Iron Hands, Soft Gloves

NAWAZ Sharif asked the nation to pray for him when he left for the US to meet Clinton. He's still in need of prayers. The Kargil gambol has embarrassed Pakistan on every front. If Sartaj Aziz would like to paint the fiasco as a triumph, it'll take more than prayers to sell the canvas. Pakistan's 'appeal' to the 'freedom fighters' to 'disengage and disperse' is sheer cant. The Pak army and marauders in mufti have been routed. Pakistan has dishonoured its dead by refusing to take back their bodies, like it did with the 'Biharis' in '71.

World powers have, in a rare moment of lucidity, recognised that it all started with Pakistan crossing the LoC. Clinton told Sharif that the invading 'forces' must restore the LoC's 'sanctity' by withdrawing to their own side, and then ensure a cessation of hostilities in order to return to the Simla-Lahore process of bilateral dialogue in that sequence. Quite independently of Clinton, this is the sequence that must be followed. First, the Indian army will need to certify that the withdrawal, under whatever terminological fig-leaf, is complete. Next, the cessation of hostilities must be seen to hold across the LoC and the international border of J&K with Pakistan, this includes infiltration and cross-border firing. Also, some assurance must be given that this cessation will endure. Since the election process in India will soon be under way, only preparatory talks may be possible till October brings a new government.

Everybody must understand certain fundamental realities when talks resume. Pakistan has no prescriptive right to claim J&K on the basis of Islam. It can't expect to win at the negotiating table what it has repeatedly lost by an appeal to arms. The sequence of events, the deceptions and fig-leafs of '99, mirror what happened in '47-48, '65, '71, '84 and through the '90s. That dreary cycle of hate must end. Hope lies in building on the LoC. What is now the LoC was first drawn as a ceasefire line (cfl) by the two military commands in the presence of the UN and enshrined in the Karachi Agreement ('49). Beyond the last northern coordinate/grid reference NJ 9842, it was to run 'north to the glaciers'. The same cfl was violated in '65 by the Pakistan army and irregulars. That in turn was a replay of the more blatant border violation by Pakistani tribal raiders aided by its armed forces in '47. Both times the West was coy about admitting what the UN found to be aggression against India in J&K.

This serial betrayal of commitments through overt and covert acts of war against India's territorial integrity must inform any dialogue. This is the 'core' Kashmir issue. Pakistan's locus standi is that of an invader, not the injured party. When it launches mercenaries across the LoC to wage war, spread terror and indulge in ethnic cleansing, all pious talk of self-determination and human rights is shown up for what it is humbug. India has long been prepared to let Pakistan keep whatever lies across the LoC. This is a pragmatic decision. The LoC, unlike the cfl, is a political line agreed to by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Simla in '72. It also marks a fairly well-defined ethno-cultural divide which by its very longevity has acquired the status of a de facto boundary in the process of becoming a de jure international border. By the same token, PoK and the Northern Areas have virtually become part of Pakistan.

Independence for any part or all of J&K being ruled out, self-determination must be sought within either side of the divide. What is at issue is not change of existing sovereignties but a consultative review of the status of the two parts to enhance a popular sense of self-governance. India needs to review Centre-state relations in a manner that might enlarge J&K's internal autonomy, while structuring a scheme of regional autonomy within what is a culturally plural state. Likewise, 'Azad' Kashmir could do with a lot more azadi than its current constitutional status and Islamabad's stranglehold permits. Behind the facade, it's the Kashmir Affairs Council, headed by the PM of Pakistan, that wields ultimate power.

The plight of the Northern Areas is even more pathetic. The area seeks decolonisation within Pakistan. On May 28, a five-member bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court directed Islamabad to 'make necessary amendments in the constitution...to ensure the people of the Northern Areas enjoy fundamental rights, namely to be governed through chosen representatives and to have access to justice through an independent judiciary' within six months. The choice is between becoming Pakistan's fifth province or being granted provincial autonomy or merger with 'Azad' Kashmir, what Muzaffarabad demands.

Pakistan alleges the LoC has constantly been violated by India, notably in Siachen. On the contrary, Pakistan transgressed the unambiguous NJ 9842 'thence north to the glaciers' alignment of the LoC, both physically and cartographically by redrawing it to run northeast to the Karakoram Pass. India pre-empted this in '84 by establishing the current 'Actual Ground Position Line' along the Saltoro ridge flanking Siachen. The pretence of a 'border war' on the LoC as distinct from a 'Kashmir dispute' is an illusion. Both are products of the same governing fact sequential acts of aggression, which does not obliterate history. But India too must win over the people in J&K, many of whom are alienated. It's never the wrong time to do the right thing. Do that, and no soldier who has laid down his life in Kargil will have died in vain. What is being defended in Kargil is not just a line defining territory, but democratic values. Lose those values and there is little to defend.

To win peace India must stretch out its hand to the people of Pakistan. As friends, there is much that both countries and the people in both parts of J&K can do together. A soft sovereign border can bind in many ways, even as it separates. This is what must be explored.