Delhi's stand on Kashmir
Men & Matters

By M L Kotru

What's one day in the life of a nation, more so in the life of
a nation as old as ours. Nothing very much. Unless it be a day like the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki or, nearer home a day like when Nathuram Godse pumped those bullets into the frail frame of Gandhi. But one day last week was unlike any other. It was not an unusual day; yet it was a day that summed up the confusion surrounding India's position in Kashmir. You had Prime Minister Vajpayee cooing peace, telling us all's well between him and the General across the border. You also had Home Minister Advani, all fire and brimstone, warning anyone within earshot of "strong action" the Government would initiate to combat growing terrorism in Kashmir.

What's so unusual for a day like that, you will ask. After all the Prime Minister and the Home Minister were only repeating their known positions. Besides, Kashmir has become quite a bore. Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir, as Gen. Musharraf would say. Yes, we do talk of killings and violence in Jammu and Kashmir but that again is such a boring routine. But on this day the dichotomy of the Indian stance stood stripped, helplessly so. Vajpayee gave a clean chit to Islamic Madrassahs in India when Pakistan is under fire for letting them function. Advani meanwhile was promising no room to fundamentalists except, or course, his own.

In one part of the valley Kashmiri Muslims were agitating over the death of a minor shot by the Army. The mob had obstructed the passage of an Army convoy and the soliders opened fire killing the minor. It was a tragic incident but then Armies are not trained to do civil policing. The local police should have ensured that the convoy passes the point unobstructed. This could have been achieved by either by dispersing the mob or by not allowing it to gather there in the first place.

Across the Banihal range, in ill-starred Doda, a village was mourning the mass killing of yet another group of 15 residents, within days of a similar carnage in the district, by Pakistani terrorists. Those killed were Hindu shepherds who normally take their flocks for grazing higher up the surrounding mountain ranges. The similarity of the two Doda killings, claiming a toll of some three dozen innocent Hindu villagers within the space of two weeks, is too glaring to be missed. As is the inaction of the local police. After the second killing some villagers trudged down the mountain side to the nearby police station only to be told that it was not equipped to deal with terrorists. If the police was unable to protect them who in God's name is expected to do it for them. Not the so-called village defence committee which is equipped with old rusty world war II 3.3 rifle. Not when confronted by Pak-equipped terrorists.

And yet across the Banihal range, in the Valley, the death of two known terrorists was converted by secessionists into an occasion for mass protest against Indian barbarity. Not everyone in the Valley may have shared the secessionists' view of things but they nevertheless brought life to a standstill. The poor Hindu shepherds of Doda for the most part went unlamented except for the mindless rantings of the local MP and Minister of Civil Aviation, Chaman Lal Gupta who forgot the terrorists and instead raised a cry for Farooq Abdullah's head. You also had the Minister of State for Home Mr I D Swami making the usual on-the-spot inquiry - thanks to fair weather and easy availability of helicopters. Gupta is of course pursuing his own agenda (separation of Jammu) and his attack on the State Government, although, well deserved, was thus predictable. But what exactly did Swami do apart from promising stepped up anti-terrorist measures in which he was already pre-empted by his boss L K Advani. The interesting part of it all is that while Gupta believes that a separate Jammu would be better off` without the "millstone" of the valley round its neck, the terrorists acting in places like Doda have a similar objective. They want to scare the Hindu population away from the mountainous Doda - Kishtwar belt with the purpose of (a) making the higher ground safe for themselves (b) to effect a demographic change that renders the present 55-45 Muslim-Hindu equation even more favourable towards Muslims. It's exactly a repeat of what was done to Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley when they migrated en messe some ten years ago. But the numbers in the Valley were so heavily stacked up against the Pandits.

It doesn't give me any pleasure at the personal level to be writing like a communal bigot which I am not and hope never will be. But I am amazed by the double-speak on Kashmir one comes across both in New Delhi in Srinagar and not surprisingly in Pakistan. I would like to keep the Farooq Abdullah Government out picture for the moment. His Government in the first place is an irrelevancy. The record of performance of the State Government is big zero, that's if you overlook his usual brave, war-like talk on Pakistan every time he opens his mouth. He is a past master in playing to the Indian gallery and luckily for him there is no one in New Delhi to rein him in. On the other hand every effort is made to keep him in good cheer. The thing that worries me more about the Valley is how the non-National Conference leadership is willing to bite the Pakistani line hook, line and sinker. Forget the sensible noises one or the other separatist leader makes from time to time but, in the main, all of them are willing to join the Pakistani war cry accusing Indian Army of being a barbarian force. Even minor incidents are blown out of proportion. When soliders or someone from the security personnel gets killed by the terrorists that becomes an occasion for celebration but the mood suddenly becomes sombre and resentful when a terrorist is killed in combat. And the human rightists are never the ones to miss out on such occasions.

If known terrorists choose to convert a mosque into a hide-out to battle it out with the security forces that's acceptable but if the terrorists get killed (even without damaging their-so-called safe haven) it becomes a sacrilege, disecration. And this is high voltage incendiary stuff, raising religious passions to high pitch. To make matters worse you have a man like Chaman Lal Gupta in Jammu who complements the bigot's role in Jammu. He loses no opportunity to widen the communal divide between Jammu and Srinagar. Which is perhaps the right thing for Gupta, the BJP man, to do if he sees political advantage for his party in it, but as a Minister in the Union Government he should learn where to draw a line.

To give the devil his due, it's likely that it is the survival instinct of the political animal called Gupta that forces him to take extreme positions but can't he be more discreet. He should take a lesson in this regard from his colleague from Srinagar, the young Omar Abdullah, currently the junior Minister for External Affairs.

The question though remains where exactly does New Delhi stand on Kashmir. Mr Vajpayee's cup of woes is full even otherwise; he need not add to his problems by harping on peace talks when the other side is showing no signs of restraining the jihadis in Pakistan and those operating in Jammu and Kashmir. If securing peace is the Prime Minister's objective he must tell the Pakistani military ruler that there is no point in their playing cat-and-mouse. Oneupmanship is something both can do but that will not lead Vajpayee to peace.

Simultaneously, Mr L K Advani should come out with more specific plans to counter the mounting pace of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. The man who promised a pro-active response to the terrorists must realise that there has been no let up in the influx of jihadis into the State. Hot pursuit may not be the most logical way to fight the meance but the Home Minister must ensure that mere repetition of phrases like "strong action" is not the answer to beat the terrorists. Let him openly tell Pakistan that Indian Security Forces will use all the force at their disposal to meet the terrorist challenge and that he is ready to suffer the consequences if in the fall-out some civilians, both in Jammu and in the Valley, are hurt. If Gen Musharraf is intent on keeping up the proxy war, Mr advani must see to it that the exercise becomes equally expensive for the General. The dichotomy between the Vajpayee and Advani approaches must be ended and a middle path found.

Funny is ‘Agni’, funnier is Dalai
Man and Matters

From B L Kak

‘Agni’? No, not the Agni missile Indian scientists have successfully produced. ‘Agni’ is none other than the high-profile convenor of Panun Kashmir outfit, Dr Agnishekhar. Three factors are, apparently, responsible for Dr Agnishekhar's follow-me style.

First in spite of the existence of more than one outfit of the displaced Kashmiri Pandits, Dr Agnishekhar, though having become somewhat controversial in recent months, does not face a serious challenge from other leaders of his community. Second, his warm flirtation's with the influential section of the Sangh Parivar, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seem to have created in him "I am-not-an-ordinary-person" feeling. Third, his unpublished visits to and interaction with a set of Indian intelligence personnel have also led to his superiority complex.

It requires to be mentioned that one has to pass through Gate numebr 7 of Delhi's North Block to get into touch with these intelligence officials. And Dr Agnishekhar is fully aware of the route and the location of the offices of his ‘friends’ in the Intelligence Bureau. Some other Pandit activists, too,have also passed through Gate number 7 umpteen times in recent times — yes, not without purpose, according to a set of official documents.

The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, and some of his Ministerial colleagues, particularly Mr L K Advani, Mr Jagmohan, Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Pramod Mahajan, as well as Mr Brajesh Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister haven't hitherto refuted or questioned Dr Agnishekhar's claim that Panun Kashmir organisation is the principal representative body of the displaced members of the Pandit community.

And chiefs of the RAW, IB and Border Security Force (BSF) and Union Home Secretary, too, haven't brushed aside Dr Agnishekhar's contribution and commitment to keeping alive the outfit as part of the bigger game to ensure that in any scheme of things vis-a-vis future administrative and political arrangement in his homeland, Kashmir, the Pandit community were not ignored.

This, however, does not suggest that Dr Agnishekhar has been mandated to tell the Prime Minister what he should and should not do vis-a-vis Gen. Parvez Musharraf's invitation to him to visit Pakistan. Mr Brajesh Mishra emphasized that Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee possessed the capacity and capability to draw up his agenda and he did not require ‘outsiders’ — an obvious reference to Dr Agnishekhar — to educate him on merits and demerits of his proposed visit to Islamabad.

The Prime Minister, it was officially stated, cannot be expected to oblige Dr Agnishekhar by calling off the proposed visit to Pakistan. The Prime Minister, while ignoring Dr Agnishekhar's suggestion, also wanted, at the same time, to brush aside the Dalai Lama's "irrelevant" observation equating the conditions in Kashmir with Tibet. The Dalai Lama, though continuing to be the spiritual leader of Tibetans, is a refugee with no mandate or right to speak on behalf of the people of Kashmir.

He may raise a hue and cry for grant of genuine self-rule by China to the people of Tibet. But he has no business to interfere in the internal affairs of Jammu and Kashmir. Known for his effective network in various foreign countries particularly the USA the Tibetan pontiff obviously wanted to sell someone's idea on Kashmir's new set-up. Whose idea was it when the Dalai Lama, while inaugurating the ‘South Asia Peace Conference’ at Chennai, capital city of Tamil Nadu, wanted India and Pakistan to consider the ‘right to self-rule’ as a means for resolving the Kashmir imbroglio?

By the time the Chennai function was over, a message was conveyed to the Tibetan pontiff urging him to avoid dabbing in the internal affairs of Kashmir in future. The message, indeed, let it be known that he has no right to call for any kind of ‘self-rule’ or the inclusion of Kashmiris in India-Pakistan talks. The two leaders of Kashmir's All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Mr Abdul Ghani Lone and Mr Omar Farooq, who also attended the Chennai function, appeared to have played the trick during their ‘cordial’ talks with the Dalai Lama.

In the process, two developments took place. First, the Dalai stirred a hornet's nest by highlighting the need for grant of ‘self-rule’ to Kashmir. Second, Mr Omar Farooq, while praising the Dalai Lama's sacrifices and contribution, demonstrated a bit of stupidity as he wanted the Tibetan pontiff to use his spiritual powers to relieve the Kashmiris of their sufferings. Mr Omar Farooq requires to be told that even as the vast numbers of Tibetans regard the Dalai as their spritual leader, he is not a super-man, not a miracle-man at all.

Whey do Mr Omar Farooq and like-minded Kashmiri activists try to divert the attention from the main issue, namely, Pakistan's unwillingness to stop cross-border terrorism and violence and vandalism in Jammu and Kashmir that have multiplied the Kashmiris' miseries? Clearly, the Dalai Lama has no role to play in Kashmir.

He is, it can be safely said, simply a politico-religious leader wielding lot of clout as the head of the Tibetan Government-in-exile at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh.The Dalai Lama also reqires to be told that his call for any kind of ‘self-rule’ in Kashmir won't be acceptable to powers-that-be in New Delhi and Srinagar, if one were to take into account the basic fact of history, namely, existence of popular Governments in J&K since its to India its accession to India in 1947.