SACW | 24 Dec. 2003 | Kashmir / Pakistan / India / Communalism

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  24 December,  2003
via:  www.sacw.net

[1] Rethinking Plebiscite in Kashmir (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
[2] Where have we to go (M B Naqvi)
[3] Polo for peace  (Brian Cloughley)
[4] India: 'BMAC, VHP two sides of same coin'

--------------

[1]

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 22:43:48 -0500 (EST)

RETHINKING PLEBISCITE IN KASHMIR
by
Pervez Hoodbhoy

By declaring that "we have left aside" the United Nation Security Council
resolutions for a solution to Kashmir, General Pervez Musharraf shattered
a long-held taboo. While the General had given some confusing hints during
his 2001 visit to India and spoken of the need "to move away from stated
positions", never before had a Pakistani head of state made an explicit
public admission that Pakistan cannot realistically hope for a plebiscite
to end the Kashmir dispute and, therefore, is willing to explore other
ways. Subsequent attempts by the Foreign Minister, Mr. Khurshid Kasuri, to
dilute Musharaf's remarks have been insufficient to control outrage and
accusations of treason from those in the Pakistani military, political,
and jihadist establishment who remain convinced that Kashmir can someday
be liberated by force. Interestingly Pakistan Television, which slavishly
follows rulers around, did not cover the General's speech.

Mr. Kasuri need not apologize for the General, nor go overboard to placate
those who insist on the impossible. It is true that plebiscite was indeed
the solution mutually agreed upon in 1948 and that India had reneged on a
solemn commitment. But the passage of five decades, and drastically
changed geo-political circumstances, demand a reappraisal. Today,
plebiscite is no longer the obvious way of determining the wishes of the
people of Jammu and Kashmir. For example, it clearly excludes a major
section of Kashmiris that would opt for independence today but which, in
1948, may not have wanted it. More frightening is the likelihood of a
plebiscite igniting communal passions leading to horrific Gujarat-style
bloodbaths across the subcontinent. Moreover, at a practical level there
is no agency, including the UN, that is capable and willing to implement a
task that all nations (except Pakistan) see as impossibly difficult.
Therefore to insist on plebiscite is the surest way of guaranteeing that a
bloody stand-off continues.

Why the change? Unfortunately, much of Pakistan's conspiracy-obsessed
intelligentsia appears eager to believe that the General is merely obeying
marching orders received from George W. Bush. But the view that everything
comes from Washington is simplistic and disallows an appreciation of some
critically important, but unpleasant, facts about Pakistan's failed
Kashmir policy. One hopes that these considerations, rather than external
pressure, have influenced the General.

First, there has been an alarming decline in international support for
Pakistan's position on Kashmir. Even at the level of passing resolutions,
Muslim states and the Organization of Islamic Countries have been
lukewarm. More importantly, their trade with India is many times greater
than with Pakistan. Today Indian workers, particularly skilled ones, are
still welcome in the Middle East while Pakistanis are finding it harder
and harder. It goes without saying that Europe does not agree with
Pakistan's actions in Kashmir. But more significantly, even Pakistan's
immediate neighbours -- Iran and China -- are extremely wary of liberating
Kashmir through jihad. As if to send a signal, both countries have had
joint military exercises with India during the current year. Afghanistan,
which Pakistani generals long regarded as no more than their backyard, now
has hostile relations with Pakistan.

While acknowledging that India is winning the propaganda war, Pakistani
hardliners continue to insist that it is merely the failure of Pakistan's
diplomatic missions. This is nonsense -- many Pakistani diplomats and
embassy officials have tried valiantly but they could not make up for the
failure of a short-sighted and indefensible surreptitious "bleed-India"
policy formulated by the military establishment around 1990. One
consequence was that the horrific crimes committed by India's occupation
forces in Kashmir, amply documented by various human rights groups, were
eclipsed by widely publicized crimes committed by the mujahideen
clandestinely dispatched by Pakistan to "liberate" Kashmir. The massacres
of Hindus, targeting of civilians accused of collaborating with India,
killings of Kashmiri political leaders, destruction of cinema houses and
liquor shops, forcing of women into the veil, and flaring up of sectarian
disputes, severely undermined the legitimacy of the Kashmiri freedom
movement and deprived it of its most potent weapon -- the moral high
ground. In an age of television cameras and instant communication, nobody
believed Pakistan's denials of aiding and arming militants. Pakistan's
diplomats therefore had an impossible task, especially after 11 September
2001, when jihad became the most notorious word in the political lexicon.

Second, the recent split in the Hurriyat Conference, originally set up
with Pakistani help to mediate disputes between different anti-Indian
Kashmiri organizations has sharply reduced Pakistan's influence on the
Kashmiri freedom movement. Kashmiris have realized that their interests
are by no means identical to Pakistan's. In a clever move, after having
stubbornly resisted talking to the Kashmiri leaders for years, the Indian
establishment -- including the hawkish L.K.Advani and N.N.Vohra -- now has
had direct talks with Maulana Abbas Ansari's majority faction of the
Hurriyat. Pakistan is now left isolated with the small Geelani faction.
Moreover, by fencing off the LOC, acquiring high-tech surveillance and
night-vision equipment from Israel, and increasing pressure on Pakistan to
limit infiltration, India is likely to further decrease Pakistani
influence in Kashmiri domestic politics.

Third -- and most important -- is the inescapable fact that India, with
its hugely abundant scientific and high-tech manpower, is set to emerge as
one of the world's largest economies while Pakistan's educational and
scientific institutions continue their decline. India has penetrated into
America's industrial core, providing it with scientists and engineers, and
even drawing work away from US companies into India. Income from just one
source -- outsourcing and IT services -- is expected to swell to an annual
export industry of $57 billion by 2008. This far exceeds Pakistan's GNP,
current and projected. The outline of an emerging US-India strategic
partnership is beginning to emerge. The recently concluded agreement on
space and nuclear cooperation is one indication of things to come. It is
clear that the US no longer regards Pakistan as being in the same league
as India. Therefore any expectation of equal treatment would be a
delusion.

Time is running out for Pakistan. Rather than perform another
Afghanistan-style U-turn, it should seek practicable ways of settling
Kashmir before a solution is forced upon it. In effect this could mean a
preparatory stage in which inflamed nerves are soothed and the
high-pitched decades-old rhetoric is toned down. Subsequently, the
Pakistani side of Kashmir and the Northern Areas should be formally
absorbed into Pakistan. Negotiations should be conducted with India on an
LOC-plus solution that allows for some territorial adjustments and soft
borders, and possibly a 10-mile deep demilitarized zone.  While the
division of Kashmir is unfortunate, it is better to accept this reality
rather than live with endless suffering that has consumed nearly 90,000
lives since 1987.

By dropping its insistence on plebiscite, Pakistan has now put the ball in
the Indian court. If Mr. Vajpayee is the man of peace that he says he is,
he must respond to a move that is breathtakingly bold. The move carries
additional personal risk for General Musharraf, whose narrow escape from
an assassination attempt shows the dangers of the line he has taken. The
forthcoming SAARC summit in January 2004, to be held in Islamabad,
provides an opportunity that India should seize upon.

-----------------------
The author teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad

_____


[2]

The News International
December 24, 2003

Where have we to go
by M B Naqvi

Track II and III circles are agog and the 
governments are engaged in frenetic activity to 
restore normal relations between India and 
Pakistan. The whole world favours the burying of 
the hatchet between these two nuclear powers. Is 
peace beginning to break out? It is too early to 
say.

What is happening is a rather limited 
normalisation between the two rivals. Pakistan 
originally wanted to restore the Pak-India ties 
to the level of December 12, 2001, i.e. before 
India broke off most links. It appears that 
momentum of events might force the two to go 
beyond this limit.

One reason forcing the pace, apart from major 
powers' prodding, is the Islamabad Summit of the 
Saarc. This implies multiple but minor pressures 
on the two bigger member states: the governments 
and the public opinion of SAARC countries does 
not want SAARC to be a hostage to Indo-Pakistan 
quarrels. There is also the inherent appeal of 
regional cooperation.

Most important reason is international pressure 
on both New Delhi and Islamabad to change their 
inflexible stances on Kashmir that left no scope 
for compromise. It is led by the sole superpower, 
though EU, China and Russia are supporting the 
desire to effect at least a détente between these 
powers. It is not clear if the US is suggesting a 
Kashmir solution as a guarantee of stable peace 
in the region. The four options for a Kashmir 
solution, now in the air, are meant as agenda for 
drawn out negotiations, while normalisation plus 
a military détente (CBMs) based on stoppage of 
Jihad take care of a possible conflict.

Role of non-official peacemakers (tracks II and 
III) is important, though official bureaucracies' 
cussedness had greatly hampered them. Perhaps 
bureaucracies need not be blamed; they do what 
their political masters tell them. Recent events 
have demonstrated that the common people on both 
sides want nothing but peace and friendship 
between India and Pakistan. Here a clarification 
is necessary.

The original track II diplomats were first 
assembled by the Americans for assisting the two 
governments. They comprised influential members 
of the ruling establishments or were otherwise 
close to them. Ideas discussed at their level did 
not commit the governments while consensus thus 
arrived at can safely be pondered over by the 
real rulers. This track II, a convenience for the 
governments, should be sharply distinguished from 
track III wallahs who are primarily 
representatives of the people of the respective 
countries (civil society) and can ignore what 
governments think or say on any issue.

The much postponed sixth Joint Convention of 
Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and 
Democracy, recently held in Karachi, illustrates 
what Track III can do. The kind of comfortable 
agreement that was witnessed on most issues on 
which the two civil societies' representatives 
pondered was heart-warming. How representative 
the two delegations were can possibly be 
questioned. There was preponderance of left and 
liberals on both sides, though the right-wingers 
were not absent. True, stalwarts of the right 
like Ram Jethmalani did not turn up. On the 
whole, the two sets of delegates did represent 
most schools of thought.

There was unanimity over the main aim of the 
Forum: a people-to-people reconciliation between 
the peoples of India and Pakistan so as to banish 
inter-state as well as inter-people conflict, 
especially communal politics and riots or 
pogroms. The Convention recommended a 25 per cent 
reduction in the armies and a number of measures 
to demilitarise the society on both sides. It 
visualised a non-nuclear South Asia, at peace 
within itself and working for popular welfare and 
democracy. It denied Kashmir was a territorial 
dispute; Kashmiris' wishes were recognised as the 
criterion for a solution of the problem.

Among the old and young-yes there were students 
and young people on both sides - the upsurge of 
friendly feelings was evident. Convention was 
mainly engaged in rational discussion but 
sentiment of love broke loose outside the 
discussion hall or rooms and during cultural 
programmes. On departures, some delegates burst 
into tears.

This is an important element in the situation, 
though it has to contend with powerful, 
entrenched interests in politics, ruling 
establishments and of course governments and 
bureaucracies. Pak India cold war, interspersed 
with hot ones, and arms races have created 
powerful vested interests on either side to keep 
the two countries on the edge of perpetual war. 
These interests dominate governments. This hard 
fact has to be remembered to guard against easily 
aroused high expectations about peace as soon as 
government leaders shake hands. A long hard 
struggle in order to reach the shores of peace 
and reconciliation impends; governments are 
capable of throwing snares across people's path. 
They need to be aware.

For setting the course basic questions have to be 
asked: what is it that Pakistanis should strive 
for? Is it Pakistan's or Islam's glory that is 
the ultimate aim which the state should achieve? 
If so, what is the relationship of this aim with 
that of all the people's human rights and their 
material well-being, including the vital 
necessity of social security for citizens? Can 
these two goals co-exist? If so why not demand 
full fundamental rights and social security for 
all in a clear, coherent and credible manner?

Also, what about Kashmir? Is the aim its 
inclusion in Pakistan? Or is it the Kashmir 
people's right of self-determination that 
Pakistan should seek? In the latter case, other 
questions arise: Will Pakistanis abide by 
Kashmiris freely expressed wishes, if their 
decision goes against a Pakistan that is 
perpetually under military occupation? There is 
another basic question: Does this Kashmir 
commitment override the earlier formulated main 
aim? Can Pakistan envisage a solution other than 
UN-supervised plebiscite as visualised by Gen. 
Musharraf? What about the people's wishes if 
Kashmiris' rights are Pakistan's criterion.

It is not a matter of cleverly used words. It 
will affect the lives of common and desperately 
poor folks. It is the rich who can afford to 
involve the country and the people in airy-fairy 
objectives that seem noble but have negative 
effect on poverty stricken sections of 
population. Clarification of aims is crucial for 
fixing priorities and the criteria of 
governmental actions. All political parties and 
rulers should be forced to disclose their aims, 
priorities, objectives and their criteria. That 
will make politics rational and democratic.

As for relations with India, common Pakistanis 
should insist on the desired relationship. Time 
was when demagogues talked of a thousand year war 
with India. In changed circumstances the people 
want to arrive at agreements and to solve the 
Kashmir problem. Lately Islamabad began its peace 
offensive. It came not a day too soon. Peace is 
what suits Pakistan and peace is a high enough 
objective in its own right.

Anyhow relations with India need especially 
careful thought. After all Pakistan has fought 
three and a half wars and has run an open ended 
arms race with it. The arms race now encompasses 
nuclear weapons and missiles; it is becoming 
impossible for Pakistanis to keep up with Indian 
Joneses; there are just not enough resources. 
Even if it had those resources, it would be a 
stupid policy to waste them in destructive arms 
races.

India is Pakistan's closest neighbour, the way 
Afghanistan or China are not. Pakistan itself 
came out of India's womb. It was claimed as a 
solution of India's festering communal problem. 
All its problems deal in one way or another with 
India. And the origins of both are in the same 
history and the Indo-Persian civilization that 
grew around India's central authority, Muslim in 
middle ages. But the fate of each is a matter for 
the other's concern - despite the 80 year long 
legacy of hate and conflict and nuclear weapons.

Despite the obvious hatred of India or of 
Pakistan in India, whenever common people of 
India and Pakistan come face to face, they are 
attracted to each other the way no other two 
peoples do. One's inference is that these 
relations are ambivalent: if the wave of 
friendship and cooperation were to prevail, scope 
of friendly cooperation becomes unlimited. But 
should leadership foment hatred, the era of 
distrust and conflict can be sustained, as indeed 
happened from the second decade of Twentieth 
Century-but was not the case earlier.

It will be economically ruinous, socially futile 
and politically dangerous to continue along the 
present path. There is no option but to change 
tack and reverse the trend of communal distrust 
and emphasising separatism. Pakistan can reverse, 
work for genuine friendship - from the grassroots 
up-cooperate and rely on strong a millennium-old 
commonalities. United voice of India and Pakistan 
will make a tremendous difference to Asia and the 
world. Today, they undercut each other. If both 
cooperate bilaterally and regionally the whole 
world will take note of a new factor. If a 
progressively greater proportion of resources is 
devoted to development based on meeting human 
needs of the millions in both the countries, 
eradication of the direr forms of poverty will 
take no longer than a decade or so.

_____


[3]

The Daily Times
December 24, 2003 
 
Polo for peace
by Brian Cloughley

On the day this article is published I shall be 
in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir, 
having travelled across the Wagah border on 
December 19. I write the article in Lahore, an 
hour after leaving the Polo Ground where my wife 
and I watched the India-Pakistan match along with 
many friends, and a record crowd of 15,000, all 
of whose members were good-natured and in high 
spirits. Not only that, but they demonstrated 
sportsmanship that would put any British soccer 
crowd to shame. Admittedly this is not much of a 
challenge in modern yob-ridden UK, but I am sure 
you see what I mean.
It was especially pleasant because my old friend 
General Shah Rafi Alam had two sons playing in 
the match: Shamyl, and the team captain, Qublai. 
We were staying with Rafi and Tameez at their 
farm near Bedian from which spot in 1965 Rafi saw 
his first Indian soldier - in the turret of a 
tank that had its gun pointing westwards. But on 
December 14 there were no guns in Lahore, only 
goodwill, and this is the message I want to 
spread.
Obviously the crowd was pro-Pakistan, and it went 
wild when Qublai scored the winning goal in the 
extra sixth chucker to decide the game ten-nine 
in the sudden-death play-off. But all fifteen 
thousand of them applauded the Indian team. The 
Pakistan and Indian players shook hands with 
obvious cordiality (and partied together very 
late that night); the game was absolutely clean, 
with no fouls other than unintentionally; there 
was no roaring by players; the few Indians in the 
crowd, loyally displaying their national flag, 
were regarded with affection; Indian goals were 
heartily applauded; and the whole tamasha was 
admirably civilised. As the commentator said, it 
takes sport to show the way to friendship, and he 
declared, with genuine feeling, echoed by the 
crowd, that he hoped the Indian side would 'come 
back again and again and again and again'. And so 
say all of us. Well, most of us.
During my talks with so many people in Pakistan 
over the past three weeks the constant theme was 
peace. I walked round the bazaars in Pindi and 
Lahore and visited villages, speaking with 
countless shopkeepers and stall-holders. (And the 
only danger I experienced was that of terminal 
chai-poisoning.)
I had discussions with the good and the great, 
including President Pervez Musharraf and serving 
and retired officers, and with many luminaries of 
the business and political communities. The 
refrain was the same: let's talk with India; the 
whole stand-off has been going on too long; the 
way ahead is not confrontation but negotiation.
There remain zealots on both sides, of course, 
whose appetite for confrontation remains 
unsatisfied and who seek to derail even the most 
modest attempts at improvement of relations. But 
the swell of public opinion appears against them.
During my meeting with the president he was 
optimistic about Indo-Pakistan relations, and on 
December 18 went so far as to say that the 
countries "need to talk to each other with 
flexibility, coming beyond stated positions, 
meeting half-way somewhere". This is most 
encouraging, but, as usual, the problem lies in 
definition. Just where is 'somewhere' in a 
process of meeting half-way? It is bound to lie 
on one side or the other of preconceived and even 
predetermined positions, and is thus in itself a 
potential irritant.
I betray no secrets when I say that the president 
was frank with me in saying that so far as 
Pakistan is concerned, talks would be without 
preconditions - therefore dropping former 
emphasis on Kashmir. This is a major concession, 
and let us hope it will be met in the spirit in 
which it is offered. The even greater concession 
is President Musharraf's preparedness to move 
away from insistence on UN resolutions. A quantum 
change, indeed, and one that opens new vistas for 
advance to rapprochement.
Naturally the loonies disagree. Maulana Fazlur 
Rehman said the president had 'bowed down the 
whole nation before India' and I say the maulana 
is talking through his hat. He was joined in his 
sentiments by the usual suspects; those who only 
want the confrontation and the killing to 
continue and even increase. They are stark, 
raving mad to wish to throw away the chance for 
the guns to fall silent. And the chances of 
seeing well-fed, well-groomed, comfortable chaps 
such as the MMA vice-president, Sajid Mir, in the 
firing line are absolutely zero. The maulana 
declares that the president's initiative 'amounts 
to negating the sacrifice of Pakistanis and 
Kashmiris who laid [sic] their lives for 
Kashmir's freedom' but I haven't seen the maulana 
laying down anything except his peculiar version 
of the law.
There have been no sacrifices by maulana sahib 
for Kashmir's freedom. Nor have there been any 
sacrifices by the rest of the plump, 
beard-wagging, well-manicured rabble-rousers who 
take delight in encouraging murder and mayhem. 
These people are sick, and they are humbugs. Not 
a single one of them is prepared to take up a 
weapon and go forth to fight for what they call 
freedom. How many 'shahid' maulanas have we seen? 
Where are the crowd-stirrers when the bullets 
begin to fly? I'll tell you where they are: they 
are sitting in their Pajeros, surrounded by 
bodyguards, going very fast in the opposite 
direction.
The MMA opponents of a Kashmir solution are not 
only absurd hypocrites and physical cowards, they 
are devoid of compassion and incapable of 
political flexibility. They see the 'cause' of 
Kashmir as a convenient cudgel with which to 
strike the government. They care not a fig for 
the death of innocents, and they revel in 
bloodshed. Qazi Hussain Ahmed states that 
'Musharraf must go'. But who will take his place? 
Another bunch of corrupt politicians? Or plump 
Qazi sahib, who wants the slaughter in Kashmir to 
continue while he sits at ease in his mansion?
Most people in Pakistan want the threat of war 
removed. They want their children to be educated. 
They want clean water, decent governance, and 
prosperity. The MMA promises mass action against 
the government for its own selfish aims, and in 
doing so will wilfully polarise the country. It 
has no reasonable alternative to offer Pakistan, 
and wants power for its own sake.
A pox on those who deliberately seek to derail 
the movement to peace. They are enemies of 
freedom, and not its supporters. They could learn 
a lot from the Indian and Pakistani polo teams 
and the enormous crowd that supported them. The 
MMA for war. Polo for peace. Let the people 
choose.
Brian Cloughley is a former military officer who 
writes on international affairs. His website is 
www.briancloughley.com


_____


[4]

The Times off India, December 24, 2003

'BMAC, VHP two sides of same coin'

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2003 01:46:35 AM ]
LUCKNOW: The very credentials of Muslim Personal 
Law Board and Babri Masjid Action Committee in 
resolving issues pertaining to Muslims or the 
Ayodhya imbroglio was on Tuesday questioned by 
Muslims for Secular Democracy (MSD), an 
organisation opposed to religious fundamentalism 
and communalism and one which seeks to make no 
distinction between majority and minority 
communalism.

Addressing a joint press conference noted script 
writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar and editor of 
Combat Communalism Javed Anand questioned the 
very authority of the Board in deciding matters 
pertaining to Muslims. They sought to know 
whether the Board was an elected body and if it 
was an ad hoc one, then who vested it with the 
power to speak or take decisions on behalf of the 
vast majority of Muslims.

Reacting to a pointed query on the Ayodhya issue 
and the role of Babri Masjid Action Committee, 
Javed Akhtar stated that the MSD firmly believed 
that Ayodhya was not a religious issue and it was 
for the court to take a final decision on it. He 
added that both the action committee and the VHP 
were not a solution to the vexed problem but were 
the problem themselves.

Akhtar dismissed all talks of a uniform civil 
code by the BJP as an election gimmick and said 
if the party was genuinely interested in such a 
code it should place its blueprint before society 
so that a discussion could be held. The script 
writer maintained that the MSD was not opposed to 
such a code, provided a blue print of it was made 
available to it. He added that laws of all 
communities were unjust towards women.

He also stated that the amendment of the 
Constitution in the Shah Bano case was wrong and 
that the government had bowed before the 
fundamentalists on that count.

Denying that the MSD had any political leanings 
or was affiliated to any political party, Akhtar 
said as a national forum of secular and 
democratic-minded Muslims the MSD is aimed at 
being in the forefront of the ideological battle 
against fundamentalist and communal Muslim 
politics. The organisation was also in agreement 
with all secular-democratic groups in the 
sub-continent that the fascist terror in the name 
of Hindutva posed the greatest threat to 
democracy and the religious minorities in India, 
just as fanaticism and terrorism in the garb of 
Islam were the greatest threat to democracy and 
religious minorities in neighbouring Pakistan and 
Bangladesh.

Earlier, MSD members including Akhtar interacted 
with students at the philosophy department of 
Lucknow University.


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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
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