losing the seeing eye - a lavakare

[Guest guest]

http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/17arvind.htm

Losing the 'Seeing Eye', June 17, 2003Barely two months after it was launched at

Srinagar, India's nth effort to sign peace with Pakistan has gone kaput. Or so

it should be via by the insulting interview of Pakistan's President to an

Indian television channel last week.

'We don't trust you [india] when you say we should focus on trade. We see it as

an attempt to sideline the main issue of Kashmir.' That one sound byte from

Pervez Musharraf tells all -- about his abusive abrasiveness and dripping

hatred towards India. The words confirm that the man is not a diplomat but a

demon when it comes to India.

Look at his gall. Despite the 44 per cent turnout in the J&K assembly polls last

October being internationally regarded as free and fair, he says he is clear on

one thing: 'The people of Kashmir do not want to be part of India.' Then

there's that vicarious contempt about resumption of cricket ties: 'Let me tell

you that my players don't want to play with India.' To rub salt in, Musharraf

doesn't rule out a repeat of Kargil '99.

One had hoped that our ministry of external affairs would react to this bile

with a strong protest note to Islamabad and the rest of the world, condemning

the uncouth remarks of the head of a sovereign country, and calling for an

unconditional apology from him, failing which, India's nth initiative for peace

with Pakistan would lie filed away for mere record.

But it was a fond hope really. Genteel India, ever the sucker, had a spokesman

of the MEA voice mere 'dissent' over Musharraf's comments. The prime minister

of the insulted nation had chosen to remain silent and, strangely, the media

didn't apparently approach him for reaction.

It took our loh purush in far away London to almost convulse at Musharraf's

affront -- and never mind that it was nearly 48 hours late. Speaking to a BBC

Hindi programme on Monday, June 16, he interpreted Musharraf's comment on

Kargil to mean 'fruitful talks will not be possible' with Pakistan.

Strangely, the strong reaction from L K Advani, the country's deputy prime

minister, mind you, did not make the headlines of Mumbai's two leading

English-language newspapers of the next day, June 17.

But why the 'talks' at all Mr Advani? Why not admit that our nth peace

initiative was itself ill-timed and ill-judged?

Consider the facts of the last two months.

Right from the bolt-from-the-blue offer of friendship at Srinagar on April 18,

India, genteel India, decided to bend backwards to smoke the peace pipe with

Pakistan. We had quickly reappointed a high commissioner in Islamabad, offered

the resumption of the Delhi-Lahore bus service, and diluted our earlier

pre-condition regarding elimination of cross-border terrorism before talks

could begin.

Even as the detailed road map of step-by-step approach mentioned by our foreign

minister was far from being put in practice, The Hindu of May 28, 2003 reported

Prime Minister Vajpayee in New Delhi declaring that India wanted to start talks

with Pakistan 'as soon as possible.'

On May 28, in Berlin, Vajpayee went on to concede that resolving the Kashmir

issue would require 'serious compromises' which he was 'prepared to negotiate'

-- with not even a hint that Pakistan must first allow over-flight on its

territory to Indian aircrafts, must reciprocate the Most Favoured Nation status

to trade with India, must close its terrorist training camps and stop

cross-border infiltration altogether. (UNI report in The Hindu, May 29, 2003).

In Chicago last Friday, Advani echoed his master's voice. 'There has to be give

and take in negotiations,' he said in a public speech. (The Times of India,

Mumbai, June 14, 2003). Pradeep Kaushal of The Indian Express was more

explicit. In his despatch datelined Chicago June 13, he reported Advani as

saying that India was ready for a compromise on Jammu and Kashmir and quoted

him as saying: 'We have to see what kind of compromises are possible even now,'

adding that talks could help one decide these compromises.

Why this unholy hurry to sit across the summit table with Pakistan? Is there

some deadline of history set for Vajpayee's hat trick? Or has President Bush

set a deadline -- in exchange for what? No one knows, for no one but no one is

opening his mouth on that, and the media is just not investigating, so engulfed

and euphoric as it has been in the 'peace with Pakistan' initiative. All, it

would seem, are simply itching for India's 'talk' with Pakistan, even if it be

in poetry newly composed for the special occasion.

It's really been appalling, this whole turn-around of ours in dealing with

Pakistan -- from 'We don't want to see your face' for 18 months since that

attack on our Parliament to 'Come, come, I want to so badly talk to you'

presently. Sonia Gandhi was right when she recently attacked the Vajpayee

government's Pak policy as lacking in 'clarity, consistency and conviction.'

It's been incomprehensible -- this talk of 'talks as soon as possible,' of 'give

and take in negotiations,' of the need for 'serious compromises,' of 'talks to

decide the compromises' -- even as Pakistan has said that it will not budge on

its stance on Kashmir, that it will not accept the Line of Control as the new

border, that it will not reciprocate India's gesture with the Most Favoured

Nation benefit as yet, that it will not allow us to fly over its territory as

yet and that it will not deport 20 hardened criminals wanted by us; Nor has it

stopped its constant infiltration of our borders and its

frequent-artillery-fire across-the Line of Control scheme. Yet, talk with it,

we will, we have decided it.

The contrast in the attitudes of India and Pakistan to peace was so stark in

recent weeks that it was almost demeaning for a nation that is much bigger in

numbers and territory and GDP, much more endowed in resources, much more

respected internationally and much more versatile than its neighbour, which the

world at large has silently pronounced as a 'rogue state.' Or have Vajpayee and

Advani been cocky in believing that whatever be Pakistan's rhetoric (for

'domestic consumption' as is usually stated), they can still work out an

honourable pact with that country?

In a press release issued in Chennai on May 30, Subramanian Swamy, the Janata

Party president, made the point that Vajpayee could not talk of a partition of

Kashmir along the LoC without seeking Parliament's approval. (The Hindu, May

31, 2003). As a matter of fact, the constitutional requirements of bringing

about any 'compromise' on the alteration of the existing boundaries of Jammu

and Kashmir were pointed out in this column of May 6, 2003. But the BJP-led

government that otherwise talks of a 'consensus' on almost anything and

everything -- from the setting up of a judicial commission and labour reforms

to the women's reservation bill -- does not even talk of talking to Parliament

on 'serious compromises' with Pakistan.

Even after Musharraf's latest rebuff expressing lack of trust in India, Advani

still talks about 'talks' with Pakistan, his only concern being that they will

not be 'fruitful' -- whatever that means. The basic question remains: why these

'talks' at all until Pakistan sheds its organic hostility towards India?

One suspects that the meek, tolerant and idealistic Hindu mind is at work here

once again -- like the Shankaracharya of Puri saying at Srinagar the other day

that whatever the Supreme Court's verdict on the Ayodhya case, Hindus will

build a mosque on the land adjoining that on which the Muslims will build a

temple for Ram.

If that is indeed so, it's apt to remind the venerable three, Vajpayee, Advani

and the Shankaracharya, of the book Thoughts On Pakistan (Thacker & Co, Bombay,

1941) written by a certain Dr B R Ambedkar, MA, PhD and barrister of law.

Debunking the Hindus of his time who forgot the history of the Indian Muslims'

psyche and therefore opposed the carving out of Pakistan as a separate nation,

Ambedkar believed that 'those Hindus who are guiding the destinies of their

fellows have lost what Carlyle calls the Seeing Eye and are walking in the

glamour of certain vain illusions.'

Unless that sort of blindness is indeed the condition of our venerable trinity,

Musharraf's latest missile ought to make them see light and some stunning stars

as well.

Arvind Lavakare

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