Why Summit Failed

[Guest guest]

BJP REPORTS

 

Press Statement issues by Shri K. Jana Krishnamurthi, President, BJP

July 17, 2001

 

Agra summit is over. Three days of confabulations made it appear that

some declaration will be the culmination of the summit. That was not

to be. Arguments plenty - agreement nil - sums up the outcome of Agra

Summit.

 

This need not cause any surprise to anyone although regrets may be

there in certain quarters.

 

 

The entire summit should be understood in proper perspective. India's

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took the bold initiative in

inviting General Musharaff for this summit. In keeping with the NDA

government's sincere efforts to build up good neighbourly relations

with every one of our neighbouring states, Shri Vajpayee has been

taking steps to make Pakistan realise the need for peace and

friendship between the two countries. Lahore bus journey was the

result of this effort. If Pakistan had not taken the Kargil route,

perhaps the Lahore-Agra ride could have been fruitful.

 

 

If the sequence of events right from the day of arrival of Pak

President is properly seen it leaves an impression in one's mind that

Pakistan had come prepared to discuss only a one point agenda - "we

say and do what we want; you accept it. Otherwise how one accounts

for Pak president, totally disregarding the expressed view of host

country chose to invite Hurriyat leaders for a meeting in Pak High

Commission's high tea programme? On July 14th General Musharaff

announced that he has come with an open mind. But on 16th at the

breakfast meeting with Indian newspapers and television editors

announces that Kashmir issue is the main issue. He further stated

that the people of Pakistan did not trust the Indian Government

because they suspected that there was a design behind New Delhi's

refusal to accept Kashmir as core issue and that the suspicion in

Pakistan is that India diverts it to other views. Contrast this with

our foreign ministers' statement that India is convinced that narrow,

segmented or unifocal approaches will not work and that India's focus

has to remain on the totality of relations and our endeavour has to

be to build trust and confidence even as we address and move forward

on all outstanding issues including Jammu and Kashmir. Even the

confidence Building measures were poohpoohed by him and he said that

the biggest confidence building measure is Kashmir. When India

insisted that cross border terrorism should stop, General Musharaff

stated that Pakistan is not encouraging violence in J&K and that it

is an indigenous freedom struggle".

 

 

Converting an informal meeting with prominent editors into a press

conference for telecast to Pakistan TV when the high level

discussions were still continuing was a gross transgression of

diplomatic norms.

 

 

If the Pak President had overall interests of summit in mind he could

not have preempted the success of the summit by what all he stated in

his breakfast meeting. His utterances in breakfast meeting makes one

to suspect that a deliberate attempt was made by Pakistan to scuttle

the summit success. If that was the intention it has not helped

Pakistlan in any manner.

 

 

The Prime Minister has made it clear during his talks with General

Musharaff that India was determined to counter terrorism from across

the border and that it had the stamina to continue to resolutely deal

with the continuing violence. We can only hope that this would have

well registered in the minds of Pakistan delegation.

 

 

BJP congratulates the Prime Minister for standing firm on the

national consensus evolved on the summit talks and for forcefully and

unequivocally putting forward India's centrality of concerns -

especially cross border terrorism. We are sure that even as the PM

went to Agra carrying national consensus he has returned to Delhi

with the national resolve and hopefully national consensus emerging

stronger.

 

 

The talks may have failed but we are sure that India's national cause

has succeeded.

 

Dr. Ram Kripal Sinha

National Secretary

[Guest guest]

vediculture, Krishnamurthi, President, BJP wrote:

> BJP REPORTS

 

Shri Krishnamurthiji, I have the following questions for you.

 

1. why does Bharata DOES NOT offer political, diplomatic and moral

support to the indegenous struggle for self-determination in

Baltistan, Sindh & Balochistan?

 

2. China was gifted a valley near the Aksai Chin region by the

Terrorist State of Pakistan (TSP) in 1948. In 1962, China occupied

the entire Aksai Chin. Thus, ~ 11% of the total land of J&K is with

China. However, none has ever seen TSP officials or their

intellectuals or their Jehadis ever demand this 11% from China.

Surely, when TSP does not want even an "inch" of land of J&K to go to

Bharata, missing out on 11% is a major policy blunder. It

considerably weakens the moral and political arguments of TSP.

 

Why has Bharata chosen to ignore this hollowness in TSPs position?

 

3. A country that has lived under military rule for ~ 28 years of its

54 years of existence hardly has the right to speak about human

rights any where. However, instead of going ballistic on this point

and thoroughly exploiting TSP's weakness of human rights issues, GoI

knows only one thing when fingers are pointed out at her by IHRC -

get on defensive. Why so?

 

4. All important rivers of TSP flow through Bhartiya territories.

Sindh and Balochistan areas of TSP have been perinially drought

prone. West Punjab (in TSP) will dry up if we regulate our 'taps'.

These terrorists will keep talking of Jihad as long as they live. Why

not plug our 'taps' and thus, cut their life line and solve this

seemingly never-ending problem forever? Why has the GoI been

tolerating the death of able-bodied patriots instead?

 

We all know how governments throughout the world, interpret,

reinterpret or even break treaties. The 1960 agreement on river water

sharing that Nehru had signed with TSP is not worth the high price we

are paying in J&K. All this talk about "Bharata will never wear out"

or "Bharata has the capacity to sustain a low-intensity war" is

irrelvant. The question is not whether 'Bharata can sustain taking

pain'. The question is 'why must Bharata go through all this pain

when less painful solutions are possible'.

 

5. Shias and Sunnis often gun at each others' throats in TSP. Why has

Bharata not exploited this division as yet?

 

6. We all know these Jehadis are terrorist. And we all know that

militant is a very mild term. In fact, Robinhood was a militant. Why

does GoI NOT rap on the knucles of our dorkish media when they give

respectability to these scumbags by calling them "militants" instead

of calling them "terrorists"?

 

Bharata can do away with Prithviraj Chauhan or Raja Harsihchandra

when a Chanakya or a Shivaji can do the same job, at a much lower

price, and in much less time.

 

Amit Agarwal

Pennsylvania State University