Author: Balbir K Punj
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 27, 2002
After years of disregard, India's
apprehensions about Pakistan's state-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir have
finally found a receptive international community, led by the US and the
UK. They now acknowledge the threat as real - and a stumbling block to
a meaningful Indo-Pak dialogue. This attitudinal shift was recently reflected
in a House of Commons' address by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Mr Straw not only endorsed India's claim that Pakistan's ISI was supporting
numerous terrorist outfits in the Valley, but went further to say something
that should sound music to our Foreign Office.a
"In the last decade or so," Mr Straw
observed, "the character of the conflict (in Kashmir) has changed with
the incursion of armed militants across the Line of Control into India
from the Pakistani side." This represents a total rejection of the Pakistani
stand that Kashmir militancy is a part of freedom struggle in the State.
This quantum gain for Indian strategy
vis-à-vis Pakistan is not trivial. Pakistan's military regime, cornered
domestically over the collapse of its Afghan policy, has been hiking guns
against India. It thought that the US, depending upon the establishment's
support to uproot the Al Qaeda network, would willingly condone Pakistan's
terror tactics in the Valley.
The presence of the US and British
soldiers in Pakistan to hunt down Al Qaeda terrorists was a heaven-sent
opportunity for President Pervez Musharraf to up the ante for his "Kashmir
through terror" strategy. He presumed that as long as American soldiers
were stationed in Pakistan, he could provoke India because the US would
prevent India from retaliating.
At the same time, he could force
the US to concede him the leverage over Kashmir, which has been for the
Pakistani establishment the "core issue." The NDA Government has denied
Pakistan the opportunity of blackmailing the US and getting its way in
Kashmir. New Delhi's response was to make it universally evident that it
would not hesitate to use the weapon of war to destroy Islamabad's ability
to execute its policy of crossborder terrorism.
When New Delhi convincingly demonstrated
its readiness to strike, the international coalition against terrorism
had to take notice and call the Pakistani spade, a spade. The international
community from Japan to the US was forced to focus on avoiding a war and
dismantling of the terrorist apparatus in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The
main Indian demand, that Pakistan stop terrorist infiltration into India,
has been conceded. As US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told
the Government here, Pakistan has agreed to end terrorist infiltration
across the LoC "on a permanent basis".
Thus India's escalation of price
that Pakistan will have to pay for its strategy of getting India to surrender
Kashmir for fear of "being bled through a thousand cuts" seems to have
paid off quite well. The same General Musharraf, who said at Agra that
what was happening in Kashmir was a "freedom struggle", now had to concede
that the support was far more than merely moral.
The official visitors from the US
to New Delhi in the last few months have been reiterating that the US will
not play a mediatory role and limit itself to promoting Indo-Pak direct
dialogue. The American visitors - and Mr Donald Rumsfeld was the latest
- have also rejected that Pakistan had sought the US to act as monitors
along the LoC.
As for Pakistan, this failure follows
General Musharraf getting nothing for his nuclear bluster from the US.
The NDA Government's cool response to nuclear sabre rattling by Pakistan
would have shaken the hawks in Islamabad. New Delhi's reaction was that
of a government sure of its facts and the people supported it by refusing
to panic. New Delhi reiterated that India would be acting as a responsible
nuclear weapons' power. That compelled General Musharraf to subdue his
nuclear threat and assure the international community of acting responsibly.
As noted Defence Analyst Jasjit
Singh has observed: "In the hype created about the dangers of war, the
inhumanity of terrorism and the risks of a nuclear holocaust, what is getting
ignored is that New Delhi's overall comprehensive politico-diplomatic-military
strategy is succeeding."
While the country at large understands
this success, and analysts perceive how India's demonstrated readiness
to go to war was a necessary part of the strategy, the Leftists are unable
to appreciate this merely because this has been achieved by a BJP-led Government.
They continue to oppose the strategic weapon and want the Vajpayee Government
to confine itself to diplomatic efforts.
It is the same thing for our peacenik
and anti-nuclear lobby. They sought to raise the people against
the Government by painting an exaggerated
version of nuclear holocaust, thereby hoping to disarm the Government on
the nuclear option. The Vajpayee Government refused to relent on the issue
- but at the same time it did not rattle its nuclear sabre like General
Musharraf, who had to eat crow.
The Left either failed or refused
to understand the specific message the Vajpayee Government was sending
to the international community by not foregoing the nuclear option but
yet adhering to its no-first-use policy. India's availability of the nuclear
option has acted as a deterrent to the hawkish Pakistani establishment.
Recent events have demonstrated
the advantages of India having gone nuclear. The Prime Minister's decision
to hold a demonstration of nuclear weapons was criticised as "nuclear misadventure."
What do critics say now? That India has its own nuclear umbrella with its
own technology is enough to deter any potential aggressor.
The critics' inability to see Kashmir's
domestic problems as a part of the Government's problem reveals blind anti-BJPism
rather than informed analysis of the situation. If these critics are to
be believed, cross-border terrorism is not the issue; the issue is that
the BJP is in power.
(The writer is a BJP MP and can
be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
