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Dear General: For weeks you kept saying that you were willing to meet, indeed were very anxious to meet, Prime Minster of India Atal Behari Vajpayee at any time, on any date and at any place. Shri Vajpayee finally took you at your word and invited you to India. I am afraid you mistook Shri Vajpayee’s generosity for weakness.
It is apparent that you thought Shri Vajpayee’s willingness to talk to you as a sign that India had reached-as a result of jihadi efforts-a level of weakness when you could push India around. That was miscalculation Number One. The second miscalculation was that you thought that by insisting that Kashmir (you never spoke of ‘Jammu and Kashmir) was the core issue-you called it a dispute-you would force India to forget history. General, let me clear some of the cobwebs in your mind:
* As Shri Vajpayee made it clear, India is not weak. It can handle jihadis and as he said, it has “the stamina to continue to resolutely deal with the continuing violence”. So please don’t think that by continuing to encourage the jihadis you will bring India to its knees. You won’t. And your jihadis will pay a heavy price.
* The day Maharaja Hari Singh singed the Instrument of Accession on October 27, 1947 – whatever may have been Shri M. A. Jinnah’s predilections-Jammu and Kashmir ceased to be a ‘dispute’ between India and Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir immediately became an inalienable part of India. And so it will remain, tomorrow, next year and for eternity to come. Please don’t have any delusions in this regard.
* That despite the fact of the entire state’s accession to India, Pakistan went on a rampage and occupied a third of the state’s territory, is illegal and unacceptable to us. Unless you vacate occupied territory, there cannot be any meaningful discussion between India and Pakistan.
* You ask for a referendum in ‘Kashmir’- not in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. It is as if Pakistan is ruled by a democratically elected Government. For the best part of your country’s post-independence history, General, it only had military dictators running the Government. With what face General, do you now ask for a referendum in ‘Kashmir’?
* You compare events in ‘Kashmir’ with what happened in Bangladesh and India’s alleged help to the Mukti Bahini. General, thanks to your country’s forces in Bangladesh, some ten million Bengalis came to India as refugees. Tell me, how many Kashmiris have gone to Pakistan as refugees? The only ‘refugees’ are the Kashmiri Pandits who had been driven away from their homeland in the Valley and who are now living in Jammu in refugee camps.
* You do not consider the secessionist violence in Jammu and Kashmir as terrorism. You say that it is a violent struggle for self-determination, and that the jihad in Kashmiris justified. Let me tell you General, that if your country does not send Afghan, Libyan and your own terrorists across the Line of Control to kill and maim, there would be no “secessionism”.
* Besides, General, there are many in Sind-the mujahids especially-who thinks Partition was wrong. What would you say if India sent armed men across the boundary to create trouble in Sind and to help the Mujahids to fight for self-determination?
* At the banquet given by President K. R. Narayanan you said that there cannot in future be a military “solution” of the Jammu and Kashmir issue. What you mean is that Pakistani soldiers in uniform will not be sent across the Line of Control but it is perfectly in order for Pakistan to send trained jihadis, fitted with weaponry, to cross the Line and create mayhem. That, General, is not acceptable. You are playing with worlds-and you know it.
* You say that you will continue to give diplomatic and moral aid to the Hurriyat and the secessionists. That constitutes an act of war. Kindly remember that. The Hurriyat does not, in any event, represent the State of Jammu and Kashmir. It did not even contest the elections and it is not better than a stooge, supported financially by you. Your stooges cannot be invited to a negotiating table.
* The Associate Press reports Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba as saying that as of July 18, it will take its activities outside the borders of Kashmir and “will start targeting Indian Government facilities everywhere in India”. If you can’t control the Lashkar-e-Toiba, why should India talk to you?
* When a delegation of Indian ladies called on you in the first week of July and asked what you thought of Kashmir Valley being given to Pakistan with Jammu and Ladakh remaining with India, your answer was that “there are Muslims in Ladakh and Kargil” and they cannot be abandoned! What gives you the right to look after the Muslims in Ladakh and Kargil, General? Are you going to look after the interests of Muslims in the rest of India as well?
* When the issue of Indian Prisoners-of-War rotting in Pakistani jails since 1971 was raised, your reply, General, was that there are no P-o-Ws in your jails. General, they are not in jails, they are in mental asylums where they have been placed, thanks to the cruelty shown by your people. Don’t fool yourself and don’t fool us.
* You say that ‘Kashmiris’ should be involved in any future discussions between India and Pakistan. In the first place, General, you have no business to raise the Kashmir issue with India. You-and Pakistan-have no locus standi in the matter. In the second place, even if we concede, for the sake of argument, that it is worth while discussing Kashmir with you, along with the representatives of the Hurriyat, we should also have the representatives of the National Conference to sit at the table along with representatives of Kashmiri Pandits, the Hindus in Jammu and the Buddhists in Ladakh.
* God has not given you, General,
the right to speak for Kashmiris. The entire State of Jammu and Kashmir
(including the area occupied by you and the area you illegally leased out
to China) is part and parcel of India-legitimately. As Maharaja Hari Singh
wrote to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in a letter dated January 31, 1948, “The
internal administration or the question of accession is wholly foreign
to the jurisdiction of the Security Council”. It will do all of us a lot
of good, General, if you forget Kashmir and live in peace. Kashmir is not
our business. If our remember and accept that as a fact, all will be well.
Regards.
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