'Mr. Prime Minister, You Should Not Be So Humble'

After the summit Gen. Musharraf arrived at Islamabad, he declared "I havereturned empty handed". I want to question whether it is a true statement.If he is talking about himself, he is making a wrong statement. If he is talkingin terms of the welfare of the people of Pakistan, he is right. He has returnedto Pakistan empty handed for the people of Pakistan.

Why did he come here? He came here not to solve the Kashmir problem. He camehere not to normalise or improve the relationship between the countries. He camehere to get legitimacy of his coup, he came here to get legitimacy of hisself-proclamation of Presidentship of Pakistan and he got everything from us. Hewent back to his country with that recognition, with that legitimacy.

The Prime Minister said that we have to go on with re-engagement. How do were-engage ourselves with Pakistan? After all Pakistan’s bottomline is thatthere is no cross-border terrorism. It is a freedom struggle. If that is thebottomline of Pakistan, then how do we proceed?

I asked the Foreign Minister what was the composition of Pakistani delegationand what is our delegation composed of? The Foreign Minister said, ‘Ourdelegation composed of the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the ForeignMinister, the Commerce Minister and Industry Minister and the Finance Minister.

From Pakistan side, they had not disclosed as yet on the 9th of July. Is itcorrect that Pakistan delegation will compose of only General Musharraf andForeign Minsiter, Abdul Sattar? If the Home Minister of Pakistan is not comingwho is going to talk about cross border terrorism? If the Commerce Minister ofPakistan is not a member of the team, who is going to talk about bilateralrelations?

This is the first time, in the history of the world diplomacy where a Summitbetween the two Heads of Governments was held without preparation and withoutagenda. I put a particular question to our hon. Minister of External Affairs,‘If these talks fail and such other future summits that we hold withoutpreparation fail, would it not lead to a third party intervention?’ The hon.Minister said that there was no question about it.

But whether it is UNO, ILO, UNIDO, ESCAP or Commonwealth, I have not comeacross a single occasion when Pakistan has not raised the Kashmir issue in aninternational forum. If Pakistan is very clear on its bottomline and says thatthe LOC is the problem but not a solution, we should be very clear about ourbottomline too. We resolved in this House on 22nd February, 1994 that "TheState of Jammu and Kashmir has been, is and shall be an integral part of India.We must stick to it. This is the bottomline which has been set by the Houseunanimously.

Mr. Prime Minister, you should not be so humble. You are a Prime Minister ofone billion people. Let us not be politically naïve. I liked one statement ofthe hon. Prime Minister – "I conveyed in clear terms that India has theresolve, strength and stamina to counter terrorism and violence until it isdecisively thrust."

That is what the Prime Minister should speak and continue to speak so.