The Pakistanis have been priming the world press, and getting results. But India is still doing nothing
With the capture of Tiger Hills in Dras, and of Jubar Hill and surrounding features in Batalik, India is surely winning the military war in Kargil. The joint statement issued by President Clinton and prime minister Nawaz Sharif in Washington on July 4 was an equally decisive victory for India in the diplomatic war. But India remains in danger of losing the information war in Kargil. In the long run, a defeat here could prove the most expensive of the three.
The huge outcry against the Clinton-Sharif statement in Pakistan was predictable. The media there had toed the official line that this was Kashmir's last battle for 'freedom' (a euphemism for merger with Pakistan). It was feeding its people with stories of engagements won and Indian soldiers killed with such abandon that Sharif's total 'surrender' was a shock. The result: a total flight from reality by 150 million people, which must surely have few parallels in history.
Even if Sharif had had any intention of fulfilling his part of the deal, the reaction in Pakistan has made it virtually impossible for him to do so. Unfazed by this for an instant, Sharif and his foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, have decided to turn crisis into opportunity and convert the Washington defeat into an information victory for Pakistan. During a prolonged stopover in London, the delegation literally pumped the British media. In addition to meeting just about every press editor they could find, Aziz gave an interview to bbc's Hard Talk that laid out the Pakistani information offensive in bold detail.
India and not Pakistan started the war in Kargil, by building up its forces along the LoC over the past two years. India and not Pakistan violated the LoC, by occupying Siachen and adjoining areas. India, not Pakistan, is responsible for the war in Kargil and the entire conflict in Kashmir, as it refuses to let the Kashmiri people be free and militarily crushes their freedom movement. India, not Pakistan, is being perfidious by agreeing repeatedly that Kashmir is a 'disputed territory', and holding talks on its future when it does not have the least intention of conceding any ground on any issue. Pakistan and the Kashmiri freedom fighters have, therefore, been driven to desperation by India's obduracy. The freedom fighters have launched an all-out offensive. Pakistan was left with no option but to give them a minimum of logistical support. Pakistan is a responsible state. It has responded positively to President Clinton's call to 'secure a withdrawal' of forces from the Indian side of the LoC. But it does not control the 'Kashmiri' militants and their Afghan friends, so it can only ask them to vacate the Indian side of the LoC. It can't ensure they will do so. After all, look at the statement issued by the United Jihad Council. Is its chairman Syed Salahuddin a Pakistani? Is he not the same ex-candidate of J&K's Muslim United Front who fled to Pakistan to escape the police reign of terror unleashed by Farooq Abdullah on his rivals after he rigged the '87 elections? In any case, the Clinton-Sharif statement did not set a time-table for the withdrawal.
Pakistan cannot control the mujahideen until the larger issue of Kashmir's future is decided. Clinton conceded as much when he said that he would take a personal interest in the dispute. It is now the responsibility of the world community to settle the dispute and make India accept it. The freedom fighters took their desperate step to force the world to pay attention to their plight. Surely the world will not let them down now. But if it does, let it remember that Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers and that if, as a result of Pakistan's support of the legitimate efforts of the mujahideen to free their country, there is a wider conflict, Pakistan will not hesitate to use its nuclear weapons against India first.
Incredible as it may seem, Pakistan's media charm is once again working. On July 6, The Financial Times published a leader saying India needed to make some concessions on the Kashmir issue to avoid 'a hundred Kargils'. The Wall Street Journal did much the same. Thus, almost without noticing it, both papers decided not only to condone Pakistan's invasion of Indian Kashmir, but to reward it by endorsing its attempt to internationalise the Kashmir dispute. Since they did this because they were alarmed by the prospect of a military coup backed by an outraged public in Pakistan, and since others share their apprehension, such sentiments will be voiced by many other newspapers and analysts in the coming days. What will then happen is predictable. Pakistan's supporters on the Hill will start to attack President Clinton for having blundered, and needlessly endangered the stability of the US' most reliable ally to curry favour with the world's leading America-baiter (look at the stand India took on Kosovo). This will put the White House on the defensive. It will respond by announcing to the American public and Congress that it is taking a more active interest in settling the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan will thus have snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat.
What has India's response been to this new information offensive? Absolute silence! To demolish the claim that no Pakistani soldiers are involved, all it had to do was release the photos of the 100 dead Pakistanis, the letter from 'Shaheen' to her dead army major husband, and the video and audio tapes of the interrogation of the lone live soldier and the dozen or so militants caught in the Turtuk valley, to the foreign press. By releasing some of this information to the 'tame' Indian press, it has only reinforced the world press' suspicion that everything-the ration cards, pay books, even the letter from 'Shaheen'-have been cooked up by Indian intelligence. And who can prove them wrong? As for the army, which is now sitting on all this material, it would do well to remember that neglect of the information war will (not could) cost more lives one day-their lives!