The ongoing ‘Akhand Path’ in Pakistan!

The continuous recitation (without any break) of Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir and Kashmir for the past 60 years is like an ongoing Akhand Path in a pathetic ‘State of Pakistan’. You can not have any conversation with a Pakistani without inserting the “core issue of Kashmir”! What is the point in having a dialogue if India insists on talking about terrorism and Pakistan about Kashmir only? We have seen the same ‘nautanki’, many times before! The US and Pakistan insist on a dialogue with India and India has nothing to discuss if Pakistan does not stop state-sponsored terrorism. The biggest problem is the contradiction within Pakistan. The Pakistani Army-ISI combine can not survive without their only objective i.e. an all out effort of destabilizing India and the Pakistani political objective of holding on to power with the help of America and therefore India. Let me make a prediction, as long as Rahul Gandhi and his generation remains in power, India will not concede an inch on Kashmir. Translation, no compromise on the territorial issues for the next 20-30 years, with or without the American pressure. Where does it leave Pakistan with their unstable political process? Only Pakistan has to solve this problem, sorry guys!

The only solution to the Kashmir problem is through the “ballot box”! If the proponents of ‘Independent Kashmir’ want, they could contest state elections and win by atleast 51% majority. If they win enough seats in the state assembly, they would have their own ‘Chief Minister’. The ‘Constitution of India’ allows sufficient autonomy to the states if they operate within the confines of the established parameters. The case in point is the state of West Bengal that has been ruled by the ‘Left-Front’ for the past 30 years or more. The communist parties that constitute the left front have been largely faithful to their Chinese Communist Party masters rather than their own motherland, India. Despite such liberty, no secessionist sentiment exists in West Bengal or most of the eastern states of India. Kashmir could follow the example of West Bengal and have a government headed by a political party like ‘All Parties Hurriyat Conference’. The only problem is the Hurriyat Conference does not enjoy the support of even 30% of the population and their leaders know that. This is the reason the proponents of ‘Independent Kashmir’ refuse to participate in the political process of the state of Jammu & Kashmir. America and Europe and the entire ‘Western World’ are aware of this frustrating reality but still sing the song with Pakistan… “Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir and Kashmir”. Do Pakistanis really care about Kashmiris?

The troubled states of India!

India is a union of 28 fairly independent states governed by elected state legislators and a Chief Minister. In the initial stages of our republic, Nehru and Indira Gandhi used to treat the States as their personal fiefdom but for the past two decades, the Central Government has kept its hands off the administration of ‘Indian States’. This is the constitutional way of center-state relationship. Having said that, some ‘State Governments’ have been acting rather unilaterally and high-handedly. Punjab and Tamil Nadu are on top of my mind at this point followed by West Bengal, Kashmir and Gujarat. All five States are prone to regional jingoism, not to forget the goonda Raj in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The minorities in these states are always on the edge!

Once again Punjab is on fire and the State Government is probably playing politics. In such circumstances, it should be incumbent on the federal government to intervene and protect the life and the, property of the citizens. In any case, the Akalis have been in power for too long and the rot has set in. Unfortunately, the Congress leadership in Punjab is worst. It is time Rahul Gandhi starts building the youth cadre in all 20 districts of Punjab. We do not know too much about Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab and the son of Prakash Singh Badal, the current CM of Punjab. We only hope he is a little more enlightened and secular compared to his predecessors! Punjab remains a sensitive border state and a national concern.

AfPak should be quarantined by US-NATO forces

President Barack Obama needs some informed advice on his AfPak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) policy! Contemporary crop of Democrats is the last group of people that he should depend on, including vice President Joe Biden. Obama needs advice from people like former ambassadors Robert Blackwill and Wendy Chamberlin to keep his administration in tune with ground realities. Both of these diplomats have spent time in India and Pakistan respectively. There are others working for the American think tanks who have comprehensive knowledge of the area. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke appears to be either out of touch or just following the administration instead of leading it. This is becoming an alarming situation by the day. Increasing America’s military footprint in the region would probably back-fire in the medium term. It is better to quarantine the AfPak region to contain the spread of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Any spill over into Kashmir, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan could be catastrophic. Mercifully, Iran could take care of itself in that region.
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The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part XI

The Strobe Talbott – Jaswant Singh dialogue (June 1998-September 2000) laid the ground for Bill Clinton’s transformational visit to India in March 2000. That presidential visit opened a new chapter in relations between the United States and India. The bilateral dialogue grappled not only with the urgent issues of arms control and nuclear nonproliferation but also their visions for Indo-US relationship and the potential for economic and strategic cooperation between the two countries. My personal reading is that the developed world understands only one language and that is economic and military strength of its rival. The case in point is China. Russia is being pushed around these days because it does not have the economic muscle and Japan has never been taken seriously because it lacks the military muscle. China has a little bit of both and that is why it is being coddled by the entire world these days. India needs to not only enlarge its economic clout but also develop a credible military capability; only then the world would pay any attention to it. Having said that, there is a visible evolution in India’s stature in the world since May 1998. Just THINK about this!

Coming back to the Indian subcontinent, the Vajpayee administration began a push for a full-scale diplomatic peace process with Pakistan. With the historic inauguration of the Delhi-Lahore bus service in February 1999, Vajpayee initiated a new peace process aimed towards permanently resolving the Kashmir dispute and other territorial/nuclear/strategic conflicts with Pakistan. The resultant Lahore Declaration espoused a commitment to dialogue, expanded trade relations and the goal of denuclearized South Asia and mutual friendship. This eased the tension created by the 1998 nuclear tests, not only within the two nations, but also in South Asia and the rest of the world. While the Vajpayee government was in full throttle mode in terms of its foreign policy initiatives, domestically it was being undermined by a destructive regional satrap, the AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha. Finally, in May 1999, the AIADMK did pull the plug on the NDA, and the Vajpayee administration was reduced to a caretaker status pending fresh elections scheduled for October 1999. If you have friends like these, who needs an enemy? She is not the only crook, the other guy with dark glasses (DMK chief K Karunanidhi) is even worst. He openly supports the terrorists and he is a chief minister these days. Then there is Mamata Banerjee and Prakash Karat in West Bengal, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh and my favorite, Thackerays in Maharashtra! With these guys floating around, who can focus on a stable foreign policy? Vajpayee was now just a caretaker Prime Minister.

While Prime Minister Vajpayee was busy making peace with Pakistan in February 1999, Pakistani Army was busy planning an attack and occupation of Kargil in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Indian army units were rushed into Kashmir in response. Operation Vijay was launched by the Indian Army in June 1999. Over 500 Indian soldiers died in the three-month long Kargil War, and it is estimated around 600-4000 Pakistani militants and soldiers died as well. India pushed back the Pakistani militants and Northern Light Infantry soldiers. Almost 70% of the territory was vacated by Pakistan. With news of Pakistan planning to launch a nuclear attack or a nuclear threat in the face of a lost war with India, Nawaz Sharif was summoned to the US by Bill Clinton. After heavy losses and a recalcitrant general in Musharraf, and with both the United States and China refusing to condone the incursion or threaten India to stop its military operations, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked the remaining militants to stop and withdraw to Pakistan-administrated Kashmir. The militants, driven by Islamic zeal, were not willing to accept orders from Nawaz Sharif while the NLI soldiers withdrew. The militants were killed by the army or forced to withdraw in skirmishes which went beyond the announcement of withdrawal by Pakistan. This naked aggression by Pakistan convinced President Bill Clinton to stand with India and develop a stable relationship with a tested democracy. President George W Bush continued and enlarged the Indo-US relationship. Now President Barack Obama wants to go back and start the sordid drama all over again!

The evolution of India’s foreign policy – Part VII

The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in the evening of the first day of balloting on May21, 1991, stunned the nation and the world. We were in Syracuse, New York at that time, everyone looked shocked and apprehensive. I was not all that shocked because Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi were busy playing with fire since 1979 when they brought down successive governments just to return back to power. Both were playing dangerous games with Punjab, Kashmir and Sri Lanka. My reaction to the gruesome murder was that anyone of the above groups could have done that. But that was not my main concern, I prayed for my country and its stability. The voters of India moved towards Congress Party in sympathy and gave them 215 seats to form a coalition government at the center. Mercifully, better sense prevailed in Congress Party and a soft spoken, mild and seventy year old P V Narasimha Rao, a former foreign minister, was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of India on June 21, 1991.

Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was considered a push-over and a weak leader. He faced enormous problems internally as well as internationally. India faced serious challenges from the self-proclaimed Khalistanis of Punjab, the secessionists from Kashmir and the insurgents in Assam. Rao had to face a humiliating balance of payments situation overseas and a bankrupt country, thanks to a personal feud between V P Singh and Rajiv Gandhi. Neither cared about their country enough to put its priorities first! Narasimha Rao brought Dr Manmohan Singh, an economist and a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India as the new Finance Minister of India. Together these two matured and patriotic Indians gave birth to a new country. Rao was called the “Chanakya” of the new India and Manmohan Singh the savior. Neither could have done without the other. This was the new dawn for a modern India!

India was free again, free of Nehrus, free of Gandhis, free of ideologies and free of stupid socialism. I said “Let freedom ring!” no more license-permit raj, no more babus, no more bribes, only the communists remained as traitors. Dr Manmohan Singh with the political support of cunning Narasimha Rao began the process of dismantling the command and control economy of India. While Indians took a sigh of relief, the world watched an emerging India. The duo (Rao & Singh) transformed a shackled country into an economic dynamo. How many Indians realize the curse of Nehru-Gandhi cabal? Hundreds of millions in India waited for decades for this dynasty to move over and let them also breath for a change. This family beggared 99 crore Indians for 1 crore chamchas. This family destroyed our relations with America and the west because of their Fabian ideologies. India, fundamentally a capitalist society, suffered pseudo socialism for 45 years. Who actually gained anything? The ‘Left Front’ will keep reminding us about the horrors of Nehru-Gandhi era!

The United States of America called on countries like India to open their economies for 50 years after the Second World War. Now that the whole world has heard their call, America is getting ready to shut its doors on trade and commerce. Indo-US relations should have taken off after 1991 but remain mired in American love-affair with Pakistan. George Bush senior and his secretary of state James Baker were keen to improve the relationship with India but the Pakistan lobby in the ‘State’ and ‘Defense’ departments fought hard and maintained the status quo. In any case the Bush administration was on its way out when real reforms hit India. Bill Clinton was coming in with all the baggage from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter. Exciting things were happening in India and elsewhere but the “bubba” was more interested in other things! Clinton wasted more than 5 years before India blasted its way to the international stage. Prime Minister Narasimha Rao danced in front of President Clinton but the man from Hope, Arkansas was busy being a white man and his transatlantic relationships. He ignored Asia and India till May 1998 explosions!