“Talks” from Pakistani side mean Kashmir minus peripheries: talks from Indian side mean everything including Kashmir. Obviously, Kashmir is among the priorities with India but not the only priority. However, with Pakistan it is. Pakistan’s priority ultimately boils down to India handing over Kashmir to her on a platter because of its Muslim majority forgetting that India is the home to second largest Muslim majority community in the world. Moreover, was not East Bengal a Muslim majority region? What did Pakistan give it: two million killings and half a million rapes? A thousand years is the time-frame for realizing that target viz Kashmir. The hawks would not wait. They amassed huge war machine from their western donors including the weapon of mass destruction, thanks to both the west and the east. The problem with the hawks is of using it.
Using the Pakistani bomb is not the priority of Pakistan but of some other hidden actors on the chessboard of Asian politics. After stockpiling of huge war weapons, Pakistan is faced with its Frankenstein. A militia force, raised on jihad slogan to carry fire and brimstone to India, the eternal enemy, has turned round on its own master. Now in that country the army is fighting the jihadis; the jihadis are fighting the Government and the Government is fighting the army…All together are fighting the civil and democratic rights defenders. It is a huge arena (akhara) in which everybody is fighting everybody.
Ufa meeting and the joint press release by two foreign secretaries created havoc in Pakistani National Assembly and with the Generals. Loud protests were raised that Nawaz Sharif Government has surrendered Kashmir to the Indians because there was no “K” word in the press release. Pressure mounted and Islamabad regime buckled but it needed face saving. In most of embarrassing situations in the course of its domestic politics, Islamabad finds refuge in K word. Hence it was inducted into the episode. U-turn from Ufa press statement was its logical conclusion. Sartaj Aziz gave new interpretation to what the two prime ministers had agreed upon.
If Kashmir is a dispute, it is a political dispute. What have the security advisers to do with a seven decades old political dispute? The truth is something else. Capture of LeT gunman Naveed opened the Pandora Box of Pak terrorism. If only terrorism was to be talked, Indian side would open the entire litany. India was going to appraise entire world of ISI’s recent perfidy of attack in Gurdaspur and Udhampur. More evidence was obtained recently of terrorist attacks at various places in J&K especially in the valley.
Political commentators are of opinion that India behaved rather hastily at Ufa. The Prime Minister ought to have bidden time. There was no hurry to bail out Mian Sahib. Was there any urgency in pulling Pakistan out of oblivion? New Delhi shall have to re-align its perceptions. Islamabad civilian regime is no match to the hawks of ISI and the army. Both are wary about democracy as the political arrangement in Pakistan. It may be that some time in future New Delhi may take into view bipolarity of Pakistani negotiating chapters and decide to talk simultaneously to Islamabad and GHQ as is done by the US.
Observers also raise eyebrows on New Delhi’s handling of Hurriyat factions individually as well as collectively. Those who claim they will meet Pakistani diplomats “at any cost” do so not to demonstrate faithfulness to the cause but to prove their loyalties to Pakistani benefactors who want a premium on their capital investment. On this theme the recent work of a former RAW chief is highly informative. Who among these so called freedom loving leaders is not the beneficiary of New Delhi’s largesse? They call themselves representatives of Kashmiri people and claim the status of third party to the dispute. Who are the “people” they represent? Do they represent any minority of the State, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Christians? Do they represent linguistic and ethnic and cultural groups of Kashmir? Do they represent ideological segments? None. If Pakistan considers consultation with them absolutely unavoidable, it means Pakistan recognizes a small fraction of the population of Kashmir and not the elected Government as the genuine representatives of the people of Kashmir. Will Pakistan officially announce that? If it recognizes Hurriyatis as the true representatives of Kashmir then it should also recognize dissident minority groups in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan as genuine representatives of their areas? Then it should also recognize Gilgit-Baltistan as the part of J&K State as was decreed by the High Court of PoK.
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