Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 6, 2012
URL: http://dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/52777-do-not-endorse-outfits-that-promote-secession.html

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is the co-president of Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia-Pacific, an organisation that bats for independence to Jammu & Kashmir. She owes an explanation to the people

 UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi has unwisely joined a body supporting the secession of Kashmir, because she loves rubbing shoulders with the international glitterati. As chairperson of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Ms Gandhi is co-president of the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia-Pacific, an organisation promoting democracy (sic) in this region. Other co-presidents include former  President of the Philippines Corazon Aquino, South Korean leader Kim Dae-Jung and former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez.

 Honorary senior advisers include Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, South Africa’s Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev and former German President Richard von Weizsaecker. As all these leaders are firmly pro-American, it is awkward to find a politician from a leading non-aligned nation in this league.

 Worse, the FDL-AP is funded by the Soros Foundation, Kim Dae-Jung Peace Foundation, Olof Palme International Centre and Naumann Foundation (per website). The FDL-AP, Kim Dae-Jung Peace Foundation and Soros Foundation were set up in 1994, Olof Palme Centre 15 months previously. The Secretariat is in Seoul; an India office was set up in September 1995. The FDL-AP devotes intense activity to Kashmir.

 In November 1996, the FDL-AP held an international seminar in Manila, the Philippines, on ‘Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy: the Lessons for Burma and Asia’. The Indian signatories were M Rasgotra, vice chair, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and George Fernandes, MP. The meeting attacked the Myanmar regime, urged Asean Governments not to grant it membership, and pressed for complete economic —even tourist, boycott. It lamented the “oppression of major ethnic nationalities” in Myanmar, but neither the FDL-AP nor the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation has spoken against the current violence against the Rohingya Muslims, probably taking a cue from Aung San Suu Kyi’s disrespect for their plight, a fact noted internationally.

 In a section, ‘Independent Jammu & Kashmir: Justifications’ & Advantages, the FDL-AP asserts, “The best and most logical solution of the Kashmir issue is to re-unite Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of Jammu & Kashmir State (the Vale of Kashmir, Jammu, Ladakh, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan) and make it a fully independent country having friendly relations with both India and Pakistan…” It’s amazing that, through all the years of Track II diplomacy and then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Agra to promote this formula, Ms Gandhi never once informed the nation that she was part of an organisation pushing this agenda. Justifying independence (read secession from India), the FDL-AP avers that unless the dispute over Jammu & Kashmir is resolved, nuclear war is imminent. It argues that the majority of people in the State favour independence. 

 In a perverse version of history, the FDL-AP claims that the principal Indian and Pakistani leaders were committed to complete independence of Kashmir. Jawaharlal Nehru had declared on August 9, 1951, and Indian representative Gopalaswami Ayengar had declared at the UN Security Council on January 15, 1948, that India fully recognised the Kashmiris’ right to complete independence; Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s statements of June 17, July 11 and 30, 1947, recognised the Kashmiris’ right to independence. An independent Jammu & Kashmir, says the FDL-AP, can progress through eco-tourism and technology-based development, and in the current era of economic globalisation, borders have less sanctity (the American dream for Asia). Indian and Pakistani concerns over security and water rights would be ensured by treaties and a tripartite permanent monitoring commission. Both countries would save on defence expenditure. All that the two countries have to do, says the FDL-AP, is part with the territories of Jammu & Kashmir now under their respective control —and enjoy permanent peace, prosperity and glory.

 Conducting a muscular campaign, the FDL-AP website carries a long interview (diatribe) by Lt Gen (retd) Nishat Ahmad, Director, Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad (February 13, 1998), but no counte-view by an Indian general or security analyst, in all these years. He blamed the major Western powers for allowing India to reject the United Nations’ suggestions for plebiscite and welcomed third party mediation by the United States, European Union, or United Kingdom. He admitted Pakistan’s relationship with Shabir Shah and the All Party Hurriyat Conference. He felt that Jammu region being mainly Hindu and Ladakh being largely Buddhist could remain with India (Musharraf formula), leaving the (Muslim) valley to Pakistan.

 Also associated with the FDP-AP is the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, which includes the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Recently, George Soros’ Open Society Institute sponsored a video discussion on Kashmir with Basharat Peer, Kashmiri journalist and Open Society Fellow; Steve Coll, president of New America Foundation and staff writer at The New Yorker magazine (moderator); Mridu Rai, associate professor of history at Yale University, and Pankaj Mishra, author and journalist. Obviously, there has been much heavy duty advocacy of Kashmir independence unknown to ordinary Indians, and we have little idea of how far it has penetrated the secular intelligentsia, as Ghulam Nabi Fai once did. American journalist Kathy Arlyn Sokol has filmed over 50 hours of interviews with ‘grassroots leaders and independence advocates’ on both sides of the state. In May 1999, Sokol was a special invitee at the UN Hague Appeal for Peace Conference, Kashmir Panel, where she said Kashmir’s location between India, Pakistan and China compared with Switzerland’s position between Germany, France and Italy, so a similar decentralised governance model would work for the State. She enthused that as in Eastern Europe and East Timor, changes could occur with ‘astonishing speed’ and ‘neutral’ Switzerland should mediate a plebiscite to decide Kashmir’s future.