Indo-Pak relations - Lessons from history

The following article, ‘Indo-Pak relations – Lessons from history’ appeared in, ‘The Hans India’, an up and coming English daily published from Hyderabad and other centres in its issue of November 15, 2011.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................

Dr. Manmohan Singh’s ‘conduct certificate’ to his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani, as a ‘man of peace’ last week is one of a piece with the series of diplomatic blunders India committed in its engagement with Pakistan during the last sixty years.

We fought three major wars and a comparatively minor one over Kashmir during the last sixty years. These conflicts were all at the behest of Pakistan and not India. Some analysts believe that at least a part of the genesis of the Kashmir conflict was due perhaps to Nehru’s flawed Kashmir policy. They argue his reluctance to take the 1948 war to its logical conclusion, his approaching the UN for a resolution, his offer of a plebiscite and finally his according the state a special status within the Indian union were inexplicable in terms of realpolitik. The more uncharitable ones attribute his approach to an overweening ambition to win a Nobel peace prize. But that was history and so much water had flowed under the Jhelum.

The real tragedy has been India’s inability to convince the world community of its point of view or correct misperceptions which amounts to a monumental diplomatic and PR failure. For instance, writing in 2010, Stanley Wolpert says that J. K. Galbraith, then US ambassador to India confided in him that he ‘failed to persuade Nehru to agree to an UN-sponsored plebiscite’ . Wolpert adds that a plebiscite was Pakistan’s ‘preferred solution’! (“India and Pakistan - Continued Conflict or Cooperation?” University of California Press, London. p.4 )

However, this contrasts with Indian accounts of the conflict, many of which suggest that it was Nehru who took the matter to the UN and offered a plebiscite. As a result the UNSC passed its Resolution 47 of April 21, 1948, which called for an UN-supervised plebiscite in Kashmir. The resolution laid down certain preconditions to be observed by both sides. For example, it said that Pakistan should “secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purposes of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State…” Further on December 22, 1949, Gen. A. G. L. McNaughton, the President of the UNSC proposed that Pakistan should not only agree to demilitarization of occupied Kashmir but also in the ‘Northern Area[s]’ as Gilgit and Baltistan are referred to. This proposal was ratified by the UNSC Resolution 80 of March 14. 1950. The UNSC’s call for a plebiscite fell through because Pakistan never fulfilled the most basic UNSC precondition, viz. demilitarization of occupied Kashmir and Northern Areas.

Both Lal Bhadur Shastry and Indira Gandhi fell to Pakistani wiles and agreed to unconditional withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1965 and 1971 wars. Indira Gandhi agreed to not only returning 5000 square kilometres of territory but also release of 93000 prisoners following the signing of the illusive ‘Simla Accord’. They had failed to recognize the bargaining power of holding on to them.

But it was Inder Kumar Gujral, who reigned as prime minister for a brief while, who did the maximum damage to India’s security efforts. Giving effect to his infamous ‘Gujral doctrine’ he had India’s entire intelligence apparatus in Pakistan dismantled and ‘burnt’ assets cultivated in that country which it took decades of hard work to put in place. The Pakistanis would certainly have captured and killed India’s ‘assets’ after prolonged torture.

Manmohan Singh’s gaffe at Sharm-el-Sheikh about Indian spying in Baluchistan ranks next only to Gujaral’s horrific blunder. Every sophomore knows that in international relations, diplomacy and spying go hand in hand, sometimes even in friendly countries. But no nation openly admits it. Diplomats when caught spying are declared persona non grata and expelled. The other nation retaliates in kind by expelling a similarly placed diplomat of the first nation. This tit for tat is standard operating procedure in international diplomacy. How the good doctor who is not only a heir to the legacy of the original Chanakya but also a disciple of the modern day Chanakya, P. V. Narasimha Rao committed such a gaffe beats anyone’s imagination. In another gaffe Singh empathized that Pakistan is as much a victim of terrorism as India. One can only hope Hillary Clinton’s admonition to Pakistan that it would be foolish to nurture a snake expecting that it would only bite one’s enemies, made Singh wiser! 

Left-lib romanticists who wing their way to international peace seminars to be wined and dined in five-star luxury might crib about ‘electrified fences and high concrete walls erected to divide people’ but the situation on the ground defies a solution as long as Pakistan continues to harbour anti-India terrorists.

M. C. Chagla, jurist, diplomat and then foreign minister eloquently rubbished the mischievous idea of ‘self-determination’ for Kashmir. Addressing the UNSC on February 5, 1964 he said “…the ‘self’ contemplated in the enunciation of this democratic principle is not, and cannot be, a constituent part of a country. It can be operative only when one is dealing with a nation as a whole and the context in which it can be applicable is the context of conquest or of foreign domination, or of colonial exploitation.” Chagla argued that it would be disastrous to apply the principle to parts of a country or sections of population to enable them to secede. For when extended further it would only lead to fragmentation of the country. He cited the example of the United States of America which “fought a bloody civil war to prevent not a small part, but the whole of the south of the United States from seceding and constituting itself into an independent country.”

The call for ‘self-determination’ is heard in many nations. But the UN certainly doesn’t expect Russia to cede Chechnya; Spain to consider the demand for a Basque Country; or Canada to forego Quebec. Mountbatten who was as much behind the genesis of the Kashmir problem as the Indian and Pakistani leaders who could not wait to enjoy the spoils of power, was killed in an IRA bombing but Britain did not concede the demand for an independent Ireland.

The international community would certainly be receptive if India stood firm in its just demands for dismantling terror training camps in Pakistan aimed at destabilising India and conducting a fair trial to punish those who were responsible for murder and mayhem in this country.

Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani may yet get their joint ‘Nobel’ prize but Singh should not forget the sacrifice of the thousands of soldiers who had laid down their lives for the idea of India!