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Mumbai blasts – Indo-Pak ties go down the tube again |
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Harjit Singh
The serial train blasts on July 11 in Mumbai that claimed the precious lives of 200 innocent persons have once again plunged India-Pakistan relations into muck of distrust. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trust in Pakistan President Musharraf, whom he described as the man he is confident he can deal with, has proved to be incorrect. All the initial investigation reports point the finger at the Lashkar-e-Taiba or its front outfits which with the help of India’s SIMI allegedly orchestrated the attacks on the Mumbai suburban trains. The attacks by the Pak-backed terrorist groups on India’s financial capital prove beyond doubt that the so-called confidence-building measures and improvement of people-to-people relations were just public relations exercises and Gen. Musharraf’s ultimate aim of making India kneel on the Kashmir issue through the tools of terrorism was never compromised. The warning that such attacks will continue to take place until India settles the Kashmir dispute has come from none other than Pakistan Foreign Minister Kasuri while on a visit to Washington. Whatever explanation he may now give that he was misquoted or his statement was misinterpreted, what came out of Kasuri’s lips is the well-established policy of his country.
India has done the right thing in putting off the Foreign Secretary level meeting which was to have taken stock of the progress made at the third round of the Composite Dialogue. This means the fourth round is now indefinitely postponed and the talks on the eight contentious issues on which some progress was made go into limbo. Taking an uncharacteristically tough stand, Prime Minister Singh who during his visit to Mumbai, was in his combative best, warned Pakistan that the peace process might come to a halt if Islamabad did not prevent its soil from being used by terrorists. However, given the Pakistani agenda of pinpricking India and sabotaging the peace process every time some substantive progress is made to the exclusion of progress on Kashmir, the rulers in Islamabad are unlikely to back down by these threats. Perhaps unlike December 2001, when India moved troops on the border with Pakistan after the attack on the Parliament, the absence of strong action by New Delhi after the Diwali blasts, the Varanasi bombs, and the failed attempts on Ayodhya and the RSS headquarters in nagpur encouraged Pakistan to continue to prod the terrorist outfits under its control to hit out at selected places in India. The message that India will be intolerant of terror and will hunt perpetrators is not being effectively put out.
The Prime Minister will now have to change his opinion about Musharraf who for the last few months has been trying to hard sell his solution on Jammu and Kashmir: demilitarization and self-governance in J&K. The Prime Minister inherited the framework of the peace process from his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee who forced Pakistan to give a written undertaking [when Vajpayee visited Pakistan in connection with the SAARC summit] that Pakistan will not allow its soil to be used for terrorist attacks on India. After his very first meeting in New York, Dr. Singh commented that Musharraf was a man India could do business with. He resumed the composite dialogue which was suspended after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament. In early 2005, Dr. Singh invited Gen. Musharraf to New Delhi when he expressed a desire to see a cricket match, overruling opposition within his own establishment. In a joint statement, they said, the peace process was now irreversible.
While many have suggested that the Composite Dialogue is going nowhere, they have, of course, led to some small but tangible progress. Cricket diplomacy too helped in a big way. Over the past two years, their cricket teams have visited each other’s country and unlike the past, they were greeted with warmth rather than stones and brickbats. Also for the first time in more than 50 years, buses are travelling between India and Pakistan, including on two routes in Jammu and Kashmir. The earthquake too saw the two countries taking a series of steps to bring the divided families closer and India opened up camps close to the border where the quake-affected Kashmiris on the other side of the border, could receive aid and medical assistance. A few places were also earmarked for the Kashmiris from the divided families to come and meet. India contributed in a big way to the quake relief funds and truckloads of aid were moved through the Line of Control for the victims of the quake. While trains were started, visa restrictions were relaxed.
What has, however, not happened is arguably most disappointing. India and Pakistan did not move forward even an inch on the Kashmir issue. In spite of best hopes, they failed to reach a settlement on the withdrawal of their troops from Siachen. Pakistan continues to play one Hurriyat leader against other and frequently invites them to Islamabad for instructions. After a relative lull, infiltration is once again picking up and intelligence reports speak of the terror training camps being reopened again.
Pakistan’s Kashmir-driven policy of India is, therefore, back in its original mode. Even the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, has said in an interview in London that those who thought the Kashmir issue could be resolved under a military Government in Pakistan were living in a fool’s paradise. She said the military in Pakistan would never like the Kashmir dispute to be resolved because it would end its own relevance. A huge budget for the military and maintaining such a huge force itself would begin to be questioned once the Kashmir issue is no more there. .
What India needs to tell Pakistan bluntly and forcefully is that the use of terrorism as a tool to settle the Kashmir issue would not help. It has not helped for the last 20 years or so and it will not help in future. Pakistan is doing harm to its own interests by not reining in jihadis.
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