(August 2014)
I think the first international relations blunder has been made by the Modi Government. India and Pakistan are neighbors fighting over a piece of land for ages now. India went to the Judge with the dispute, who acknowledged the dispute, but then India realized its mistake and, ever since then, has been trying to withdraw the dispute without adjudication; but, of course, this Judge is different from the Indian Courts: he won’t let this case be withdrawn now. So, what did India do! It started out of court talks with Pakistan and also reached a kind of agreement (Shimla Agreement), but the agreement had no legal validity in absence of the assurance of its enforcement; thus the agreement was breached at will, but the talks continued. Now, India has decided not to talk with Pakistan if it continues talking with the Hurriyat Conference and the other separatist groups, who seem to be representing a large population in Kashmir. The reason for this stance also seems to be the paradoxical approach of India of avoiding calling Kashmir a dispute but seeking its resolution through talks at the same time. India thinks if they will involve the separatist groups in the trilateral talks, Kashmir would automatically get acknowledged as an international dispute, and whatever hide and seek game it has been playing on this issue will come to an end. Well, the apprehensions are correct, but the approach adopted by India is, to say the least, stupid: by putting an inconsequential condition for talks, India has automatically brought this issue on the international map. Pakistan is now free to approach the UN once again and revive the “dispute” recorded in the file, and India will no more be able to take a position that the dispute can and should be resolved through bilateral talks without involvement of the international arbitrators/mediators. This is a monumental blunder, which can lead to serious problems in the future. Still the worst, India has walked out in such a frivolous manner that it almost looks kiddish. Furthermore, this approach of India has also closed all doors for talks on other issues like terrorism, rivers, exports, sports, media and culture.
The problem between India and Pakistan is that the militaries of the two countries have made a mountain out of a mole and have not allowed the Kashmir dispute to be settled in an amicable manner. Everybody knows the only solutions to the Kashmir problem is to either declare LOC, LAC (including Mc Mohan Line) as international borders or to create a self-governing international zone of Kashmir Valley, militarily supported by Pakistan, India and China. But for the ulterior motives of the militaries, the solution is so easy and simple that the dispute should not have taken more than a few hours to get resolved.
The problem is that the military forces across the globe are facing existential crisis. They are no more needed in the globalized world except to protect the global business interests; but, of course, this can’t be recognized as a rationale for keeping such large military forces; so, they have invented this imaginary threat of global terrorism and will propagate it until they invent some thing new like the threats from the extraterrestrial bodies. India has either already jumped or is contemplating jumping into this band-wagon, and, in the process, it wants to establish and condemn Pakistan as a global terrorist. There can’t be any other comprehensible reason for the approach India has adopted towards Pakistan, but I am amazed at the audacity of the Modi Government: they are trying to condemn a long standing ally of the US as a global terrorist! This can be done only if India becomes the strategic partner of the US in the east subduing Pakistan first as a junior partner and then gradually condemning it as a global terrorist. I think the invitation to Sharif at Modi’s swearing-in ceremony was also to the same effect; i.e., to subdue the role of Pakistan as a junior partner in the fight against terrorism; Pakistan also seems to have accepted this role for a while, but soon the Pakistani military took over, which is definitely better informed, and then the recent infiltrations in Kashmir were self-evident. However, now in order to maintain/project its recently attained status of a senior partner, India seems to have taken this extreme and desperate step without realizing its true global status. I don’t think it is possible for India in its present global status to dislodge Pakistan altogether from the international map; Pakistan will have to do something really very silly to be condemned as a global terrorist.
This is what happens when a single political party gets overwhelming majority: they start reflecting their local status into the global arena without any local criticism — all Indian media channels are promoting even this stupid a move by India.
But, for a change, the Congress seems to have played its cards cleverly this time.
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