Line & Length

Author:
Publication: The Business Standard
Date: Aug 11, 2000

Wasn't Lahore enough for Mr Vajpayee?
Why 'talk' to an untrustworthy foe?

It is clear that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has never heard of the aphorism, 'once bitten, twice shy'. Nor does he seem to have heard the Hindi version of it that, no matter how tempting, a scalded person shuns even iced buttermilk. After Lahore and Kargil last year, that was the one lesson which Mr Vajpayee was expected to learn, namely, that if you are an Indian prime minister, you don't trust Pakistan. That's all. Period. It is not just India's experience since 1947 that leads to this lesson. Mr Vajpayee's own personal experiences ought to do so as well. He has had two direct ones and, as an MP of longstanding, several indirect ones. The first direct one was in 1979 when he was external affairs minister. He liberalised the visa regime after over-ruling his officials. That move backfired badly. The second was last year -- Lahore and Kargil -- and needs no recounting. Of the indirect ones, only two major ones are enough to prove the point. In 1947, Pakistan invaded Kashmir after the accession by its ruler to India. That time it was Nehru who was betrayed. In 1971, Pakistan agreed to solve all outstanding problems bilaterally but has consistently gone back on that agreement. The smaller violations of trust are too numerous to detail. Not just that. No country has done more harm to India than Pakistan has. And not just that, either. No country intends to do more harm to India than Pakistan does. That, indeed, is its avowed state policy. Pakistan is dedicated to only one cause: the destruction of India. This is a national obsession. It wasn't while the old guard was there. But now that lot has gone and the new generation is completely different. Indian liberals can't believe this. But they should look at what is taught there to children about India and Hindus. If, even after seeing that, they persist with the belief that Pakistan is a sheep in wolf's clothing, well, what more can be said? Given all this, what sense does it make to initiate a process that is grandiosely called 'talks' in --and over --Kashmir? What talks? With whom? Why? The first question first. What are we going to talk about? Does Mr Vajpayee know? Autonomy? Azadi? Plebiscite? Or what? Does not the very fact that we agree to talk suggest a tacit concession that the other side may well have a point which is worth discussing? And when all the smoke clears away, is that point not simply Muhammad Ali Jinnah's good old two-nation theory that Muslims, because they are Muslims, are a separate nation? Let's not also forget an important fact of geography which Mr Vajpayee loves to quote. The Kashmir valley, which is what it's all about, is just 80 miles long and 40 miles wide. It has a Muslim population of about three million. That is, 3,200 square miles and three million people are holding the rest of India to ransom -- not just physically, but more importantly, mentally as well. Could they do it without Pakistani help? Second, talk to whom? A bunch of Pakistan-sponsored, gun-toting militant outfits like the Hizbul? Why not talk to Farooq Abdullah first? Indeed, why aren't we 'talking' to ULFA in Assam, the PWG in Andhra, the MCC in Bihar first then? They, at least, are asking for no more than economic opportunities and are not being sponsored by another country. Can any 'talks' be held without the covert, if not overt, involvement of Pakistan? As the one who pays the piper, will it not call the tune? And who, pray, is calling the tune in Pakistan? Pervez Musharraf, the architect of Kargil? Now we must trust him? Is Brother Pervez, with all his numerous insecurities, in charge to such an extent that the ISI will not hatch its own plans -- just as he himself did when Nawaz Sharif was prime minister? How much effective control does he have over this body which has been called a 'state within a state'? Finally, why the 'talks'? Because the Americans are forcing us because they are scared that we will end up hurling nuclear weapons at each other? If nuclearisation leads to such clear expressions of goodwill from Uncle Sam, surely, then everyone must go nuclear. After all, until Pokhran the US was quite content to let Pakistan do what it wanted, first in Punjab, and then in Kashmir. If the 'talks' are being initiated because of the US, what about the Simla Agreement that these things will be settled bilaterally? Has India given up on it, then? Nor is it much use pretending that the US has not become an interested party in Kashmir. It always was but in a different sense until now. Finally, where the US is concerned, why does it not 'talk' to Cuba? Would it countenance a movement like the Kashmiri Muslim one in, say, Hawaii if it were sponsored by Japan, or Alaska if it were sponsored by Russia? This sounds like the hard line. Make no mistake, it is the hard line. But, since Mr Vajpayee likes the Hindi idiom so much let me quote one back to him: Laaton ke bhoot, baaton se nahin mantey and if ever there was such a bhoot, it is Pakistan. We ignore that simple fact at our own peril.
 

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