LOS ANGELES, Feb 6: The time has come when India should start taking Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf seriously and must realize that Kashmir is really a problem.

This was stated by an eminent scholar on Asian history and former Assistant Vice-Chancellor at UCLA, Professor Stanley Wolpert, at a one-hour examination of issues pertaining to nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.

The programme was arranged by Los Angeles World Affairs Council the other day and was co-sponsored by Council of Pakistan American Affairs (COPAA).

“We have to take a more proactive role in helping to resolve the conflict in Kashmir. It is a conflict. The Indians, however, like to say there is no Kashmir problem, which they do for their own consumption. (But) anyone who knows the region understands that the Indian army is viewed by most of the Kashmiris in the valley as an army of occupation, not as an army of protection,” Wolpert said.

Wolpert, who is an author of over 20 books on Pakistan and India and an internationally recognized authority on India-Pakistan affairs, said for India, Pakistan could not have a better leader than Musharraf.

“If he (Musharraf) is removed, Pakistan could either go back to the kind of narrowness of rule that it had before or it could become more militant in defying India, since there are a number of generals, who have been removed by President Musharraf, who are still waiting in the wings and would like very much to take a more vigorous action,” Wolpert told an audience at the prestigious Beverly Hills Hotel, consisting of professors, researchers, politicians and students.

The professor said he hoped India would appreciate that Pakistan was not trying to destabilize or destroy India’s elected government; that Pakistan respects and recognizes India’s elected government, and that the current buildup on the border was an excessive escalation.

“President Musharraf has done something which I think very few generals in modern times can be expected to do. He has, I believe, the toughest job of any leader of any nation in Asia today.”

He said the swiftness of Pakistan in preventing a dreadful nuclear war, whose capitals are just seven minutes of ballistic missiles of each other, in the aftermath of Dec 13 attacks on Indian parliament building, by putting some 2,500 suspected terrorists behind bars and retaining a degree of cool and banning five militant organizations, all indicate remarkable Pakistani statesmanship.

During the hour-long discussion, Wolpert, who visited Pakistan and India last December, also dwelt at length on why negotiation was the only way to resolve Kashmir issue and why India was feeling dejected following the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC.

Wolpert said many in Pakistan believed that the Dec 13 attack on the parliament was staged by India itself.

“Though I don’t believe for a moment that that is true or that was the case but there were many Pakistanis who did because the Indian false hijacking of one plane a few months before, and then several years before, led them to feel that India would do anything to call sufficient attention so that it could act with impunity in taking Kashmir, the Azad Kashmir quarter, that is in Pakistan’s control.”

The problem is India is feeling neglected after Sept 11 and had been disappointed that USA had turned to Pakistan, which was geographically necessary for any action in Afghanistan, despite its (India’s) open offer to facilitate US troops. Then, India chose a maverick way to get attention.

Wolpert reminded Indian leadership of Mahatma Gandhi’s simple solution on Kashmir: “One should always admit one’s mistakes,” Gandhi told premier Nehru: “I shall advise Pakistan and India to sit together and decide the matter. If they want an arbitrator they can appoint one. Kashmir cannot be saved by military might alone. India and Pakistan must come together and decide the issue with the help of impartial mediation. Is there no one in India who is impartial?”

In the last weeks of Mahatma’s life, Gandhi moaned only the good and the noble could be brave; stupid could never be brave, adding, “If I had my way I would have invited Pakistan’s representative to India and we could have met, discussed the matter and worked out a settlement. We should at least try.” Then he said: “Today, mine is a cry in the wilderness.”

Ten days later he was assassinated by a Hindu who said that the old man was nothing but a Muslim lover and a traitor to India.

That Hindu was part of the RSS, part of the right-wing extremist Hindu group that has among its more recent members many of the leaders of India’s current BJP government, including its prime minister who was once a member of that group.