-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4327255,00.html
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Kashmir is part of the mess that Britain left behind
This futile crisis cannot be separated from the 'war' against
terrorism
Peter Preston
Monday December 31, 2001
The Guardian
The prime minister of India warned that, unless Pakistan reined in
its Kashmir guerrillas, there'd be war. The president of Pakistan
solicited the "good offices" of the US - and sent in his guerrillas
anyway. Bloody miscalculation, bloody incompetence all round. But
that was 1965, number two out of four conflicts that have wracked the
subcontinent since independence. And here (quite possibly) we go
again. Accidents - bloody accidents - keep happening.
Forget the end of history, forget the blah-blah of hope as the year
turns: forget especially any sheeny triumphalism attached to the
"war" against terrorism. New Delhi and Islamabad seem to have learnt
nothing and forgott
en nothing. They are locked in the time warp of half a century ago. Only the nuclear
warheads in their arsenals are new.
Kashmir, perhaps even more than the Middle East, is the world's most intractable, most
punishingly futile crisis. Decade after decade it rumbles insolubly on, claiming dead
on the battlefield but, beyond that, claiming mi
llions of lives lost to poverty and sickness, people ground down by an obscene weight
of military spending. The generals and politicians who made the first blunders have
long since passed away: though the excuses have cha
nged, their heirs perform as though from memory.
Remember Sir Hari Singh, the playboy maharajah of (Hindu) Jammu and (Muslim) Kashmir,
who paid �50,000 for an imported dancing girl and flip-flopped his misbegotten
statelet into Delhi's embrace at the last moment of inde
pendence. Remember the referendum India promised and then forgot. Remember the endless
intrigues that went with the cold war. Remember Nehru's belief in the "basic ideal" of
secularism that could not be compromised.
All this is gone now. Messrs Putin and Bush are best buddies. China is coming in from
the cold. A Hindu nationalist prime minister rules India. What's left is one glorious
valley where no tourists tread and a desolate, im
poverished slab of rock and ice sustained only by stubbornness. Kashmir's sole
remaining importance is as a casus belli.
Benign diplomats, left to themselves, would have no difficulty. Set Kashmir in the
context of a wider Indo- Pakistani settlement, open borders to trade and travel, even
create a subcontinental common market. Offer Kashmir
itself (but not lowland Jammu) a measure of independence like Andorra or the Channel
Islands: neutral, semi-autonomous, free to grow rich on American Express cards. Hold
your plebiscites and proclaim a victory for pragma
tism. Everyone wins.
But that is not the way of this world. Pakistan, through 50 years of governmental
failure, has turned the "liberation" of an Indian Kashmir (which would probably recoil
from Islamabad's embrace) into a symbol of struggle
that keeps its swollen army - and successive military dictators - in place. Kashmir,
at least in the rhetoric, is one definition of nationhood. And India, having spent so
much blood and blood money, responds in kind. If K
ashmir goes, who can say what other fractious state may wish to follow?
Those are mountains of fear, self-interest and pride left to climb. They are also
mountains of unreality.
What does Mr Vajpayee hope for if his troops move over the Pakistan border? Probably
(because of superior manpower and equipment) a short, conventional campaign in the
flatlands of Punjab and Sind that makes General Musha
rraf sue for peace and then topples him. But it's hard, in the miserable pantheon of
history, to see how this helps. It will be killing business as usual in the hills
again all too soon. And the parallels with Sharon and
Arafat also operate. India assumes, as Israel assumes, that Musharraf can turn off
terrorism like a tap. It ain't necessarily so.
Where, since you ask, is Osama bin Laden? Maybe somewhere in Pakistan. General
Musharraf would love to round him up and hand him over - but he's an Arafat, the
temporising victim, not the master, of events. His writ barel
y runs through the tribal areas. He doesn't know whether his notoriously flaky secret
service, the ISI, is for him or against him. Can he click his fingers at Azad Kashmir
as Taliban remnants trek in? Did he welcome the s
uicide attack on India's parliament, which sparked off this round? Of course not. But
has he the physical and political clout to track down the perpetrators, close down
their networks and seem Vajpayee's patsy? No: he's s
tuck, betwixt and between.
Kashmir, in sum, isn't separate from the "war" against terrorism. It has swiftly
become an umbilical part of it. Terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed have seen the
chance of a fruitful mayhem. India has upped the ante i
n the shadow of Sharon. Musharraf, having risked so much to side with the White House
coalition, finds himself dependent on an army loyalty which could be withdrawn if he
goes soft on his nationhood symbolism. More bloody
miscalculation, more bloody incompetence.
Yet, for once, there is a difference. The difference we call September 11. This, in
the second phase, is "our war" between members of our coalition. This is "our"
Pakistani dictator, suitably pavilioned in praise, cash an
d assurances. These are "our" nuclear weapons on both sides, sanctions withdrawn.
These are "our" arguments for action or inaction, suitably reprocessed. This, when and
if the tanks roll around Sialkot, will be our nightm
are.
George W, miffed that the net around Osama is suddenly full of holes,
may not welcome such a show. America's war doesn't include trading
old flashpoints for new. But we ought to be grimly clear. Fifty years
on, the mess that we Brits left behind returns to haunt us all. And
this time, with this coalition, we need to sort it. We've started: we
have to find a finish.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
End<{{{
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