No room for complacency

IT is not so much the absence of any progress in the summit meeting between the leaders of Pakistan and India in New York as the disputation at the UN and the resulting tension which afflicted their talks that has disappointed all those who wish to see the early normalization of ties between the two neighbours.

An insipid and brief joint statement, after the four hour talks between President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, repeating general observations that have been stated before many a time, provided a sharp contrast to the earlier joint statements issued after their first meeting in New York last year and the second meeting in New Delhi on April 18, 2005. While last week’s joint statement talked of the “promotion of trade and economic relations”, there was no mention in it of the Iranian gas pipeline. This again was a departure from the April joint statement. Was it because the two sides wanted to avoid any reference to Iran on American soil or was it because the abandonment of the Iranian gas project had turned out to be part of the price America was demanding for its friendship?

A positive development that emerged from the New York meeting was that both sides showed interest in continuing the dialogue as neither wanted to take the blame for wrecking the peace process. Another piece of good news was the announcement by President Musharraf that the Indian prime minister had accepted his invitation to visit Pakistan. However, no time-frame has been indicated for the visit and it is difficult to say when the much-flaunted visit will take place.

It is all the more regrettable as the tiff at the UN could have been easily avoided. The first salvo was fired by the Indian prime minister who, in his encounter with President Bush, told him that “Pakistan still controls the flow of terror into Kashmir and for any realistic progress the flow of terror from Pakistan should stop.” He repeated this accusation in his speech at the UN General Assembly when he said his country was a victim of terrorism. “India has faced cross border terrorism directed against its unity and territorial integrity,” said Mr Singh.

The terror accusation against Pakistan at an important international gathering prompted President Musharraf to mention the Kashmir issue and the Security Council resolutions in his address at the UN General Assembly. As a sort of tit-for-tat, he reminded the Indians that the UN resolution on Kashmir still remained unimplemented.

This was an unpleasant surprise for the Indians who had assumed that UN resolutions had ceased to be a part of Pakistan’s official stance. Even the mentioning of Kashmir in the Pakistan president’s UN address was a new development for them because in his previous address, President Musharraf had not raised the Kashmir issue. There were reportedly tension-filled moments when the summit talks began and Mr Manmohan Singh started the meeting by saying: “I thought we had left all that behind.”

Why did the Indian prime minister choose to raise the issue of cross-border terrorism in his UN address, knowing well that such a move was bound to elicit a strong reaction from Pakistan? Was he under pressure from the domestic lobby after former Indian prime minister Vajpayee’s strong criticism of his government’s Pakistan and Kashmir policy? Or did the hardliners in the South Block bureaucracy succeed in persuading him to internationalize the cross-border terrorism issue at the UN? Even if India had some genuine grievances with regard to infiltration across the LoC, it would have been a far better option to discuss the matter in a candid and straight-forward manner in the summit talks between the leaders of Pakistan and India.

India is within its rights to remind Pakistan of its commitment in the January 2004 joint statement not to allow any territory under its control to be used for supporting terrorism in any manner. Though New Delhi admits that there has been a marked decrease in both infiltration and violence in the Valley, it may still argue for further efforts on the part of Pakistan to bring down violence in Kashmir.

But any attempt to internationalize bilateral issues will be counterproductive because it is certain to harden Pakistan’s stance and mar the atmosphere for talks as it surely did at the New York summit. It may be observed that New Delhi has all along insisted that Islamabad should not attempt to internationalize the Kashmir issue as it is a bilateral matter which should be decided through bilateral talks.

In a recent interview to India’s NDTV news channel in New York, Indian foreign minister Natwar Singh conveyed the impression that despite adverse signals in the closed-door meeting between the leaders of India and Pakistan in New York, “the Indian government has clearly decided to send out a message that the talks are back on track”. His observation will be put to test when he visits Islamabad on October 3 to review, with his Pakistani counterpart, the progress on the composite dialogue.

In order to increase the credibility of the peace process, it is necessary to implement in letter and spirit the four basic concepts contained in the April 18 joint statement issued after the Musharraf-Singh historic meeting in New Delhi. The joint statement declared the peace process “irreversible”. It also declared that neither side would allow acts of terrorism to disrupt the relationship. Thirdly, it spoke of continuing the discussion on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir “in a sincere and purposeful and forward looking manner for a final settlement”. And last, it emphasized the need to find “expeditiously” a solution to both the Siachen and Sir Creek issues.

No one is expecting an early breakthrough on Kashmir. Even with the best of intentions, the legacy of the past and the complexity of the problem do not allow the process to be rushed. Yet, it is important that steps should be taken, and can be taken, to create conditions that will allow the people of Kashmir to lead a more secure and dignified life, free from violence and terror, from the insurgents as well as from the state. Since the reduction of Indian troops from Indian-controlled Kashmir is the first step towards this goal, New Delhi should seriously consider the Pakistani proposal that, to begin with, troops should be withdrawn from the districts of Baramulla and Kupwara.

India has made it clear that Pakistan has to stop cross-border infiltration in order to move ahead on the Kashmir issue. This means that nothing should be done from our side which brings the peace process to a halt. The history of the past 58 years amply attests to the fact that there is no alternative to a dialogue to settle our disputes with India. At long last, New Delhi also seems to have recognized that resolving the Kashmir issue is in its long-term interests.

Lack of progress on Siachen and Sir Creek, despite directions from the Pakistani president and the Indian prime minister to institute mechanisms to find expeditious solutions to these issues, has damaged the credibility of the entire peace process. Though Dr Manmohan Singh, during his visit to the glacial battlefield in June, spoke of turning the area into “a mountain of peace” yet there has been no forward movement at the official level, because the Indian army has been dragging its feet.

The Indian army wants assurances that Pakistan will not move up and occupy posts India vacates, while Pakistan is not prepared to accept any arrangement that might prejudice its eventual claim to the entire glacier. Under the circumstances, the leaders of Pakistan and India will have to intervene to get the officials concerned to work out agreements on Siachen and the Sir Creek. If that happens, the reward will be enormous — not only in terms of lives and money saved but also in terms of producing a highly visible outcome that will give credibility to the peace process.

After the disputation at the UN General Assembly and the lack of progress at the New York summit, the peace process has entered a critical phase. Any complacency on either side may derail the whole process and nullify the efforts made so far to remove the hurdles in the way of normalization of relations. In the India-Pakistan context, it is easy to destroy the momentum of goodwill and amity and very difficult to recreate it. Therefore, Islamabad and New Delhi have to find some way of managing the complex linkage between India’s concerns on cross-border infiltration and Pakistan’s solicitude for India’s political gestures on Kashmir. They need to develop the finesse that lets both the sides feel that they have gained something from the ongoing peace process.

The writer is a former ambassador

Match point for the BJP

IF ever there was an opportunity for the BJP to project its individual entity, it is now. So far it has been considered a political instrument of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which has its own agenda to establish a Hindu dispensation in India.

The outgoing BJP president L.K. Advani has brought the debate in the open by advising the RSS to leave politics to the BJP and to confine the Sangh to cultural environs. His argument that it was the BJP that went to the people at the time of the polls, and not the RSS, is true and telling.

What I have not been able to understand is why it has taken 25 years (the BJP is celebrating its silver jubilee) for Advani to wake up and confirm the general impression that the Sangh guides the BJP in politics. Yet, he was the one who broke links with the Janata Party in 1979 when told to sever connections with the RSS. The party could not survive the split and its government came tumbling down. When Advani went to the extent of founding a new party (the BJP), what could have impelled him to attack the RSS now?

Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was also unhappy with the RSS. He even thought of parting company with the BJP at one time. But his gift of the gab and his ability to project a liberal image while plugging the Hindutva line stood him in good stead. Even the RSS did not push him into a corner as it has done in the case of Advani whom the RSS considers its own man. It was afraid of Vajpayee’s acceptability in the country.

My belief is that Advani realized after the BJP lost in the general elections that if the party wanted to come to power — 273 seats in the 545-member Lok Sabha — it could not afford to distance the more than 150 million Muslims, nearly 14 per cent of the total electorate. The alienation of the Muslims from the RSS is complete because they have seen its complicity during communal riots.

It would be wrong to assume that the praise of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was Advani’s undoing. He had been showing his unhappiness with the RSS for some time. He had protested many a time that the RSS was foisting on them the sanchalaks (preachers) for posts in the organization and seats in state assemblies and in parliament. In fact, he had lessened consultations with the RSS on important matters. Things had come to such a pass that the RSS was starting to feel ignored. It was an expression of exasperation on the part of RSS chief Sudarshan when he said that both Vajpayee and Advani should retire because they had grown old. But Sudarshan himself is well above 70.

The real grievances of the RSS is that the BJP, while in the government, pursued what was required for running it and paid little heed to the Hindutva ideology. This is not wholly true because Murli Manohar Joshi followed the RSS brief and played havoc with education and culture. He even stopped grants for Gandhian institutions because the RSS did not like their secular education instruction.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that the BJP forged in order to harness the support of 24 political parties for a majority in the Lok Sabha adopted a common minimum programme. The BJP agreed to keep aside three of its main demands: one, not to build a temple at the site where the Babri Masjid stood before its demolition; two, not to insist on scrapping Article 370 that gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir and, three, not to press for a common civil code. The RSS was a party to the understanding reached. Its defence at that time was that if the BJP wanted to head the government, it had no option except to modify its agenda to get the support of other political parties.

I am sure that the RSS would have allowed the same aged Vajpayee to continue if the BJP had returned to power. Ideology is important but the government is more important.

The reason why the RSS has gone back to the purity of ideology is the BJP’s wilderness and consequently its own. It does not make any difference to the RSS whether India remains democratic or gives up its pluralism. A Hindu state is all that it wants and matters little if, in the process, the country’s ethos, attained through the struggle for independence in which the RSS played no role, is destroyed.

Why doesn’t the RSS, for a change, engage itself in improving the Hindu society which is groaning under the caste system? In fact, I expected the BJP national executive that met in Chennai last week to raise its voice against the atrocities committed recently against the dalits. Has the Hindutva ideology no place for those among the Hindu brethren who have been suffering for centuries indignities and discrimination at the hands of upper castes?

But the RSS is more concerned about power politics than reforms in the Hindu religion. Things are not going to be easy for the RSS. Advani’s remarks have sparked off a fierce debate within the BJP. It is not simply ‘they’ versus ‘we,’ nor Advani’s supporters versus the opponents. The fight is between the RSS and many BJP followers. The non-RSS voices are feeble because they are afraid of persecution after Advani’s exit. Still, members in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, where the BJP is trying to implant itself , support Advani. But they, too, believe that the RSS cadre makes them win at the polls. That is the reason that the resolution adopted at the Chennai conclave included the same old RSS-inspired exhortations like “minority-ism” and the “appeasement of Muslims.”

They realize that such slogans do not sell any more. They are like used cartridges. Yet the RSS believes they are part of the struggle to pursue its ideological battle. Strangely; the RSS has not changed its tactics even after knowing that the call to build the temple at the Babri masjid site does not evoke any response. It is banking on persons like Narendra Modi of the Gujarat carnage ‘fame’.

The post-Advani BJP is going to be a hotchpotch outfit of extremists and liberals, RSS men and the BJP men. There will be a majority of people who will be riding two horses at the same time. They will be talking at each other instead of talking to each other.

Naturally, there will be no cohesion in thought and action. The RSS is determined to give a new edge to extremism which is fraught with danger, knowing well that the minorities are not in a mood to take things lying down. The kind of a BJP set-up that the RSS has in mind holds little for the future.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Blows to democracy

THE retreat from the rule of law — despite the enactment of the Human Rights Act — has been the deepest flaw of the Blair administration.

Some retreat on civil rights was obviously necessary in the wake of this summer’s terrorist attacks. But as an eminent QC noted after the bombings: “It is all too easy to respond in a way that undermines commitment to our most deeply held values and convictions and cheapens our right to call ourselves a civilised nation.”

Towards the end of an interview on the BBC in which he unequivocally defended the proposed strengthening of anti-terrorist measures, the prime minister was read a part of the QC’s opinion and reminded that the author was his wife, Cherie Booth. Expressing gratitude for the reminder, he conceded: “It’s important that we don’t respond in a way that damages the very fabric of our democracy.”

Here are three ways fundamental democratic principles are being quite unnecessarily damaged by these moves.

First, free speech. Under the proposed law anyone who “glorifies, exalts or celebrates” any terrorist act committed over the past 20 years could face a sentence of up to five years.

Rarely, even within notorious conspiracy legislation, has there been such a broadly drafted clause. What makes it even more unnecessary is that the bill already tightens up the incitement to terrorism offence. If the test has to be overt endorsement of terrorism - as officials suggested this week - why not prosecute them under the direct incitement clause?

More absurd still, the home secretary will be empowered to go even further and draw up a list of historical terrorist acts which if “glorified” could mean a criminal act had been committed. Consider the huge distractions such a list would generate, when all efforts ought to be concentrated on effective moves to pre-empt terrorism.

Second — which both opposition parties are rightly opposing — is a clause extending the right to detain suspects for questioning for up to three months. Remember, we are talking about suspects. Many will turn out to be innocent. The current 14 days was only recently introduced. Even at the height of the IRA campaign in the 1970s and 1980s, only seven-day detentions were allowed.

Three months would be the equivalent of a six-month prison sentence given current 50% remission rules. Clearly the home secretary had doubts himself. An early draft of a letter he sent to shadow spokesmen was leaked yesterday. It included the line — “I believe there is room for debate as to whether we should go as far as three months” — that was deleted from the final version. Charles Clarke is not going to win the cross-party support which he was rightly seeking to build if he sticks to this proposal. He should drop it now.

The third threat to fundamental rights concerns the detention of seven Algerians earlier this week. They were alleged to have been involved in a plot to spread ricin, a deadly toxin. But the substances the police claimed were ricin contained no trace of the poison.

Four, who faced trial were found not guilty and the proceedings against the other three dropped, but they have still been declared by the home secretary as “a threat to national security”.

There is no right for a foreigner in Britain to remain in this country once declared “non-conducive to public good” save for two important caveats: that deportation does not lead to either torture or capital punishment.

Algeria has a notorious reputation, documented by Amnesty International, for ill treatment and torture of prisoners.

—The Guardian, London