A Summit glossary

M J Akbar

There is so much misunderstanding about the content and context of a summit meeting that, in yet another effort to be of service to the nation, or nations, The Asian Age offers a glossary of useful terms, in non-alphabetical order.

Summit: A narrow space at the top of mountain, capable of seating two and luring more causing thereby a traffic jam. Mountaineers sometimes confuse, in their eagerness to reach the top, first or second camp, where simultaneous parleys and often scheduled, for the Summit. However, some summits require their own, carefully crafted route maps, particularly it Hillary and Tenzing are determined to go up without much oxygen.

Agra: A city from antiquity made famous by the Mughal emperors who built a splendid fort when they ruled their empire from Agra, and a splendid mausoleum when they shifted to Delhi. The Mughal empire (like the British after it) began to decline from the moment it shifted its capital to Delhi, although it is not clear whether this fact has any relevance to summits. Historically, Agra has been synonymous with opportunity, rather than missed opportunity.

Kashmir: Technically, smaller than its problem. Full name, as in passports, Jammu and Kashmir. Cold in winter, hot in summer, rainy in monsoon and beautiful all the time. Contains a valley, 84 miles long and roughly 20 miles wide, that costs India and Pakistan approximately Rs 100,000 crores a year to fight over. When Jahangir was asked about his one desire on his deathbed, he said, "Kashmir, the rest is worthless", which seems to be the guiding principle of India and Pakistan as well. A couplet that has become more famous than the poet who wrote it, Urfi, goes: Agra firdous bar rul-e-zameen ast, Hamin ast-o-hamin ast-o-hamin ast. In other words, if there is Paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here,. An outstanding example of the departing British and arriving Indians to create generational wars over a chimera. It can also take the form of an elephant surrounded by blind men, each convinced that a part of the problem is the whole of it.

Plebiscite: Quaint old Indo-Anglian word currently out of fashion. Of Latin origin and, in the view of many pundits as dead as that language. Even the United Nations, not known for its radical views on philology, has pronounced the word officially dead, Some diehards however cling on to it for its alleged magical powers, as a mantra for peace, prosperity and tourism in a land of milk and honey.

Agenda: A list of items that has the extraordinary ability to look different when viewed from different angles. For instance, one side may find the agenda broad, while the other, looking at the same piece of paper, could find it to narrow. Has certain deceptive qualities that give it an elusive feel.

Alcohol: Something that in the good old days used to lubricate the Agenda but, alas, has now retired into private life, where, however, it still retains its powerful and ennobling appeal.

Hurriyat: A motley group of characters in search of a role. When denied a place on the Agenda, will settle for some tea instead. Not necessarily unanimously. The individuals who form this group are known for disagreeing with each other almost as much as they disagree with both friend and foe. To push a pun, their nominal leader, Lone, sometimes plays a Lone hand. Their fame is variable, depending on which one of them has found a television camera for the day. For instance, one of them, Geelani, became famous for fifteen minutes when India's home minister L K Advani denied him a passport to visit Pakistan. The said Geelani would not have become famous at all if Advani had given him a passport, along with a ticket, and told him to go to Pakistan and stay there.

Farooq Abdullah: A handsome if ageing politician who divides his time between golf, travel, sulking, singing (bhajan in ghazal andaaz) and television appearances. He has even been seen in Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir (see above). Summoned by India's Prime Minister from a holiday in Europe to create positive mood for Summit (see further above).

Sheikh Abdullah: Who he?

Talks: A technical event between two parties preceded by hot air and cold fear, both heavily disguised in bluster and bravado. Third parties, particularly if they are Superpowers, are allowed to hover over talks but they must remain unseen and unheard by an independent power known generally as the Media Empire. Superpowers who eat up little nations for breakfast and demand larger ones for dinner are apprehensive of The Media Empire and worry that media has the capacity to drench any Summit with oil, turning it slippery and making it impossible for talkers to talk in any degree to comfort.

Composite Talks: Cultural variation of same theme, linked to food habits. Composite talks are like a thali; there has to be a little bit of everything around a serving of the main item, rice. Non-composite talks are those that take the main item, rice, spread it all across the plate, offer nothing to shift the taste of the meal. One person's talks is another person's Composite Talks.

Retreat: A place in which the principal summiteers (viz Presidents and Prime Ministers) can retreat from their own officials. Example; if Mr Vajpayee and Mr Musharraf feel the need to get from the heat generated by their colleagues they may lock up their contingents and "retreat" to pleasanter surroundings.

Media: An empire outside the control of conventional forces. The hastier observers often compare The Media Empire with certain Colombian sirens who drug their breasts, entice motorists to stop their cars and lick their breasts thereby druggling them into a swoon, after which the sirens disappear with wallets and cars. Editors, the princes of The Media Empire, respond by noting that if talkers are going to be so stupid as to fail for Colombian breasts then they deserve to have their wallets and cars pinched. Owners, the kings of The Media Empire, smile and return to their soft-spoken, hard-edged telephone conversations with the talkers.

Sabre: Something that is rattled very noisily before "Talks" (Singular of Composite) with the help of The Media Empire. Since the advent of television, decibel levels have jumped up sharply.

Pipeline: A line drawn between war and peace by the that infallible commodity, money, lots and lots of it, in currencies ranging from the rial to the dollar via the dinar. In the case of India and Pakistan filled with gas.

Sherwani: A long, loose coat with a huge tail, of Indian origin, worn to establish that a general is not necessarily uniform. Effective for first impressions and formal dinners but unsuited for Indian weather -- unless it rains.

Rain: An auspicious message from the heavens at the start of any special occasion, unless of course you are living in England, which would have been a permanently auspicious country by that criterion.

Joke: A very rare occurrence these days, and not necessarily designed to evoke laughter. Laughter is a byproduct rather than the main purpose. A few of the species have been spied, particularly among those disenchanted with Summit. Example: "Give Kashmir to Pakistan. It will fall apart. The only thing that keeps Pakistan united will disappear." Variation: Black humour, the preferred option of Indians and Pakistanis when discussing problems.

Menu: A variety of normal cooked dishes with exotic names served by five-star hotels during official meals for visiting VIPs, described in great detail in news reports by all those who have not eaten it.

National Democratic Alliance (aka NDA): A ruling group devoted to getting it both ways, having its cake and eating it too, trimming the hedge and generally exhausting all cliches in the English language in its efforts to retain power. If Summit succeeds it will ride the positive wave that trails the Prime Minister: if Summit falters, it will rescurrect the nay-sayers who have been told to put their suspicions on hold for seventy two hours.

Congress party of India: Bystander, standing by. Bharatiya Janata Party: A political formation that believed, eleven years ago, that it could change Hindu India decisively with a campaign for a Ram temple. In 2001 it has discovered that it has been changed by Hindu India. The party that stormed into the Nineties on three issues -- building a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya; ending Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir; and abolition of the Muslim Personal Law -- has stopped short of temple construction, is seeking a solution with Pakistan on Kashmir and has developed amnesia on personal law.

Peace: Something everyone wants but no can quite find.

War: Something no one wants but everyone finds.

Hope: A word with a single virtue; it is better than hopeless. Typical question before any summit: "Do you have any hope?" Preferred answer: "What is the point of being hopeless?"

The living theatre of diplomatic absurd

By Kedar Nath Pandey

The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's peace journey to Lahore in February 1999, was intended as a confidence building measure. The occupation of the Kargil heights by Gen. Pervez Musharraf's forces, in reply, was a confidence trick. The General came calling to settle the Kashmir dispute with India on Pakistan's terms. For that is what he sought to do. President Musharraf, in a briefing to the Pakistani media, had said his talks with Mr Vajpayee would have to revolve round Kashmir; that without a resolution to this problem, based on the principle of Kashmiri self-determination, there could be no advance in the fraught Indo-Pakistan relationship.

In a report, The Financial Times man in Islamabad, Farhan Bokhari, reported that militant Islamic demonstrations, led by the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader, Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, who had issued the following warning: "In the next two weeks our work will intensify. All the jihadi groups agree that the summit is not to bring peace but to stop the jihad". Zahid Hussain, the Times stringer, quoted Mr Saeed's caution to the Pakistan president not to make peace with India as "it will be a betrayal of jihad". The Muzzafarabad crowd which he was addressing chanted "jihad till victory". Mr Saeed, trailing clouds of rhetorical glory, said: "Freedom is won only through the barrel of a gun and lost on the negotiating table". The shade of Chairman Mao must have nodded approvingly at the first part of this observation, for he was too intelligent to lose at the negotiating table what he had won on the battlefield.

Such were the stage sets to the Vajpayee-Musharraf dialogue. Cursed, not blessed, are the peacemakers : Islamist corrective to Christ and Mahatma Gandhi. If Samuel Beckett had been among us he might have included scenes from Agra as epilogues to "Waiting for Godot" and "Endgame", while reducing by a cubit or two the platitudinous solemnity of the proceedings with a pinch of Irish wit. Clearly, the living Theatre of the Absurd, for instruction and entertainment, matches the fictional genre as a state of mind and being.

The way Musharraf brushed aside questions about whether he would rein in armed Islamic groups that support fighters in Kashmir, he insisted that the "Kashmir insurgency is indigenous" as reported by Pamela Constable of The Washington Post only shows that he will never accept even if India shows him all the available tell-tale evidence on how he as the President of Pakistan and chief commander of the Pakistan armed forces can order 'halt' to the militants creating havoc in Jammu and Kashmir for the last 12 years.

The Indian cause has undeniably suffered much damage by the manner in which the Pakistani dictator was invited on May 23, Although US pressure for talks is an open secret, the Government failed to privately take the press into confidence about the reasons for going along with the Americans in this regard, and thereby fuelled unreasonable expectations in Islamabad.

Indian preparations for the summit were scandalous by any standard. There was no good reason why the meeting should not have been held in Delhi or a city that would showcase the achievements of modern India. But, like well-adjusted dhimmis, the Government chose the city of Mughal might to pow-wow with the architect of India's costly war at Kargil. The entourage's sight-seeing was virtually confined to Ajmer(cancelled) Fatehpur Sikri, the Old Delhi haveli of the General's infancy, and the Dargah at Nizamuddin (cancelled to accommodate the All Party Hurriyat Coinference).

Aware that he would be meeting the face of medieval Islam in India, General Musharraf could be forgiven for thinking that India had lost the stomach to fight on in Kashmir. He felt the Americans had convinced Vajpayee to give up the Valley, and that he was entering the country as a foregone victor. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and RAW could hardly be unaware that Pakistan's Urdu press was vociferously propagating that America was proposing an arrangement whereby India would retain Jammu, Pakistan would keep Occupied Kashmir, and the Valley would become independent ! The popular perception in Pakistan was that Mr Vajpayee would try hard to please the Americans, a poor reflection on his spin-doctors.

The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) extravaganza with social scientists at the capital's costliest hotel is a sad commentary on the culture being promoted by the Government. All dissenting voices were shut out; the venue and the expenditure became the story. Not to be left out, the RSS jumped onto the bandwagon by sponsoring a puerile competition on good relations between the two countries, even as Pakistan published obscene lies about mass rapes and violation of human rights in Kashmir ! It trivialised Kargil with shameless crudity : "When body bags were sent from Kargil . Musharraf was the most hated man in India. Now, we are ready to welcome him with full honours".

The PMO has reportedly spent crores of rupees on non-events before and during the summit; and accounting of the expenditure would be in the public interest. One is curious to learn why this government rushes to private hotels at every pretext. Hitherto, the chefs at Hyderabad House have successfully hosted the most distinguished dignitaries. Certainly no other Prime Minister is known to have been photographed with a high society chef ! To return to the summit, Mr Vajpayee's greatest concession, of course, was the legitimacy bestowed upon General Musharraf by congratulating him in advance of his usurping the Presidency. The true significance of this act has been lost on analysts who feel the Government has forgotten Kargil. To my mind, the unwarranted recognition of General Musharraf means that should he meet a sad end, India will have no choice but to do business with his successor.

Had Mr Vajpayee reserved his unilateral concessions for the summit itself, it might have helped his guest return home with a face-saver and spared him the ignominy of Pakistan stonewalling the gestures with merely the release of peace cyclist Vikas Singh. India has ordered the release of civilian prisoners of Pakistani origin, leniency and non-arrest of straying fishermen, slashed tariffs on fifty-odd Pakistani goods, and granted twenty scholarships to its students, academics and artists.

In return, General Musharraf denied that underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, is living in Karachi despite report from Interpol. He sidetracked the extradition treaty and cross-border terrorism, and declared the All Party Hurriyat Conference is the true representative of the Kashmiris. The fate of Indian Prisoners-of-War, trade, the oil pipeline from Iran, narco-terrorism and nuclear confidence building measures is equally uncertain. Pakistan also refused India most favoured nation (MFN) status, though it is a WTO requirement.

As expected, Kashmir was a stumbling block. Visiting Pakistanis spoke of "asserting the political rights of the people so they are not dependent upon militants to express their will", a smart way of justifying the proxy war by non-Kashmri militants. It needs to be stated that unlike Pakistan, the state of Jammu & Kashmir has always been ruled by elected representatives. Its Chief Ministers have always been Muslim, and that too, mostly non-Congress. It cannot be honestly argued that there is Indian (read Hindu) repression of political aspirations.

Indian peaceniks want conversion of the Line of Control (LoC) into a de jure international border. It is alleged that Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mrs Indira Gandhi agreed to this at Shimla in 1972, but that the former reneged on his return to Pakistan. If so, this country must understand that this is now a dead letter. We might more productively think about the 1995 Parliament Resolution regarding recovery of Occupied Kashmir. General Musharraf's intransigence, however, served a useful purpose by preventing India from reducing troops in Siachin, something the peaceniks were inexplicably keen on. As everyone knows, Siachin is critical to India's control over Leh and Ladakh.

It is surprising why Indian commentators claim that both sides are equally responsible for peace in both countries, so that they can respectively divert their resources from defence to development. There is no violence in Pakistan for which India is directly or indirectly accountable. Violence in Pakistan is either ethnic (Sindhi, Mohajir), or religious sub-denominational (Shia vs Sunni). The supposedly perilous state of the Pakistani economy is similarly not our concern. INAV