Modi’s Hedonist Agenda and the Kashmir Issue

 

 

By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi.

 

Modi's Hedonist Agenda and the Kashmir Issue

 

The issue of Kashmir remains a decisive factor in deciding the fate of relations between the two nuclear states, India and Pakistan. But unfortunately, realization of this truth, is being deliberately avoided by Narendra Modi’s government in India.

In response to Pakistan’s stand of meeting India and holding the NSA-level talks without any pre-conditions,  the Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a press conference in New Delhi, told that India is ready to start the scheduled talks with Pakistan with the assurance that Pakistan would not meet the leaders of the Kashmir Hurriyat Conference and that the talks would be fixed around the issue of terrorism.But this message– from India to the Pakistani government– is much enough to understand or conclude that there is no likelihood of resumption of talks scheduled on August 23-24 between the two sides.

True to its past practice of running away from talks with Pakistan on flimsy grounds, New Delhi on Friday conveyed to Pakistan through its Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh that the national security adviser-level talks stand cancelled over the intended meeting of National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz with the Hurriyat leaders in New Delhi on August 23.There is no second opinion in this perception that the present state of deadlock,has been deliberately created by Narendra Modi’s government.

“This is the second time that India has chosen to go back on a decision mutually agreed upon between the two prime ministers, to engage in a comprehensive dialogue, by coming up with frivolous pretexts,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman said after the Indian Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh informed the government. On Friday, India said it would not be appropriate for Aziz to meet with separatist leaders from the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Pakistan’s high commissioner to New Delhi had invited the leaders for a meeting with Aziz. “Pakistani leadership has always interacted with the Kashmir/Hurriyat leadership, during their visits to India. Pakistan sees no reason to depart from this established past practice. The Hurriyat leaders are true representatives of the Kashmiri people of the Indian-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan regards them as ‘genuine stakeholders’ in the efforts to find a lasting solution of the Kashmir dispute,” spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said in the statement.

” The US has described the cancellation of talks as “unfortunate”. A State Department spokesman said it was “important that both sides still continue take steps to improve relations”.

Pakistan says these men must be consulted before India and Pakistan hold discussions concerning Kashmir. India resists the involvement of groups that have clashed with the Indian establishment for decades, boycotting elections and stoking tensions in the Kashmir Valley. Security officials in New Delhi accuse them of facilitating militancy in the region and colluding with Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Pakistan has said the dispute over Kashmir will figure on the agenda when the countries’ top security officials get together. India says the meetings will focus only on terrorism.

The Modi government’s policy—of showing its ‘political and diplomatic escapism’ from any ‘official engagement’ that may address the Kashmir issue- an international hot spot of dispute between India and Pakistan—is indicative of the fact that New Delhi yet tries to suppress the cause of Kashmir’s freedom by means of its ‘undemocratic and coercive’ attitude and policy. The Indian ‘blatant violations’ on the Line of Control is also reflective of the Indian policy to provoke Pakistan. During the past two month, more than 100 ceasefire violations along the LoC, have been committed by India.The Modi’s government has been ingraining the element of’ religious extremism’ in its internal politics.The Indian government’s present policy– influenced by the ‘Cold Start Doctrine’ ,without any confusion,seems to– intricate the challenge of the South Asian peace-an inevitable policy measure to be bilaterally taken by the two nuclear neighbours.

During BJP’s previous term in power, former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Kashmir policy was hailed as an effective approach toward dealing with the problems of the region..

Vajpayee approached the Kashmir issue from multiple dimensions, seeking to engage both Pakistan as well as with Kashmiri separatists simultaneously. His approach was guided by the three principles:humanism,democracy,and Kashmir’s age old legacy of amity.  Though Modi echoed his government’s commitment to the ‘Vajpayee approach,’ many feel his tactics reflect an extricating of the ‘external dimension’ of the Kashmir issue from the ‘internal’.

Seen from the policy of new ‘twists and turns’ that New Delhi adopts towards Pakistan, it appears that the Indian mindset under the Modi’s government is to orchestrate a strategy of a ‘limited war’ against Pakistan, without analyzing  the ‘harrowing degree of its magnitude’ that a limited war can be converted into a ‘nuclear war’. But some sane and liberal elements in the Indian National Congress and the Indian media have been resisting this kind of notion.The Modi government’s policy is to deflect or divert the attention of the international community  from the issue of Kashmir via its strategy of trumpeting the issue of Mumbai terrorism;and paradoxically, New Delhi is not yet ready to address the concerns of the Pakistani government regarding RAW’s involvement of making terrorism inside Pakistan.

Briefing the media, State Department Spokesman John Kirby said, “Certainly, there – we know there continue to be tensions, and our position about that has not changed. These are matters for both India and Pakistan to work out.”

Kirby said, US has strong bilateral relationships with both Pakistan and India and the United States have, as Secretary Kerry has said himself, have strong interest in seeing peaceful resolution to the tensions there.

And yet there are some tacit indications that some members of the Indian establishment having been clandestinely thinking on the lines of ‘sharing responsibility’- a proposal once initiated by Asia society, an American think-tank based in New York. This framework suggests that India should give special status to Kashmir, as a step to build trust between the populations of ‘both parts of Kashmir’ (India and Pakistan), as well as to stop external support to the Kashmiri militants. The Line of Control would then be converted into an international boundary between India and Pakistan. Building upon this framework in a rather optimistic fashion, it has proposed a ‘South Asia House’ – a scheme of comprehensive cooperation between the countries of the subcontinent, perhaps leading to a ‘confederation’ that would include Kashmir.

The society envisages a role for the international community. In particular, the U.S. and Russia could individually or jointly make efforts to bring India and Pakistan closer in resolving the issue. Through seminars, conferences, and by tabling resolutions in the United Nations, the international community can sensitise populations the world over to the need to seek solutions of the problem in Kashmir. Although the Kashmir issue is bilateral, the international salience of the issue can no longer be ignored.

The Kashmir-American Council, a Washington-based organisation comprising largely of Kashmiri-Americans with pro-Pakistan leanings, has proposed an active U.S. mediation role in Kashmir. It suggests a dialogue among 4 parties: the U.S., Pakistan, India, and the ‘Kashmiri People.’ As a first step, the area must be demilitarised. Indian and Pakistani troops must revert to their respective positions ‘on the borders outside Kashmir.’ A small police force must remain, but only in order to supervise the cease-fire line under UN observers. The proposal also advocates that, given India’s violation of human rights in Kashmir, the U.S. should use its effective veto to stop the inflow of IMF and 17 World Bank consortium funds to India.

There is no ‘dearth of ideas’ on how to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Based either on analogical reasoning or historical experience of conflict resolution attempts involving other situations, most of these proposals emphasise the need for transforming the dynamics of India-Pakistan conflict from a zero-sum competition over Kashmir to a positive sum situation in which both sides would gain from a settlement of the dispute. Some of these proposals offer a clear template and a road map for this transformation while others only provide broad guidelines.

Needless to say that none of these ideas can be pursued in earnest without a sustained and institutionalised India Pakistan dialogue process centred on Kashmir and no outcome of this process will yield an enduring peace dividends unless it enjoys the support and the backing of the ‘people of Jammu and Kashmir’-an irrefutable truth that Modi’s government denies to accept.

India has consistently rebuffed the offers of mediation, whether by the United Nations or any other third party, arguing that solutions must arise bilaterally. And even in a bilateral format, very little progress has been made because of India’s refusal to come to grips with the ‘core’ issue of Kashmir. But enough is enough! The days for India,to colonize Kashmir, are over.The more the Modi’s ‘ultranationalist government’ tries to avoid to talk on the Kashmir issue with Pakistan,the more the government in Islamabad seems ‘affirmed’ on this issue.

What Next?

Recent Articles