'Govt. Doesn't Understand The Distinction Between A Dialogue And Summitry'

The country just does not know what the Government wanted out of the AgraSummit. I was amazed at the pride Dr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra took incongratulating Atalji on sending President Musharraf back to Pakistanempty-handed.

What I want to ask, the Prime Minister is this. Did President Musharraf sayanything in Agra that he had not said again and again? We have been listening toPresident Musharraf repeatedly saying that all he was interested in talkingabout was his core issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Prime Minister says now that he has sent back President Musharraflong-faced and empty-handed. Is that why he invited President Musharraf here?Did he invite him to send him back long-faced and empty-handed? Did he invitehim so that he could insult him after coming here?

What was the purpose of inviting him? I think, the Prime Minsiter should tellthis country that he failed and it is he who is empty-handed and long faced. Ifthe Government feels proud about its performance, then, I am afraid, furtherdiplomatic disaster are in store for us.

The Government of India cannot distinguish between pre-conditions for adialogue and conditions for a conclusion. How was the Government of India goingto change the nature of the Government of Pakistan? How could it endcross-border terrorism – by falling on the knees and pray? How could you stopthem from indulging in hostile propaganda?

I am also amazed that it is unable to understand the distinction between adialogue and summitry. Dialogue requires preparation. Summits require even morepreparation. I have seen with my own eyes the way in which the late Shri RajivGandhi prepared for four long years for the Summit with the late Deng Xio Peng.

At the Summits you do not have to sit and have long detailed discussionsabout the wordings of the Draft. A dialogue on the other hand is structured by aseries of levels in a pyramidal structure.

Mr. Prime Minister, you have made a grave mistake by deciding that you willclimb the Mount Everest but nobody will go with you. What is more with regard toPakistan is that a dialogue has already been structured when Shri Salman Haidar,the former Foreign Secretary went to Islamabad in June, 1997.

Summits have got two purposes in diplomacy. One is to commence a process, theother is to conclude a process. If you have a summit, which neither commences aprocess nor concludes a process, it ends up disrupting the process.

Contrast, how the Lahore and Agra summits were prepared with the preparationswhich President Clinton made for his summit with the Prime Minsiter. The UnitedStates of America and we are friends. But because President Clinton wasscheduling a summit with the Indian Prime Minister on Indian soil for the firsttime in 22 years, they first conducted ten rounds of negotiation between ShriJaswant Singh and Mr. Strobe Talbott. What you have done is rank amateurishness.The confusion at Agra reflected the confusion at Lahore.

In December, 1998, the Raksha Mantri of India, with careful thought writing aforeword for publication in a book describes the threat from Pakistan as a myth.If the Defence Minister of India believes in December, 1998, that there is nothreat from Pakistan, then how can the Indian military forces be ready to facethat threat?

It is blindness of this kind. We will have a debate on the Kargil ReviewCommittee. The Review Committee says that RAW predicted a limited swiftoffensive threat and suggested that Nawaz Sharief was fully in the picture andwas aware of the broad thrust of the Kargil plan. And yet, the Prime Ministerwent! Many Prime Minister make mistakes but they learn from these mistakes. Hasthe Government shown that it has learnt the lessons from Lahore?

Let us come to Jammu and Kashmir. We are very much offended that PresidentMusharraf calls it a dispute. I congratulate the Government of India onobjecting and on insisting that Kashmir is not a dispute. But when PresidentClinton at the invitation of Prime Minister Vajpayee came to the Central Hall ofParliament, he described Jammu and Kashmir as a dispute. Did the Prime Ministerobject to it?

The statement of the G-8 in Geneva demanded that we should resume withoutdelay, a direct dialogue that addresses the root causes of the tension includingKashmir. Does the Government of India accept that the root cause of tensionbetween India and Pakistan is Jammu & Kashmir? Did the Government of Indiaat least go to the G-8 Foreign Ministers and say that there is no such place asKashmir?

In 1973, the Pakistanis also have said, "….. the question of Jammu &Kashmir." It was on the UN agenda. For the first time after 1965, the UNSecurity Council passed a Resolution on the 6th June, 1998 in which it urgesIndia and Pakistan to resume the dialogue in order to remove the tensionsbetween them and find mutually acceptable solutions that address the root causesof these tensions, including Kashmir." Is it the root cause of the tensions?

Have we told the Americans or the G-8 that it is unacceptable to us? Thestatement given in the House talks about the efforts at the summit level tobridge the gap. Are the summits the place for global pyrotechnic?

Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao, in 1993 found a formulation to bridge the gap. Inhis letter to Benazir Bhutto, he put it down as, "we are ready to discussissues related to Jammu and Kashmir". But instead of that you are insisting onabandoning the past.

I would say, please go to Pakistan but only after due preparations, when youbegin a dialogue you must state your maximum position and you must stick to it.The dialogue must be composite and not fractured. Please be patient and do notbe in a hurry. Please seek the cooperation of people like myself who have spent20 years completely immersed in India-Pakistan relations. Jaswantji and I weretogether in a small working group that worked with Pakistanis.

When it came to issues like Pakistan and China or to South Asia or torelations with the United States of America, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had createdan atmosphere in which there was no opposition and there was no Government. Ifthe Prime Minister promises that he will take first the nation together, thereis no Pakistani who can defeat us.