Kashmir As Catalyst

KASHMIR offers a unique opportunity. It also spells immense danger. It can help India become a superpower within a decade. It can cause India to disintegrate within a decade.

Events in Kashmir have reached a decisive stage. The present situation in the Valley must change. But will the change be good or bad? Nobody can tell. Nobody is in command. India is being led by events.

The nation's leaders cannot recognise the realities in Kashmir because they are prisoners of outworn myths. The transfer of power from the British is viewed as the winning of independence. Those responsible for the Partition of India are hailed as liberators. Those who were too naive to understand real politik are described as statesmen.

In one sense, China was lucky. It was raped by colonial exploiters. That is why China understands the harsh realities of international relations. India was seduced by Britain. It saw the world through the misty eyes of Indo-British sentiment. Its understanding of international relations is woefully inadequate.

Early this month our Prime Minister was in New York pleading with the Chinese President to support India's membership of the UN Security Council. The Chinese President condescended to consider the request. He refused to commit himself.

In 1955, the UN invited India to join the Security Council. On July 20th that year, Jawaharlal Nehru declined the offer. Instead,he pleaded that Communist China be admitted to the UN with a seat in the Security Council.

Innumerable instances can be summoned of similar decisions by the inheritors of the British Raj. At best they might be described as pathetic. But the bunglers who made such decisions continue to be venerated as icons deserving emulation.

Not only do our political gods have feet of clay, our ideological foundations rest on sand. Our rulers suffer from two false assumptions. Their understanding of Indian nationalism is flawed. Their understanding of democracy is flawed. Our approach to nationalism is not pluralistic. Our approach to democracy is not federal. Because yesterday's leaders failed to grasp the nature of our nationalism, India was led into Partition. Because their perceptions continue to haunt our present leaders, India could be led to disintegration.

Last Saturday the Government announced its Kashmir package. Kashmiri leaders opposed it. Most Opposition leaders also opposed it. But nobody in the Government or the Opposition can precisely spell out what should be done in Kashmir.

The Kashmir problem, like the Partition, is a legacy of the British. While the sovereign states of India and Pakistan fought the war over Kashmir in 1948, their respective armies were led by British generals who were British citizens owing allegiance to the British Crown. In his diplomatic moves, Prime Minister Nehru was guided by Mountbatten who as India's first Governor-General continued to remain a pillar of the British establishment. With Mountbatten's encouragement, Nehru halted hostilities in Kashmir when a military solution was in sight. With Mountbatten's approval Nehru made the Kashmir Maharaja's accession conditional on plebiscite. This created a permanent wall between India and Pakistan.

Nothing seems to have changed. Last year India succeeded in persuading China and Iran to block the Kashmir issue from being raised at the UN human rights conference. In return India assured them that observers sent by their respective governments were welcome to visit Kashmir. China occupies part of Kashmir. It gives missiles to Pakistan. Iran is said to have funded the Shia militants based in Kashmir. The Indian Government invited meddling in our affairs by these two nations in preference to candid talks with Pakistan which is part of South Asia and shares our language, culture and history. Compared to the follies of our Government, the roles in Indian history of Jaichand and Mir Jaffar pale into insignificance.

That more Muslims live in India than in Pakistan or Bangladesh is indisputable. That India can never balance China or play a decisive role in world affairs without partnership with Pakistan is also indisputable. That India can never normalise relations with Pakistan without settling the Kashmir dispute to the mutual satisfaction of both countries and the Kashmiri people is the third truth that cannot be wished away.

Our real problem therefore is not Kashmir. Our problem is Indo-Pakistani hostility. Were India and Pakistan to cooperate in joint defence for South Asia, the subcontinent could become an impregnable fortress without additional cost. And were India and Pakistan to pool their nuclear knowhow to create a South Asian nuclear umbrella, the subcontinent would move into the big power league.

The Kashmiris demand 'Azadi'. They should be asked: which freedom is more important, the freedom of the State or the freedom ofthe individual? Are the woes of Kashmir due to lack of sovereignty or absence of democracy? These are questions which no victim of state repression in any part of India, provoked by the follies of our rulers to make secessionist demands, can afford to ignore. Kashmir was independent. It acceded to India because Pakistan invaded it in 1947. For the sake of argument, if independence were granted to Kashmir, how long would it take for India once again to get embroiled in a war with Pakistan to preserve Kashmir's independence?

No stable peace for Kashmir is conceivable without joint guarantees by India and Pakistan. From his sickbed in 1964, Nehru blessed Sheikh Abdullah's effort to make Kashmir a bridge between India and Pakistan. Sheikh Abdullah's mission to Pakistan for that purpose was aborted by Nehru's death. A few years earlier, Dr Lohia and Pandit Deendayal Upadhya had made a joint statement in favour of creating an Indo-Pakistani confederation.

As recently as 1991, a BJP leader, Kedarnath Sahni, conceded in a press conference held in Jammu that the Kashmir dispute could be resolved in the context of an Indo-Pakistani confederation.

India could afford to be generous with the Kashmiris in the Valley on one precondition. They must first persuade Pakistan to accept a South Asian confederation with joint defence and a common market. That must be the prelude to 'Azadi' for the Valley, whatever the eventual form of that 'Azadi'. The heat then would shift to Pakistan. A solution based on this demand, whatever the modalities for effecting it, would immensely benefit both India and Pakistan. The future of South Asia points towards federations within the region's nations and an overall confederation in the subcontinent. If India's government understands and accepts this truth, and acts on it, Kashmir would become the catalyst for creating a new South Asia.