." Madhuri is thinking: "Atal jee
must have tried to kiss me - and who can blame him - but mistakenly
kissed Lady Thatcher instead who slapped him." Mr Vajpayee is
thinking: "Damn this Musharraf. He must have kissed Madhuri and she
thinking it was me, slapped me instead." Meanwhile General Musharraf
is thinking: "I can't wait for the train to go through another tunnel
so I can make the sound of another kiss and slap Vajpayee again!"
The joke captured the spirit of Pak India relations perfectly. Like a
divorced couple who can't get over each other or like two schoolyard
kids, obsessed with showing each other up at every opportunity,
Pakistan and India can't seem to live with or without each other.
One has only to look at newsstands or music shop posters to
understand the depth of this symbiotic relationship. Shah Rukh Khan
and Aishwarya Rai beckon from every third magazine cover and poster.
Shan and Meera should be so lucky. Even at the height of the tensions
on the border, video shops in Pakistan continued to do a roaring
business in Bollywood films and the piracy of Indian music went
equally unabated. (It's another matter that most people kept
complaining about the quality of both over the last year. But then
that view was shared across the border as well.) In fact, when the
Pakistani government banned cable companies from transmitting Indian
satellite television channels, videowallahs responded to demand by
flooding their shelves with taped episodes of such long-running
Indian soaps as "Kyonke Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" and "Kahani Ghar
Ghar Ki." Confirming, as if proof were needed, that even our
collective lack of taste is mutual.
But "Indian" culture permeates other aspects of Pakistani lives as
well. Paan shops at every street corner flaunt packaged paan masalas
with unreadable Hindi lettering while many shops now carry smuggled
Hajmola digestive tablets and ayurvedic medicines. Traditional
weddings songs have been all but replaced by popular Indian film
songs in most Pakistani mehndi functions. Benarsi silk is still a
coveted item. And no matter how much the thunder-squads of the Jamaat
may fume, young men in Federal B. Area dream of the time when open
trade with India will allow them to purchase cheaper motorbikes.
As long as you don't raise the issue of Kashmir, Pakistanis it seems
are quite happy to lap up whatever India throws at them.
On the other side of the border, the love-hate relationship with
Pakistan exists in equally strong measure. Most of the time, the
Indian establishment speaks of Pakistan with an almost dismissive
tone. India is the "world power", Pakistan is too inconsequential to
be taken seriously and at worst is a thorn in the side of the giant.
But pick up any Indian newspaper and the obsession with this
inconsequential thorn is astounding. There is almost a morbid
fascination with all that is wrong in Pakistan, from the role of the
military, to the statements of the jehadis to the status of women.
News from or about Pakistan, even tangentially, usually makes front
page headlines.
When Lady Nadira of Bahawalpur and Naipaul, attending a jamboree in
Delhi in January for Non-Resident Indians, was attacked in print by
the editor of the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece as a "Non-Resident
Pakistani", her response made the front page of the Times of India.
"I Feel Like I Am In Pakistan" the 3-column headline quoted her as
saying. Of course, she was speaking not out of nostalgia, but out of
anguish, likening the personal attack on her with her "persecution"
in Pakistan.
More than any other single person, however, India is obsessed with
General Musharraf, the hated architect of Kargil, the blunt charmer
of Agra. His every word and action is analysed and commented upon in
the Indian press. And when needed, as in the Gujarat elections, he is
trotted out as the ultimate bogey-man. If Narendra Modi lost, the BJP
electioneering implied, the general from Pakistan would be the
state's ruler.
On the cultural front, despite all antagonisms and an
almost-Orientalist ignorance of life in Pakistan - the press is
muzzled, women can't work, Hindus and Christians have all fled -
there is also a fascination in India with anything Pakistani.
Pakistani cotton is envied, the "salwar kameez" is in vogue despite
the impression given by Zee TV. The success of artists such as Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan and Adnan Sami across the border is common knowledge.
But pop bands that have managed to visit India, such as Junoon and
Strings, have also received a response beyond their wildest
expectations. While Gulzar waxes lyrical about the beauty of Urdu,
Pakistani poets are regularly feted when they do manage to go across,
although their slightly less than glamorous status means their names
are usually quickly forgotten.
Indian music composers regularly pick up Pakistani hits from
yesteryear - including classics from Mehdi Hasan - to rehash as
originals. Witness the current Bollywoodization of Reshma's mournful
Lambi Judai. And as popsters such as Hasan Jahangir and Raheem Shah
can attest, even more recent melodies can find their way on to the
albums of the likes of Altaf Raja. It may not have sounded too
elegant, but someone actually sang Dil Dil Hindustan as well.
Bollywood too just can't seem to shake its Pakistan fixation ever
since the success of films like "Sarfarosh" and "Border" which set
new standards in demonizing Pakistani soldiers and ghazal singers.
And now a whole slew of films are under production with Kargil as the
backdrop, raising the question: what will Indian film producers do if
relations improve? Perhaps take a cue from what veteran director
Mahesh Bhatt plans to do: make a "Schindler's List" set in Pakistan.
The fact of the matter is, like a divorced couple, Pakistan and India
need to accept their shared history and move on. We need to realize
that we still have some common friends, some common likes and
dislikes and even some household items we never returned. That we
will continue to bump into each other at social gatherings and rather
than pretend as if the other did not exist, it may be better to treat
each other as human beings once again. And yes, definitely stop
trying to slap each other in dark tunnels.
Barbara Crossette, a former bureau chief in South Asia and the United
Nations for the New York Times, is a columnist for U.N. Wire, an
independent Internet news service about international affairs.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the self-appointed president of Pakistan, got
the full treatment in Washington on Tuesday, including a meeting with
President Bush at secluded Camp David.
When the two leaders, thrown together by the war against Al Qaeda,
met the press after their session, the mood looked good and the talk
was of more trade - in fact, a trade and investment agreement - and
the promise of a potential $3 billion in aid. It was all a way of
thanking Pakistan for its continued assistance in the worldwide war
on terror and for helping reduce tensions with India over Kashmir.
There were some nudges. Musharraf may have been urged to work a
little harder at democracy, and he was told he had to do without the
F-16s the Pakistan air force wanted.
But, to judge by the public comments at their joint news conference,
the Pakistani president seems to have been let off the hook on the
extremely critical issue of nuclear arms - the very factor that has
made Kashmir a very dangerous issue. Both India and Pakistan claim
parts of Kashmir, a former autonomous kingdom in the Himalayas, and
both have nuclear arsenals.
At any other time, the reaction to this apparent oversight might have
been a shrug because Washington appeared to have given up any hope of
rolling back Indian and Pakistani nuclear programs a few years ago,
when President Clinton was in office.
But now, with the Bush administration obsessed with nuclear programs
in Iran and North Korea, it will look very odd to a lot of people
around the world that the U.S. seems to think that nukes don't matter
so much in South Asia, a politically volatile part of the world with
enormous social problems and hundreds of millions of people living in
poverty.
The latest figures from the Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Center in
Islamabad found that 515 million people, or about 40% of South
Asians, have seen their incomes decline in the era of globalization.
Indeed, Bush referred to this miserable situation when he said the
proposed $3 billion in economic and military aid would work toward
improving the lives of Pakistanis.
It is now an unspoken assumption that Pakistan's economic and
developmental failures have fueled Islamic militancy among young men
with no other prospects. Take this a step further. What if these
angry young men, and some women, who are pledged to fighting infidels
(starting with Hindus) actually come to power and the nuclear weapons
are theirs for the taking?
One recalls the decision of South Africa to disband its nuclear
program before the move to majority rule, when the dangers of nuclear
misuse were far less evident. This is not a course of action that
myopic Pakistan or, for that matter, Hindu nationalist India would
ever consider, even to save the world from nuclear disaster.
Pakistan and India, both of which tested weapons in 1998 - the first
Pakistani tests and the second for India, whose 1974 explosions
shattered the nuclear-free haven of South Asia - are rogues in
international terms since neither has signed the 1968 Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, or the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty.
President Bush's "axis of evil" - Iran, Iraq and North Korea - on the
other hand, did sign the nonproliferation treaty, although North
Korea has lately renounced its participation and sent home
International Atomic Energy Agency monitors.
It has been little noticed that inspectors from the IAEA have, under
that treaty, made regular visits to both Iran and Iraq, including one
to Iraq during the period after 1998 when there were no other
international arms inspections taking place.
It was the IAEA that most recently raised the alarm about Iranian
uranium imports and the construction of new nuclear installations.
The IAEA says Iran, now under a barrage of U.S. threats, is willing
to provide whatever information the agency wants.
In South Asia, not only are the two nuclear states able to avoid
inspections by staying outside the NPT but they've been reluctant,
according to local watchdog groups and the media, to keep their
nuclear facilities, military or civilian, at international standards
of maintenance, raising fears of accidents.
What the world will see increasingly is more American double standards.
Many nations never tire of challenging Washington about Israel's
uncontrolled nuclear programs. If India and Pakistan continue to get
the same pass, many will question whether it is really nuclearization
in Iran that bothers the Bush administration. Or is that just the
excuse? Remember the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
Government economists doubt the case for weapons exports. So why sell
Hawks to India?
A year ago, India and Pakistan stood on the verge of what many feared
would be a nuclear war. Tony Blair and other world leaders pleaded
with both governments to pull back from the brink. Although relations
between the two sides have improved recently, the risk of a war
triggered by events in the Kashmir Valley remains. In this context,
the imminent announcement of a deal between BAE Systems and the
Indian government for 66 Hawk jets is a source of great concern.
Contrary to previous denials, the British government has admitted
that an export licence for some Hawk components and production
equipment was approved in September 2001, and it is now certain to
pass the remaining licence to secure the deal. Of the 66 Hawks, 22
will be directly exported to India and 44 will be manufactured there.
The government's defence for the deal will be twofold. First, it will
say the Hawks are merely training aircraft. However, the BAE Systems
website states that Hawks can be adapted for more offensive use and
can "deliver a comprehensive array of air-to-air and air-to-surface
weaponry with pinpoint accuracy". Indonesia certainly used
British-supplied Hawk "trainers" aggressively in East Timor in 1999.
Furthermore, India's air force plans to use the Hawks to train pilots
to fly Jaguar fighter aircraft that are being upgraded with Israeli
avionics to make them nuclear-capable.
The British government's published criteria state that an export
licence should not be granted if "there is a clear risk that the
intended recipient would use the proposed export aggressively against
another country or to assert by force a territorial claim". That risk
clearly exists, but the government has chosen to play it down. By
supporting this deal, Britain will significantly enhance India's
offensive capability and contribute to further military build-up in
the region. Instead, it should be working with the United States, the
European Union and others to urge India and Pakistan to de-escalate
and demilitarise, and to begin serious negotiations over Kashmir.
The government's second defence for the deal will be that it is good
for the economy and jobs. But such an assertion is contested by The
Economic Costs and Benefits of UK Defence Exports, a report first
published in November 2001 and updated last year. The authors, Neil
Davies and Chris Wilkinson (senior economists at the Ministry of
Defence) and Malcolm Chalmers and Keith Hartley (independent
academics), looked at the likely economic effect of a 50 per cent
reduction in arms exports. They estimated that it would lead to the
loss of 49,000 jobs in the defence sector, but that this would be
offset by the creation of about 67,000 jobs in non-defence employment
over a five-year period. They also argued that, overall, national
income would be substantially the same after five years. The report
concluded that "the economic costs of reducing defence exports are
relatively small and largely one-off", and that "the balance of
argument about defence exports should depend mainly on non-economic
considerations".
The Hawk deal raises questions about the way the government makes
policy on arms export issues. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime
Minister, Foreign and Defence Secretaries have all been involved in
lobbying for the deal. Each licence application is supposed to be
considered impartially against agreed criteria, but the ministers'
promotion of the deal makes it almost inconceivable that a licence
would be refused.
Clear limits should be established on ministerial involvement in the
promotion of arms exports. The government should scrap the Defence
Export Services Organisation - which Denis Healey set up as defence
minister in the 1960s with the remit of promoting arms sales to the
developing world - and phase out the support given to arms exports by
the Export Credits Guarantee Department. There should also be greater
parliamentary involvement on arms export issues. Four select
committees, covering defence, foreign affairs, international
development and trade, have called for a prior parliamentary scrutiny
committee.
For too long, the moral case against some arms exports has been
trumped by the apparently invincible economic case in favour. But the
findings of the government's own economists suggest that a more
responsible approach is not a question of economic loss versus moral
gain. The government, first elected on a pledge to clean up the arms
trade, is running out of excuses for not doing so.
David Mepham is the head of the international programme at the
Institute for Public Policy Research
MALER KOTLA, India - Nothing gilds the future of a young Punjabi
couple like an engagement ring, but Shahida Kalo has had to tuck away
her ring and her hopes into a box, waiting on the whims and plunges
of the troubled India-Pakistan relationship.
Two years ago she was engaged at 17 to a cousin in Lahore, Pakistan,
a couple of hours away by road. But 18 months ago, relations between
the two nuclear powers plummeted and she had to put her wedding
dreams on hold when the border closed.
The twists and turns in diplomatic rhetoric make predictions about
India-Pakistan ties difficult, even for experts. As the politicians
alternately beckon and bluster, Kalo eagerly follows the television
news, trying to divine her future.
This mainly Muslim community is torn, with families scattered on each
side of the border. Cross-border marriages among Muslims here have
been traditional since the partition that created Pakistan in 1947,
dividing Punjabi Muslims.
"Our culture is the same, our food is the same, our dress is the
same, our language is the same," said Maler Kotla businessman Amjad
Ali, 49.
Pakistan and India recently agreed to exchange high commissioners,
stepping back from 18 months of hostilities when the nuclear powers
came perilously close to war. The thaw melted the surface ice, but
there are doubts about how far they will go to make peace in Kashmir,
the core dispute.
Hanging on the latest thaw are the marriage hopes of at least one
Punjabi couple and the safety of civilians in the strife-torn region
of Kashmir. And businessmen like Ali, a textile and furniture
manufacturer, dream of a direct trade route to Pakistan, Afghanistan
and Central Asia.
Set in a verdant patchwork of rice paddies, Maler Kotla is a
prosperous Punjabi town with pin-neat streets, its market a colorful
splash of summer fruit. In a country of 1 billion, where survival for
many is a grinding struggle, Maler Kotla is blessed. The Himalayas
pour spring waters into Punjab's four rivers and its many canals; the
earth is so fertile that the state, on just 1.5% of India's landmass,
provides a quarter of the nation's wheat and 10% of its rice.
The state has the best infrastructure in the nation, according to the
Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy, and the highest per capita
income.
Water buffalo wallow luxuriously in ponds, some so deep that only
their nostrils protrude. The houses are well-appointed, topped with
eccentric water tanks shaped like soccer balls, cars, hats or
airplanes.
Kalo, a laborer's daughter, saw her fiance, Asef Ashi, once - four
years ago - after her parents arranged the marriage. She glanced
shyly into his eyes, trying in one moment to glean what she could of
her future. He was handsome, and his voice was silky. Recalling, she
blushes, covers her face and giggles. Yes, she liked him.
Perhaps marriage will free her from her drudgery of sewing two
dresses a day for less than $2 in a house in the back alleys of
central Maler Kotla. Perhaps she will have to work harder.
Ashi, 22, works in a fabric shop. She doesn't know what his dreams
are, but she's willing to work for them.
Kalo and others like her pin their hopes on an agreement between the
governments to resume a bus service from New Delhi to Lahore next
month.
Kalo heard nothing from her fiance until he called a few days ago,
promising to bring her to Pakistan as soon as the bus line resumes.
After 18 months apart they spoke just 10 minutes.
"He said I miss you and you can guess what else," she said. When Ashi
told her he loved her for the first time, "I was thrilled," she
added. "My heart was beating so fast. As soon as the border reopens,
we'll marry.
"The entire fight between the two countries is because of Kashmir. I
hope they'll solve the Kashmir problem once and for all and harmonize
relations."
The border was closed and diplomatic ties were cut after an attack by
Islamic militants on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 that
killed 14, including five assailants. In April, Indian Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee offered peace talks if the Islamabad government
closed Islamic militants' camps in Pakistan and prevented them from
infiltrating Kashmir.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says that the incursions have
stopped. He has called on India to take more concrete steps toward
peace, but the Indians insist that the militants in Kashmir are still
active. The U.S. ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, also said
recently that terrorism emanating from Pakistan has not stopped.
After the border closed, some families in Maler Kotla missed
relatives' weddings or funerals. Some could not visit dying relatives.
The day the border closed, Tahira Parveen, 30, was trapped on the
wrong side. She managed to return to her Pakistani husband in Lahore
but was deported last year, despite offering authorities proof of the
marriage. She thinks that she was kicked out because relations
between the countries were then at rock bottom.
Punjab would surge ahead, says Ali, the businessman, if only the
leaders of India and Pakistan would make the peace that people crave,
and open the border. "If the border opened, this would be the most
prosperous place. They are short of iron [in Pakistan], and we have a
lot of iron. We could export a lot of goods to them. And they have
huge supplies of power, while we are short of electricity."
Praful Bidwai, a national political columnist who writes for more
than 20 newspapers, said the trade benefit to both countries would
amount to between $4 billion and $5 billion. "It's much more than the
foreign investment that both India and Pakistan receive," he said.
Ali believes that the cost of the Kashmir conflict in military
spending, lost lives and lost trade is too high for both sides. "It
will have to stop. There's no other way out. There's no life on those
mountains," he said, referring to the disputed territory.
When a bus chugs from New Delhi to Lahore - within weeks, if the
fragile thaw does not freeze over - Shahida Kalo's hopes, and those
of countless others, will ride with it.
Her only problem then will be to get a ticket.
AN election pledge by Kashmir's ruling party to stop 'disappearances'
and trace thousands of missing persons has been denounced as little
more than a 'hoodwinking' process.
Indian-administered Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and
Pakistan for more than 50 years. Many people have vanished, presumed
dead or imprisoned without trial or record.
Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, whose own People's Democratic
Party (PDP) won an election in Kashmir last October, had promised to
appoint an independent commission to help locate the missing persons.
But nine months on, little progress has been made and 26 more people
have disappeared.
A week-long hunger strike in protest earlier this year prompted
Sayeed to say that 60 people had disappeared in Kashmir over the past
14 years. But more recently Sayeed contradicted his statement in
front of the Indian state assembly and admitted 3744 persons had gone
missing since 2000.
The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) maintains
two people disappeared from custody following a visit by the Indian
Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and Indian federal government
interlocutor to Kashmir, NN Vohra. APDP says its findings reveal 8000
people have disappeared in custody in Kashmir over the past 14 years.
Pervez Imroz, a human rights lawyer who spearheads APDP, said:
'During his election campaign [Sayeed] repeatedly promised to set up
an independent enquiry commission into the disappearances if he came
to power. However, this has proved to be a hoax and more cases
continue to take place.'
Former state law minister for Kashmir Muzaffar Hussain Beigh -- now
Kashmir's finance minister -- stated 135 missing persons had been
declared dead up to June 2002, warning a far higher number could soon
be revealed.
The APDP says more than 500 custodial disappearance cases have been
established by Kashmir's judiciary.
'Vajpayee can understand the lingering pain a person with a
disappeared son, father or husband in the family must endure,' says
Rahee Meraj, whose son was taken and not seen again.
As more Kashmiris disappear, opposition to Sayeed and his 'healing
touch' election pledges are dismissed as part of a hood winking
process.
'They are misleading the international community by providing false
data regarding the disappearances' said 15-year-old Bilquees, whose
father was taken into custody and not seen again.
Nazim Jan, from the Kashmir border district of Uri, is looking for
her three brothers. 'I want justice. I have been searching for them
for the last 13 years, but in vain,' she said. 'How can Sayeed, who
claims to champion the cause of helping those hit by violence here,
close his eyes to us?' Is he not the same man who promised us the
healing touch?' asks APDP member Parveena Ahangar, whose son went
missing 13 years ago.
'And what about the independent commission he promised to set up to
investigate disappearance cases?' asked Akbar Jehan, whose two sons
were picked up by the Indian army five years ago and not seen again.
Ghulam Mohammad Bazaz, whose son, Sajjad, was picked up by the
paramilitary Border Security Force on February 12, 1992, says he met
with Sayeed twice, and he assured him his case would be looked into.
He said: 'My son was arrested by Commandant Rathore of 30 Battalion
of paramilitary Border Security Force and it has been proved by
court. But no action has been taken against the arresting officer.'
On July 4, 1995, two Britons: Keith Mangan, from Middlesbrough, and
Paul Wells, from Blackburn, were kidnapped by Kashmiri militants
demanding the release of 21 of their jailed colleagues. German
Dirk-Hasert, Norwegian Hans Christian Ostroe, and American Don
Hutchings were also kidnapped while trekking in the Indian Himalayas.
Ostroe was found beheaded in a remote Kashmiri forest the following
month after India refused to release the militants.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's daughter, Rubaiyya Sayeed, was herself
kidnapped by Kashmiri militants following his appointment as India's
first Muslim home minister in 1989. She was released in exchange for
militants.
The region's principal militant group is Al-Faran: an alias of the
Pakistan-based Harakat ul- Mujahedin (HUM). Al-Faran is a member of
Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, says the US State
Department.
The UK, Germany, the US and Norway say they are striving -- with the
Indian and Pakistani governments -- to determine what has happened to
their missing nationals.
The world will be watching when General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan
becomes south Asia's first leader to visit Camp David next week, but
no one more intently than a shy 19-year-old Indian seamstress called
Shahida Kalo.
The stark, back-street room where she runs up dresses for 40 rupees
(45p) on an ancient Basant sewing machine could hardly be more
removed from the American President's rural retreat, a place reserved
for entertaining America's special foreign friends. Yet she has a
profound personal interest in what happens there.
At Tuesday's meeting, George Bush will overlook the general's illegal
seizure of power in a 1999 coup because of his limited moves to
restore democracy, reward him for joining the so-called war on terror
and cajole him to do more. But he will also encourage President
Musharraf to press on with the shuffle towards peace-making India and
Pakistan started in the spring, albeit haltingly and amid deep mutual
suspicion.
Ms Kalo's future hinges on this process. The issue of war and peace
between these neighbours, who only last summer were brandishing
nuclear weapons at each other, determines fundamental personal
issues: it will decide whether she has children soon, and where and
how she lives.
Her home is in Malerkotla, a bustling town of 100,000 amid the
paddy-fields and brick factories of the Punjab in India on the
fertile northern-western plain that abuts Pakistan's border. The town
is the state's only Muslim-majority community. It was also among the
few places to escape the sectarian bloodshed that struck the Punjab
when it was split by the 1947 Partition. Hundreds of thousands were
killed as millions of Hindus and Muslims fled to either side of the
new border.
But the Muslims of Malerkotla, 70 per cent of the population,
maintained ties with relatives in Pakistan, sometimes strengthening
these by marriage. So there was nothing unusual in the decision of Ms
Kalo's family to arrange for her to marry a distant cousin, a
22-year-old tailor called Asef who lives in Lahore on the Pakistani
side of the border.
Two years ago, the match was sealed when both families met for a
traditional "ring ceremony", exchanging bracelets and clothes. Ms
Kalo was allowed to see her prospective groom once, although only
exchanging glances. Then a deadly attack by militants on the Indian
parliament caused a hiatus in India-Pakistan relations. In December
2001, the border slammed shut, leaving the couple, and others like
them, in limbo. It has remained closed. Now Ms Kalo feels "very sad
and very angry" that rival governments are controlling her fate. She
has spoken only once to her husband-to-be, and that was by telephone
four days ago. They are now daring to hope. "He told me, 'Don't
worry, when the border reopens I will get you over here'," she said,
"He told me he loved me; my heart started beating very fast. I was
very excited, and thrilled."
Both countries fear the other will gain favour, and political
advantage and military deals, by agreeing to send troops to Iraq.
India's hardline Deputy Prime Minister, L K Advani, who went to see
President Bush and Tony Blair before Mr Musharraf's trip, described
Pakistan as an "epicentre of terror". The general has appeared to
threaten a repeat of Kargil, the battle three years ago over Kashmir.
This drew counter-rumblings from India's Prime Minister, Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, who in April talked of extending the "hand of friendship",
and of his army inflicting a "fourth defeat" on Pakistan.
And Kashmir remains a massive obstacle. India continues to scoff at
General Musharraf's claims to have cracked down on militant
infiltration across the Line of Control that divides it. Yesterday,
15 people, mostly civilians, were injured in grenade attacks on
police in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Yet there has been progress. Moves are afoot to reopen the bus route
on 1 July between Lahore and Amritsar, the Punjab's two old cities on
either side of the border, 30 miles apart. This promises to bring an
end to the separation of Ms Kalo and her betrothed. By India's
standards, its 24 million Punjabis live in a state blessed with good
fortune. It has water - with the nearby Himalayas, four big rivers
and a British-built canal system - a prosperous diaspora in the
United States and Britain, rich farmland, the best transport and
communications infrastructure in the country, and the highest per
capita income in India.
The closure has blocked a historic trading route and both sides are
paying the price. "The benefit of opening the border would run into
many millions of dollars," said Amjad Ali, 49, managing director of
Sohrab, a group of spinning and furniture-making companies in
Malerkotla. He believes the economics alone dictate peace. "In the
end, there is no other way out." Ms Kalo, the seamstress, earnestly
hopes he is right.
The proposal to despatch Indian troops to Iraq under the general
command of the United States military has ballooned into a first-rate
political controversy in the country. Going by the mood of a
well-attended public meeting in New Delhi on Monday -- the very day a
Pentagon team met senior Indian officials at President Bush's behest
--, there will be fierce opposition to any military collaboration
with the occupation forces in Iraq. There may be a lesson in this for
Pakistan, which too is considering sending troops to Iraq.
Ironically, if India and Pakistan decide to collaborate militarily
with the US in Iraq, each with a view to outmanoeuvring the other,
they will end up grievously hurting and victimising themselves!
The Indian government has gone to fairly great lengths towards
agreeing on military collaboration with Washington in Iraq since
discussions began on the issue in early May. It is now looking for a
fig leaf in the form of United Nations authorisation so that Indian
troops do not overtly operate under US command and salute the
American flag, but seemingly work within a multilateral framework.
It is unclear, though not impossible, if such authorisation can come
about via manipulation of the UN Security Council. But it is clear
that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is being devious. It
is presenting the despatch of troops to Iraq as if it were some kind
of seamless continuation of the "peace-keeping" operations that India
has undertaken under UN auspices for decades. This is totally untrue.
The government is also substituting issues of secondary importance --
who would command Indian troops, how long they would stay, what
arrangements America has for eventually transferring power to Iraqis,
etc -- for the primary question: should troops ever be sent to
legitimise and assist an unjust and illegal occupation?
The government is playing down the fact that the US is pressing it to
send about 17,000 soldiers, which is nearly six times higher than the
number of troops committed by any of America's close military
partners (barring Britain) who supported the war. The maximum number
of soldiers promised by such allies is 3,000 (Italy), followed by
Spain and Poland (2,300 each).
So India is being asked to prove it is more loyal than the US's own
military partners. If the plan goes through, India will have the
second highest number of occupying soldiers in Iraq -- making it the
US's principal military partner there. India is politically useful
too. It enjoys a fair amount of goodwill in the Arab world because of
its past as a Non-Aligned Movement leader and supporter of Arab
nationalism.
America will use Indian troops as cheap cannon fodder. Even if it
"compensates" them (eventually and indirectly) at the same rate as
United Nations peacekeepers (about $1,000 pm per head), that'll cost
America five percent of what it spends on every US soldier abroad. Of
course, it would be unacceptably embarrassing for New Delhi to accept
payment from the US and risk Indian troops being branded as
mercenaries.
There is no reason why a single Indian soldier should shed blood in
support of US interests in Iraq. Indian troops aren't being invited
to "keep" or "enforce" peace. They are being asked to impose law and
(despotic) order on behalf of the occupation powers -- not in some
neutral manner, but in ways that suit those powers' interests. This
will inevitably bring them into hostile confrontation with Iraqi
civilians as they resist what they regard as their country's unjust
occupation.
The Indian troops will also be exposed to highly toxic materials like
depleted uranium, believed to have caused the "Gulf War syndrome"
among US troops since 1991.
The critical point here is simple: a military occupation, which is
itself the result of an unwarranted, unjust and illegal war, cannot
be just and legal. India rightly criticised the war through a
unanimous Parliament resolution. The criticism's rationale was that
an invasion of Iraq wouldn't be justified. There was no conclusive
evidence that Iraq had operational, deliverable, weapons of mass
destruction. Its WMD programme didn't pose a credible threat to its
neighbours, leave alone to the US. Further UN inspections could have
detected and dismantled its WMD programme, as chief inspector Hans
Blix pleaded.
A secondary point was that the US and UK bypassed the Security
Council and violated the UN Charter by unilaterally invading Iraq.
More substantively, the invasion breached every criterion of "just
war", including military necessity, non-combatant immunity,
proportionality in the use of force, etc. This rationale cannot be
negated even if the UN Security Council passes, under US pressure, a
resolution specifically requesting UN member-states to deploy troops
in Iraq along the lines of the International Security Assistance
Force in Afghanistan.
Yet, many within the Vajpayee government, backed by America's
apologists in the media and the foreign policy establishment, are
determined to put India on this disastrous course. They fall into
three groups.
The first group holds that in today's unipolar world, Indian and US
interests largely coincide. The two have an equal stake in putting
down "Axis of Evil" states; close collaboration including sharing of
military bases is necessary. Sending troops to Iraq is a "test":
rather than whine about hegemonism and an unequal world, and futilely
plead for multilateralism, can India "dare" show the world that it is
a major US ally and a Great Power?
The second group is obsessed with business. It believes that sending
troops to Iraq is fine so long as the US doles out generous
reconstruction contracts to India. It bandies about spectacular
figures for reconstruction programmes like $200 billion, even $500
billion, with big individual contracts in the tens of billions.
This is pure hype. The highest contract given out so far is $680
million (Bechtel). Huge contracts won't materialise unless the
Americans can pump much more oil out of Iraq. This seems virtually
impossible for a couple of years -- and dicey even later. In any
case, big contracts will first go to US giants like Halliburton and
Bechtel, and then to British firms, leaving small crumbs for bit
players like India.
The third group believes in what may be called the Advani Line:
troops despatch in exchange for a US promise to pressure Pakistan to
end its support to "cross-border terrorism". This ignores US
priorities. To smash the al-Qaeda network, America needs Pakistan as
an ally. This limits the pressure it can put on Islamabad. Besides,
it poses ticklish issues of inspection and verification.
And what if Pakistan too offers to send troops to Iraq -- as Gen
Musharraf declared he would do, on June 12? This will neutralise such
diplomatic "advantage" as India might gain.
This approach is based on trading sovereignty and policy independence
for US favours -- an idea repugnant to any self-respecting state.
This means there will be little Indian resistance to US plans for an
Empire.
The argument applies a fortiori to Pakistan, where there will be
strong popular opposition to sending troops to Iraq. It would be
suicidal for both countries to try to build "exclusive" military
alliances with the US at each other's expense and escalate their own
mutual rivalry in the process.
I appreciate the Prime Minister's search for a national consensus on
the response India should give to Washington's request for deputing
Indian troops to be sent to Iraq under American occupation. Happily
the debate is not confined to the political parties, it involves the
NGOs, intelligentsia and lay citizens. This is a sign of the good
health of our democratic polity that such vital issues are not
entirely left to the governments. Of course, the final word will rest
with the Government. But this, I hope, will not be contrary to the
public opinion.
For a proper and meaningful national debate, there should be
conceptual clarity. Some interlocutors have suggested that Indian
troops may go to Iraq as peacekeepers. In the classical sense,
peacekeeping implies the insertion of alien army units between two
clashing groups of a country that may agree to stop fighting.
Obviously, that is not the case in Iraq. It is argued that Indian
troops will form part of the `stabilisation' force. Here again, there
is some confusion. `Stabilisation' of what? Of occupation? The fact
of the matter is that Iraq is under Anglo-American occupation and the
people of Iraq have not accepted it. Nor is there an influential
Iraqi elite able or willing to `collaborate' with the occupiers as
was the case in Vichy France during the German occupation of France.
Therefore, the purpose of sending Indian troops to Iraq, if at all,
will be to assist the Pentagon in maintaining the occupation. As
occupation was begotten by aggression, assisting in the occupation is
tantamount to endorsing the aggression.
We may also understand why mighty America is asking for our
assistance. The felling of the Saddam Hussein regime was the easier
part. The Pentagon is eminently qualified to undertake such tasks. To
pacify and to administer Iraq is not a task America is particularly
competent to undertake. As of now, the situation in Iraq is fast
deteriorating. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (The
ICG) has a credible team of observers in Iraq. They found that
"Baghdad is a city in distress, chaos and ferment. It is on issues
Baghdadis care about most - security and welfare - that the occupying
forces have done the least". In order to facilitate a national debate
with a proper knowledge base, the Government of India should come out
with a paper on its own assessment of the situation in Iraq, the
progress or lack thereof towards the creation of an interim Iraqi
authority and related matters. Our political parties do not have
access to reliable information on what is happening in Iraq.
Some interlocutors have argued that we should send our troops so that
we might get contracts as part of the reconstruction of Iraq. Such
`contractomania' has assumed even illogical proportions. Recently,
the media reported that the FICCI's estimate was that over a period
of eight years the reconstruction package would amount to $500
billion. MEES (the Middle East Economic Survey) and others
knowledgeable about Iraq have estimated that if everything goes well
in the next five years, Iraq will have about $100 billion from oil
exports. Obviously, not the whole amount can be set apart for
reconstruction contracts. More than half the amount will be required
for import of food and other essential materials, not to speak of the
investment required to restore the oil industry.
In any case, there is something un-Indian and undignified in becoming
a subcontractor to the Pentagon in order to become a subcontractor to
American multinationals. Our decision must never smack of
`mercenaryism'.
It has been argued by some that if there were a U.N. cover, it would
be perfectly in order for India to send troops to Iraq. The argument
is not flawless. The fact of the matter is that under Security
Council Resolution 1483, all personnel sent by governments such as
India that are not part of the occupying powers will, all the same,
be under the authority of the occupying powers. Washington might
agree to some cosmetic arrangements by dividing Iraq into various
zones under the control of Indians, Poles and others. But such
cosmetic operations would not dodge the underlying reality.
Some with influence in the corridors of power argue that we should
send our troops to Iraq as a quid pro quo to America's pressure on
Pakistan to end cross-border terrorism and even come to a settlement
on the question of Kashmir. The argument is extended further to say
that by sending troops to Iraq India would be enhancing its
credentials to be a permanent member of the Security Council. Such
illusions need careful examination. First, it is rather naïve to
expect America to make a radical change in its policy towards
Pakistan for the sake of getting some battalions of Indian troops to
Iraq. The Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, will be George Bush's
guest at Camp David next week. It is possible that they might agree
to enact a drama and make noises giving the impression that as a
result of American pressure Pakistan will cease to promote
cross-border terrorism. Having watched Musharraf's recent TV
interview, it would be credulous on our part to be taken in for such
a ride. In any case, the question whether Indian troops should be
sent to Iraq or not should be examined on its own merits.
A fact of history may be worth recalling. The British rulers had sent
Indian troops to Iraq after the first great war to suppress a widely
spread Iraqi revolt there. It ultimately ended in the Baathist
revolution and dethroning of an imposed King and emergence of Saddam
Hussein.
It is now becoming clear that ill-perceived American plans for Iraq
may end in dismay. This seems to be the assessment of many world
powers. The Russian Foreign Minister, Igov Ivanov, was in Delhi this
week. As a friendly power, he has advised his interlocutors here to
be cautious since within six preceding weeks the U.S. policy
objectives have changed from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to "Operation
Desert Scorpion" that has unleashed a reign of terror on Shias and
Sunnis alike. The Christian Science Monitor says, "The U.S. Army has
changed from being a liberator to an offensive occupier... "
According to the Lexington Institute of Washington, the situation has
taken this ugly turn because "we have been operating on two
assumptions: that once the war was over the Iraqis would rapidly move
into peaceful mode; and second, that there would be a new political
and economic spirit in the country. We discovered neither of these
assumptions is true".
It should be clear to our policy makers that the neo-conservatives'
agenda is eager to expand the `war on terrorism in various directions
that may drag us along unless we are careful.
In my childhood at the end of the first great war, I had heard a
Punjabi folk song: "Darling please don't go to Basra, let us live
happily at home."
America will sanction export of sensitive military hardware if India
responds positively to its request to contribute troops for
peacekeeping in Iraq, a leading British daily reported on Wednesday.
"Reports from the US suggest a deal between India and the US that
would see America sanction exports of sensitive
military hardware," The Guardian said.
The daily, which interviewed Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand
Advani on Tuesday, quoted him saying that the deployment of troops in
Iraq was still an open issue.
Advani is quoted in the interview as saying that India has offered
open-ended talks with Pakistan on Jammu and Kashmir if the 'proxy
terrorist war' against India is stopped.
"If the killing of innocents stops...we will find a solution for
everything once we start talking," Advani said.
On the Kashmir issue, he spoke of possible compromises by both India
and Pakistan. "After all, if you disagree so sharply on an issue as
India and Pakistan disagree on the question of Jammu and Kashmir and
if a settlement has to come about then it can only be in the form of
some compromise in which both sides have to give and take in relation
to their present positions," he told the daily.
Stockholm, June 17 (Reuters): World military spending rose by 6 per
cent last year, growing twice as fast as in 2001 to reach $794
billion, largely as a result of the US-led war on terrorism, a
respected think-tank said today.
Washington accounted for three-quarters of the increase, the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its
Yearbook, a defence and security policy publication widely recognised
for the reliability of its data.
Russia overtook the US as the world's largest arms exporter while
China was the largest importer followed by India.
But with outlays up 10 per cent year-on-year at $336 billion, the US
accounted for 43 per cent of global military expenditure in 2002, up
from 36 per cent in 2001.
"The rest of the world is not prepared to, or cannot, follow the
USA's example in increasing military expenditure," the institute
said, noting that combined arms expenditure of the West European
members of the Nato defence alliance fell by 3 per cent in real terms
between 2000 and 2002.
"While in the USA, the war on terrorism was a major factor in the
huge growth in military expenditure in 2002, this was not the case in
Europe."
US defence budget estimates for fiscal 2003 showed a planned increase
in arms procurement of 32 per cent over the 2002-2007 period to $78
billion this year. Total US defence spending was set to rise by just
over 6 per cent in 2003.
Russia's defence budget was flat in 2002 but looked set to increase
by 7-8 per cent in real terms this year, the institute said.
The value of Russian arms exports, on the rise since 1999, increased
by more than $1 billion to $4.8 billion last year. With 36 per cent
of global deliveries, Russia overtook the US as the world's largest
supplier of arms to other countries, primarily China and India.
China's military spending was estimated by the institute to have
risen by 18 per cent in 2002 and would grow 9.6 per cent in 2003.
China was the number one arms importer last year with 14 per cent of
the world's total.
India's arms imports increased 72 per cent in 2002, making it the
second largest buyer of arms from abroad. Arms imports by Pakistan
also grew considerably last year, the institute said.
Both countries continued to produce fissile materials and develop
missiles, the think-tank said, noting that the size of the two
countries' arsenal was not known, but might include 100 to more than
400 nuclear weapons.
Pakistan, the poorer of the two, was the underdog measured by both
conventional and nuclear arms, the institute said.
"The situation is likely to become worse with the future nuclear
deployments by both India and Pakistan," the institute said, noting
that both were preparing doctrines for nuclear weapons use.
MUZAFFARNAGAR, India -- Three months ago, Ejaz Husain Jaan was just
another Kashmiri student living away from home, nervously studying
for his finals and taking short breaks to catch the World Cup cricket
scores on television.
Now, he is in jail, facing terrorism charges for allegedly aiding a
plan to blow up important government buildings, an accusation he
vehemently denies.
"I came out of Kashmir to study, not to be a terrorist," said Jaan,
23, looking tired and bewildered as he stepped out of a crowded
courtroom in Uttar Pradesh state recently. "In Kashmir, there is
always a threat of the gun -- the army's or the militants'. I wanted
to escape the climate of fear and violence.
"But now all my career hopes are destroyed. I could not even finish
my tests," he said, starting to cry.
According to human rights groups in New Delhi, scores of Muslim
students, traders and professionals who quit violence-wracked Kashmir
for other parts of India in search of education and job opportunities
have faced increased harassment and discrimination in the past three
years.
A report by the People's Union for Democratic Rights said Kashmiri
Muslims in New Delhi suffer from "a deep sense of insecurity and
vulnerability" and are victims of police harassment, humiliating
searches, intimidation, arbitrary detentions and demands for bribes
by local policemen under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
The climate of suspicion, many said, has sharpened since December
2001, when gunmen suspected of being Islamic rebels fighting for
Kashmir's secession from India attacked the Parliament complex in New
Delhi. Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, has been ravaged
since 1989 by a separatist revolt that has claimed more than 35,000
lives, according to official estimates.
"The last 14 years have been a dark period for the people of Kashmir.
Many people have tried to escape the violence and come out to study
and work, but they face suspicion wherever they go," said Mehbooba
Mufti, the chief of Kashmir's ruling People's Democratic Party. "The
stereotype is that every Kashmiri holds a gun. Do Kashmiris have to
rip open their hearts each time to prove they are not militants?"
Indian officials said there is no campaign to harass Kashmiris
because of their religion or their roots.
"We have to be vigilant," said a senior police officer who asked not
to be named. "We don't pick up Kashmiris at random, we follow our
intelligence inputs and phone tapping. We cannot always wait for the
attack to take place; we have to prevent it also."
But human rights activists argued that the police often act on the
basis of flimsy evidence and that the process lacks accountability.
"We are not saying India should be soft on terrorism, but the state's
coercive powers must act like a surgeon's scalpel rather than come
down like a hammer," said Ravi Nair, who heads the South Asia Human
Rights Documentation Center. "With every case of harassment of an
innocent, the gulf between Kashmiris and the rest of India widens."
Discrimination and harassment are a simple fact of daily life for
many Kashmiris living outside their home state, said Afshan Gul, 23,
a film student in New Delhi, who complained of innumerable searches
and questioning by police.
"The searches and questions do not stop when you show your identity
card," she said. "For a Kashmiri Muslim, it usually begins after you
show it. They don't just search you, they rip off your dignity, too."
More than a decade of violence by Islamic militants has hardened
perceptions about Kashmiri Muslims among some Indians as well as the
police. The bias, Kashmiris said, permeates everyday activities from
finding an apartment to finding a job.
"The moment the landlords got to know I was a Kashmiri Muslim, they
would make excuses to say no," said Khursheed Ahmed Qazi, 38, a
businessman who spent several months looking for an apartment in the
capital last year. "The bias against us was clear."
Abrar Ahmad Dewani, 24, a computer student from Kashmir, said that
when he interviewed two years ago for a job as a Web site designer
for a New Delhi company that makes bathroom fixtures, the questions
had nothing to do with his skills.
"The man looked at my [résumé] and said, 'Are you a Kashmiri?
Kashmiris are terrorists,' " recalled Dewani. "I said . . . 'I don't
want to work for you.' I felt humiliated."
At another job interview, a prospective employer told him he was
"very scared of Kashmiris."
The circumstances surrounding the arrest of Jaan and three other
students in March shook the small group of Kashmiri undergraduates
studying in Uttar Pradesh, who said they came under increased
surveillance from the police and became the target of public
suspicion and scorn.
"The police searched all the rooms of the students. My professor told
me not to call him or visit him. Everybody in college looked at us
with suspicion," said Abdul Rashid, 26, a graduate student who lived
in the room next to Jaan's. "The neighbors would look at us and say,
'Look, the terrorists are coming' or 'What are you bombing next?' "
Jaan said he was interrogated in dark rooms for nine days without a
lawyer. He said the police forced him to sign several blank pages
that he feared could be used as confessions.
Police said they found maps of India's "vital installations" in
Jaan's possession and that phone records show he received calls from
a leader of the banned militant group Jaish-i-Muhammad.
Despite the perils, young Kashmiris say they will continue to leave
home because of the lack of jobs in their state.
"I have no choice but to leave Kashmir," said Tanweer Sadiq, 25, a
recent computer science graduate who is applying for jobs in New
Delhi. "There are no jobs in Kashmir. I knew I would have to battle a
stereotype when I [went] there, but it is still worth taking a
chance. It's a question of my career."
One does not have to be a crazed conspiracy theorist to note the link
between the repeated bursting of doctored and hyped-up Anglo-American
claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), on the one
hand, and the mounting pressure from the United States on a number of
countries to despatch troops to Iraq, on the other. It is no
coincidence that India and Pakistan figure prominently among them.
The reason for American pressure is fairly straightforward. Three
weeks after the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1483-after 90
amendments and much haggling-the Pentagon has failed to get
commitments for the tens of thousands of soldiers it wants deployed
to "stabilise" Iraq. So far, they have only got promises of 13,000
troops from two dozen countries-to partially relieve the US's 150,000
soldiers and Britain's 15,000 troops present in Iraq. Most of
America's strategic allies, which differed with it over the Iraq war,
won't send troops, risk casualties and bestow legitimacy on the
occupying powers.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi situation is turning messier by the day even as
US-UK casualties mount to something like one soldier a day. The US
and Britain now need to put other countries' troops in the firing
line. Early this month they abandoned a plan to organise a national
conference of Iraqis to select an interim government. Instead, they
adopted a quick-fix formula that gives them a direct role in choosing
"representative" Iraqis!
Even more important, the US is anxious to obfuscate and erase the
circumstances in which the war on Iraq was waged-without a casus
belli or rationale. There is no better way of obliterating the
grossly immoral, illegal character of the war than to emphasise
"stabilisation" and "reconstruction", including lucrative corporate
contracts at the expense of the Iraqi people.
The US has approached both Pakistan and India with "requests" for
despatching division-size forces to Iraq. Since May, the discussion
has been pursued both at the diplomatic and political levels.
President Bush raised that issue in his brief meetings with Prime
Minister Vajpayee in St Petersburg and Evian. It is now being
negotiated with Deputy Prime Minister Advani during his current visit
to the US and Britain.
Sending troops to Iraq was the dominant issue discussed between
Advani and Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld last Sunday. According to an
informed report in "The Indian Express", Rumsfeld "listed three
advantages" which could accrue to India. "One, India [would] become
an active partner in the global war against terror and become the
third important player in the exercise... Two, it would boost India's
overall standing in the Gulf region. Three, India would be able to
join the reconstruction programme, [with] economic gains."
Advani apparently made no formal commitment to Rumsfeld. But he told
him India is not averse to the US proposal, but it has concerns about
who would command its troops, and how long they would have to stay,
etc. These must be addressed first. It was agreed that a team of
senior Pentagon officials would visit India to discuss the
nitty-gritty. Pakistan too is reportedly under pressure to commit
troops to Iraq.
India and Pakistan would commit a blunder of historic proportions if
they succumb to US pressure, however "sweetened" it might be by
offers of a "close" or "exclusive" relationship, or "special"
treatment in reconstruction contracts and military sales. They would
violate the overwhelming domestic sentiment against the war on and
occupation of Iraq. They would be grievously wrong-morally and
politically. Consider this:
* Iraq's invasion breached all criteria of "just wars", including
military necessity, proportionality in use of force, non-combatant
immunity, etc. It was irredeemably illegal.
* The Anglo-American coalition waged war in violation of the UN
Charter and without authorisation of the Security Council, which
alone can sanction use of armed force under Chapter VII-except in
self-defence. Indeed, the US and UK acted against the explicit
intention of the Council, which was set to reject the so-called
"second" resolution tabled by the US and the UK.
* Even if Iraq had limited WMD stocks, they posed no credible threat
to its neighbours, leave alone the US, in the absence of delivery
vehicles. But no WMD have been found-fully two months after US troops
took Baghdad.
* Anglo-American culpability in invading Iraq stands greatly
magnified because Washington and London deliberately "sexed up",
distorted and greatly exaggerated intelligence reports on Iraq's WMD.
This has embarrassed the Defence Intelligence Agency, the CIA and
MI-6. Even Richard Butler, an unabashed supporter of the war, and
former UN weapons inspector says: "Clearly, a decision had been taken
to pump up the case against Iraq."
* Britain's "Sunday Herald" (June 8) reports that the Blair
government ran a covert "dirty tricks" operation "designed
specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to
wage war". Operation Rockingham was set up to "cherry-pick"
intelligence proving an "active Iraqi WMD programme" and to "ignore
and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had
been destroyed or wound down".
The Washington Post reports that Vice-President Dick Cheney and aide
Lewis 'Scooter' Libby paid multiple visits to CIA headquarters to
influence and pressure analysts on Saddam Hussein's WMD and links
with al-Qaeda.
* "The New York Times" Judith Miller too filed dubious stories on
Iraq's WMD capabilities. Her principal source was none other than the
super-controversial Ahmed Chalabi. There has been a serious debate
among NYT reporters on the ethics of such reports.
* Colin Powell was so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing in the
dossiers supplied to him that he exclaimed: "I'm not reading this.
This is bulls**t."
* Since then, Blair's office has admitted that a dossier it put out
on Iraq in February to justify an attack was flawed and did not meet
the "required standards of accuracy".
It is totally unjustifiable to join military operations with
occupying powers which have used such nauseatingly unethical methods.
India and Pakistan are not being asked to keep the peace, as the
media claims. Their role is euphemistically called
"stabilisation"-involving heavy-handed policing and confrontation
with civilians.
The pertinent issue isn't whether the request for troops comes from
the UN. Even if it did, it would still deserve to be rejected. If the
war on Iraq was unjust and illegal, the military occupation it
produced is also illegitimate. Nobody should recognise or cooperate
with the occupying powers or their puppets.
India and Pakistan must and can say no. The "incentives" they have
been offered are calculated to yoke them to the US and function as
mercenaries. Their conservative governments are predisposed to
supporting the US. Both want to send troops as a means of building an
"exclusive" or "special" relationship with Washington. In fact, they
will intensify their own mutual rivalry by doing so.
Surely, South Asia deserves better-at least when a long-overdue thaw
in their relations is on the horizon. The young peace movements in
both India and Pakistan should campaign jointly against sending
troops to Iraq.
K. Balagopal
What will the US, India and Pakistan do to Kashmir? That is the
proper order, the US first, India next and Pakistan last. What do
they aim to do to Kashmir? For this time round, there is a certain
apprehension (one can hardly call it hope) in the Valley and
elsewhere in the state of Jammu and Kashmir that American interest in
snuffing out the germinating grounds of Islamic militancy - rather
than any Indo-Pak desire for peace - may well ensure some form of
resolution of the 'Kashmir dispute'. Indeed the newspapers a few days
ago reported an American official as having said that the Kashmir
dispute would be resolved by December 2004. Whether that will be
before or after finishing off Syria, the report does not clarify.
However, even granting the sense of urgency that affects the US,
ruled by a coterie described as Christian fundamentalists by even
matter-of-fact analysts, whose faith teaches them to beware of the
visits the sins they have committed are liable to pay them in time,
and who therefore have reason to hurry and disinfect the breeding
grounds of Islamic militancy before a few more fidayeen are sent
westward, it may nevertheless appear that the apprehension that some
thing is going to happen by way of resolution of the 'dispute' in the
near future is misplaced. After all, India's offer of talks with
Pakistan is hardly serious. Has not the union cabinet headed by Atal
Behari Vajpayee set a record of sorts by way of double talk in the
last few months in the matter of India's attitude towards Pakistan?
Consider: its foreign minister begins by declaring quite out of the
blue one day that Pakistan is a good candidate for pre-emptive
strikes and India should do an Iraq on Pakistan. Its defence minister
defends him, while cautioning that it is not yet official to say so.
The prime minister keeps mum, but suddenly goes to Srinagar and makes
a speech offering a mouthful of what the Kashmir press has described
as boons, including offer of a hand of friendship and talks with
Pakistan without any preconditions. And for good measure he adds that
if this effort fails there will be no further efforts. That could
either be taken as an index of his determination to make the talks a
success, or else as a threat that there will be just one effort and
then the Sinha-Fernandes formula will take over. The ambiguity just
adds variety to the confusion.
But as soon as the prime minister leaves the Valley for Hindustan, he
adds the usual precondition to the offer of talks: that Pakistan
should put an end to cross-border terrorism. That really takes it
back to zero. But soon thereafter he gives an interview to Der
Spiegel in which he dedicates himself to the success of the talks
with such passion that he says he will quit if he fails. Just as one
thought he was at last serious, he clarifies that quit does not mean
quit and he will not say what it really means. A few days later, back
in India again, he reduces the offer to an absurdity: we have talked
of Kashmir in the past, so why not talk of Azad Kashmir this time?
Musharraf can respond by suggesting that we discuss the future of the
Vaishno Devi shrine thereafter. Seriously, does Vajpayee want the
people of this country to believe that he expects Azad Kashmir to
join India? It is believed in the 'shakhas' of the RSS, we know, but
nobody outside those benighted places thinks so.
So why should anybody hope/apprehend that anything at all is going to
come of this offer of talks that vacillates between a nullity and a
farce?
Other things being the same, nobody would. In the past, Kashmiris
have expressed scepticism with their intellect and hope with their
hearts every time talks have been proposed between the two countries.
They greeted Agra with scepticism, but when Musharraf finally came
over, 'glued to the TV' is how they describe themselves. In the end,
the scepticism was justified, but the hope will probably never die.
But after September 11, 2001, things are no more the same. The US,
for a variety of reasons, wants peace between India and Pakistan.
Some of the reasons have to do with both the real and imaginary fears
of the hatred it has wantonly fostered in the hearts of Muslim
peoples all over the world and the monsters that have arisen
therefrom, and the others stem from plain old fashioned economic
rationality. In fact, from the time of the rise of militancy in
Kashmir, a section of its political representatives, more
particularly those in the Hurriyat Conference inclined to Pakistan,
have believed that economic rationality will impel the US to solve
the Kashmir dispute. The logic (in my language, not that of any
Hurriyat leader) goes as follows: the US wants free access to Central
Asian mineral wealth which, in the face of an unfriendly Iran and a
backward Afghanistan, requires the sea ports that Pakistan offers.
Effective utilisation of this facility requires that Pakistan be a
stable and peaceful society and economy. And that can never be
guaranteed until Kashmir becomes quiet and India becomes irrelevant
so that the clerics and the mujahideen who have used Kashmir to
impose their rule on the minds and the streets (respectively) of
Pakistan are rendered dispensable. The logic is persuasive, but it is
remarkable that this rationality had to be supplemented by the dread
of the Al Qaida to realise itself.
All this adds up to the apprehension that the Americans may force
some solution this time round. With some, to be frank, the
apprehension is in fact a hope because a sizeable section of
Kashmiris have reached the stage where they feel it does not matter
how the dispute is resolved so long as the guns fall silent and they
can stop dreading each dawn for the dead bodies it may bring home.
But only some. If India has hoped that it has by now reduced all
Kashmiris to this state, it is mistaken. For many, the apprehension
is not a hope, it is the negation of hope. They do not want any
solution that will cheat the memory of the thousands who have died
these 13 years. In particular they do not want any resolution that
has not heard them and has not sought their approval.
But it is evident that the fixers who are active devising solutions
are working with rulers and pencils drawing lines straight or crooked
on the map partitioning the land one way or other to the mutual
satisfaction of India and Pakistan, their proverbial rigidity
rendered malleable under the weighty glare of America's eyes.
'Formulas' are already doing the rounds, and there are rumours that
India and Pakistan have already come to an understanding on making
the LoC the border. Nobody knows how true this is, but this is indeed
the favourite solution of what these days is being described as the
'civil society' of both the countries. Whether one sees it as a just
idea or not depends on what one is looking for. The well-meaning
individuals who compose what is being called civil society are
looking for peace and friendship between India and Pakistan. They are
doing so for the sake of India and Pakistan. They are not looking for
anything in particular for the Kashmiris, and are therefore
unwittingly perhaps joining with the two governments in treating the
region as a piece of mere territory. Nobody has as yet suggested
putting this formula to vote in the affected region. On the contrary,
Brijesh Mishra has been quoted as saying that 'when India and
Pakistan sit down to talk there will be no third chair'. He is
lying, of course, there will be an invisible third chair for George
Bush or his appointee, but what that arrogant representative of
India's Sangh parivar rulers means is that Kashmiris will have no
place at the talks nor will their approval be sought for any proposed
resolution of the territorial dispute that their lives have been
reduced to by the two countries.
Making the LoC the permanent border would have the consequence of
forcing the Kashmiris of the Valley to reconcile themselves to India,
in spite of the repeated expression of their unwillingness to accept
that status. It would also mean permanently dividing the
Pahari-speaking people between the Muzaffarabad region of Azad
Kashmir and the Rajouri-Poonch region of India. That, surely, cannot
be done behind their backs?
Another formula under discussion is that proposed by Sardar Sikander
Hayat Khan, the prime minister of Azad Kashmir. Until recently a
support of the official Pakistani position that the whole of the
(old) J and K belongs to Pakistan, he has now come up with the idea
of making the river Chenab rather than the LoC the dividing line. The
right bank of the Chenab will go to Pakistan and the left bank to
India. It is evident that he is mainly concerned with ensuring that
all people of his own community - Paharis of Muzaffarabad as well as
Rajouri-Poonch - get into Pakistan, and his plan assures that. But in
the process it forces the Valley into Pakistan, whereas it is
doubtful that more than a minority would prefer joining Pakistan
unless the third option of independence is closed to them. And
moreover, the right bank of the Chenab includes also the almost
totally Hindu Akhnoor tehsil of Jammu, whereas the left bank houses
the Muslim-majority Kishtwar and Bhaderwah tehsils of Doda. These
people cannot be thrown into Pakistan and India respectively without
taking their view in the matter, merely because the Chenab happens to
be a ready-made line that nature has already drawn on the map.
Then there is another 'formula' credited to Bill Clinton, among whose
unsuspected assets was, apparently, this ability to solve problems at
a distance. This formula hands over to each country the pound of
flesh it demands, excepting the Valley which is made self-governing
under the joint supervision of the friends-to-be: Pakistan and India,
with Uncle Sam looking over the shoulders, of course. Poor Kashmiris!
is all one can say.
Everybody has a 'formula', the common point of all the formulas being
that they require only the satisfaction of India and Pakistan and the
approval of the US. The Kashmiris alone have none. In a 10 days' tour
of the state one was unable to elicit anything more specific from the
Kashmiris than a determined reiteration that their right to
self-determination shall be assured. One can put it down to fatigue,
but it is also a fact that the Kashmiris have come to look to the
Hurriyat Conference for all political responses on the supposition
that it represents all shades of opinion that dispute their accession
to India; the Hurriyat in turn, being in fact dominated by a few
shades of opinion, has lent its political support to Pakistan's
manoeuvres and is perforce tongue-tied when Pakistan is in a fix; and
Pakistan is truly in a fix not knowing how to simultaneously please
George Bush and the armed and unarmed clerics who have established a
hold on its society by dint of their disruptive capacity if not
actual mass following.
There is another and a deeper reason too. The Kashmiris, when they
talk of self-determination are inclined to think in terms of the
whole of the old state of Jammu and Kashmir ruled by the heirs of
Gulab Singh. So long as the discussion is centred on the UN
resolutions, it is bound to be so. But after 55 years, that region
has not remained what it was on October 26, 1947. And it cannot be
said that the social and political leadership of any of the
ethnic/linguistic sub-regions of that very diverse state (including
the Kashmiri leadership) has striven to reach out to the others and
keep alive the old idea of the right of collective self-determination
for all of them. As a consequence, there is a certain ambiguity today
regarding the meaning and indeed the very referent of that right.
When Kashmiris talk of 'azaadi', the referent easily and
unconsciously slides from the whole of the old J and K to the Valley
and then to the Valley plus Muzaffarabad and back again to the whole
of the old J and K. And the other regions are either indifferent or
suspicious of the Kashmiris. Among those who still regard the old
state of J and K as a meaningful political entity, Balraj Puri has
been almost alone in pointing out to the intellectual and political
leadership of the regions their failure to reach out to the other
linguistic and ethnic groups in a spirit of mutuality and equity
leading to the structuring of a federal and secular order that can
help keep alive the historical sense of oneness of the state. This
failure has meant that the voice of azaadi inevitably sounds like
Kashmiri particularism, easily conflated by interested parties with
Muslim communalism and separatism.
Not that the Kashmiris carry upon themselves the moral burden of
cajoling everybody else to join the movement for self-determination
and thereby disprove the abuse of communalism thrown at them. They
are under no such obligation, and their demand for
self-determination, even if reduced to the Valley, makes perfect
sense, but without such an effort from all sides the old state of J
and K can no longer be a single collective referent for the demand of
self-determination. As things stand today, why should anyone expect
the people of Baltistan and Kathua to see themselves as co-citizens
of a single state?
A proposal suggested by the JKLF leader Amanullah Khan of Islamabad
is significant in this background. Writing in the Kashmir Times, May
6, 2003, he has suggested letting the whole of the old J and K area
be a self-governing entity of a democratic, secular and federal
character for 15 years, at the end of which a plebiscite may be held
to decide whether they would like to join India or Pakistan or be
independent. Perhaps the period of 15 years is meant for recreating
the lost links between the regions and ethnic groups and recover the
almost lost identity. As well as try out the experiment of
coexistence within a single state of diverse ethnic/linguistic groups
on the bais of a secular, democratic and federal polity. It is an
attractive idea, especially coming at a time when such inclusivist
idealism has become old fashioned and the narrowest exclusivism is
the most rebellious attitude. Even so, it is doubtful that the
Kathua-Jammu area will ever want to leave India, or the Mirpur area
Pakistan. A one-point plebiscite to be determined by an overall
majority may not be able to do justice to all. Too much has changed
in the last 55 years for that. Amanullah Khan's proposal would
however carry genuine meaning for Rajouri-Poonch, Muzaffarabad, the
Valley and probably Doda as well.
However, who is listening to Amanullah Khan? Or to anyone from the
'disputed area'? It is this and not the correctness of any formula
for resolving the 'dispute' that is primarily at issue today. Those
who would resolve it do not even accept that the real 'dispute' is
not between India and Pakistan. It began as a dispute between the
people of Jammu and Kashmir and the contending states of India and
Pakistan. Time may have reconciled some of the people to the disputed
situation - the accession and its aftermath - but not all are
reconciled to it, and the dispute today remains between those who
disagree with it and the two beneficiary states. By pretending that
the dispute is between them, the two states are able to ignore the
people and talk of settling it between themselves. And now they have
the assistance of the world's primary rogue state which believes in
no democratic principles beyond its shores. This is today's problem
in Kashmir: and we have no solution in sight.
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