SOUTH ASIA: Indian Govt under Pressure to Talk to Pakistan

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, May 24 2002 (IPS) - The Indian government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee came under pressure Friday from domestic critics as well as from foreign governments to open dialogue with Pakistan and avert a war that could lead to a nuclear exchange between the South Asian neighbours.

The president of the main opposition Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, said that it was prepared to support the government in its efforts to bring peace to disputed Kashmir.

But it also wanted the Vajpayee government to ensure “formal and informal dialogue” with Pakistan — given the highest level of tension in years with Pakistan, a situation that visiting European Union Commissioner for External Affairs Chris Patten described as being “on a knife edge”.

Diplomatic relations with Pakistan, which broke down after armed intruders crossed the Line of Control (LoC) that runs through the divided territory and led to an undeclared war in the summer of 1999, have steadily worsened since.

Addressing a session of the powerful All-India Congress Committee (AICC) Friday, Gandhi accused the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of Vajpayee of not having a strategy to fight terrorism in Kashmir, which India says is being backed by the Pakistan government.

“There have been no drop in incidents of terror from across the border,” Gandhi told her partymates, who included chief ministers who rule 14 of India’s major states.

The Italian-born shadow prime minister also warned party officials to be vigilant in ensuring that that pro-Hindu fundamentalist groups affiliated to the BJP do not exploit the situation to divide Indian society.

In particular, she named the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an organisation believed to be behind a pogrom against the minority Muslim community in western Gujarat state in February. The state’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, is a prominent member of the group.

Thus far, Vajpayee has talked of a “decisive war” to settle the 52-year-old dispute over Kashmir. On Friday, Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf told the British Broadcasting Corp that India had the “capability of undertaking any adventurist act” and that if attacked, Pakistanis would protect “every inch” of the country.

On Thursday, Pakistan petitioned the United Nations for its intervention and drew its attention to “the explosive situation resulting from the massive Indian deployment” at the two countries’ border. More than a million troops from the two countries are facing off at the border

“We are ready to cooperate with any effort or good offices by the U.N. or the international community for reducing tension, preserving peace and promoting dialogue between the two countries,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said in a letter to the Secretary General and to the president of the Security Council.

Meanwhile, Patten began talks with Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh in the first of concerted international diplomatic efforts to defuse the military standoff along the 1,800 km India-Pakistan border.

The standoff began in December, after ‘jihadist’ militants that India says were linked to Pakistan attempted to blow up Parliament house in the Indian capital with an explosives-laden vehicle.

The two countries’ troops ranged along the border are backed by armour, missiles and their air forces. Over the past week, there have been heavy exchanges of mortar fire and shelling following a ‘jihadist’ suicide attack on a military camp near Jammu, the winter capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, that killed mostly wives and children of Indian servicemen.

The latest attack, Indian officials say, were carried out by suspected members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldier of God) group, which they say is still active despite being banned by Musharraf as part of measures adopted after his country joined the United States’ ‘war on terrorism’.

On Thursday, Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah told television interviewers that the Pakistan High Commission in India was being used to fund Kashmiri separatist leaders.

India downgraded the Pakistan High Commission to the level of deputy high commission after the December attack on Parliament and withdrew its own high commissioner in Islamabad. This week, New Delhi expelled Pakistan High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, who had continued to stay on, after the Jammu attack.

In Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, Vajpayee said the continued ‘jihadist’ attacks showed that Musharraf was not serious about his Jan. 12 pledge that militant activity in the name of Kashmir would no longer be tolerated. “We are disappointed,” Vajpayee said.

Vajpayee’s three-day tour was marred, even as it began Tuesday, by the assassination of Abdul Ghani Lone, the tallest of the moderate Kashmiri leaders by unidentified gunmen that Indian officials said belonged to the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

The tour also failed to bring to the table the influential All-Party Hurriyat Committee (APHC), an umbrella for some 14 separatist political organisations in the Indian part of Kashmir, after Vajpayee made it clear that he would not open talks with Pakistan as demanded by APHC leaders.

The group’s leaders maintain that Islamabad’s involvement is crucial for a lasting settlement to the Kashmir issue.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars over the territory and control following the partition of the former British India on religious lines.

Patten is believed to have told Jaswant Singh that while he believed Musharraf could do more to curb militancy in Kashmir, India should give him more time.

On Thursday, Patten told reporters in Islamabad, his earlier port of call, that he had asked Musharraf to fulfill commitments he had made to implement U.N. resolutions and his own pledge to put an end to militant activity in Kashmir.

Patten will be followed by a series of high-profile visits to the subcontinent by western diplomats expected to try to head off any military conflict.

The ‘Hindustan Times’, one of India’s most influential dailies, cited “sources” to say Friday that “a war with Pakistan would depend on how it acted in the next two months”.

Following in Patten’s footsteps will be British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who has already described the Kashmir issue as “unfinished business”.

In the first week of June, it will be the turn of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to visit the region and take up where Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca left off during a mid-May visit.

The Jammu attack coincided with Rocca’s arrival in New Delhi on May 14, lending credence to what several analysts say are attempts by groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba to provoke a war between India and Pakistan.

Announcing Armitage’s visit in Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the United States understood “India’s frustrations and anger over continued terrorist actions, but would reiterate that rather than being the solution, military action in this crisis would create even greater problems”.