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| J&K not disputed territory, Nov 15 a great day for India | | DIRECT, MINCING NO WORDS - III | | NEHA
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Nov 18: What is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is that Thimpu, where our Prime Minister virtually re-enacted Sharm-el-Sheikh on April 29, 2010, has, now it appears, become a story of the past. At Thimpu, Yousuf Raza Gilani had reiterated his Sharm-el-Sheikh stand - composite dialogue must go on even if there was violence in Kashmir and involvement of India in Baluchistan. Two days earlier (April 27), the uncouth Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, had said at Thimpu that any meeting between the two Prime Ministers should address the need to "resume a full-fledged peace dialogue. It's time for India to make up its mind whether it wants to engage or not. Engagement is the only way forward. We need to go beyond a handshake. It is time for India to move forward and stop demonizing Pakistan. We have had enough of exchanges of pleasantries, including the ones at Washington at the beginning of April this year (Manmohan Singh and Gilani had two brief encounters in April in Washington where both of them had gone to attend the Nuclear Security Summit). We have to accept terrorism is a common challenge. It's not us and you, it's a collective effort. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is willing to normalize ties with Pakistan but he is held back by his fellow Congress members."
Qureshi had also emphasized the need of normalizing India-Pakistan relations within the parameters of the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint declaration. "Dialogue should be on the pattern of the Sharm-el-Sheikh…agreement", Qureshi had told reporters at Thimpu just on the eve of talks between the two Prime Ministers.
What is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is that Islamabad, where Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi insulted and humiliated Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna on July 15, 2010 during the press conference, has, now it seems, become a story of the past. During the press conference Qureshi had endorsed the view of Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir that the evidence provided by New Delhi to Islamabad regarding the involvement of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ut-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack was no more than piece of "literature", and, hence, could not be considered. He had said, "Islamabad is unwilling to proceed against Hafiz Saeed." At the same time, he had insisted on Kashmir and the issues related to Kashmir, including the deployment of Army, imposition of curfew, security of Jammu and Kashmir, "human rights violations", Siachen and water.
Not only that, Qureshi had accused the Union Home Secretary GK Pillai of vitiating the atmosphere on the eve of India-Pakistan talks at Islamabad by making a statement that Pakistan was involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. It bears recalling that Pillai had only said what the United States had said about the Pakistani involvement. It also needs to be underlined that Qureshi had equated Pillai with Hafiz Saeed in the presence of Krishna and Krishna had not taken on his Pakistani counterpart. Instead, back in India, he had shared the view of Qureshi and held Pillai responsible for the failure of the Islamabad talks.
When viewed all these developments in the light of what the United States said on November 15, what the United Nations did to its list of disputed territories to exclude Jammu and Kashmir and what Krishna told his Chinese counterpart Yeichi it can be said that the Indian diplomacy has started working well. One can only hope that our Foreign Office will maintain pressure and heighten its activities in the United States and the United Nations in order to put pressure on Pakistan so that Islamabad is reined in and forced to dismantle the terrorist-producing factories on its soil as well as Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. Pakistan is the mother of all troubles for India and New Delhi has to persuade the international community to treat Pakistan as a terrorist, failed and rogue state and join hands with India in its fight against the Pakistani-sponsored terror. It is also hoped that our Foreign Office will assert and ask China to see reason. New Delhi has to see to it that Beijing addresses the Indian concerns.
Besides, the authorities in New Delhi have to redesign its policy towards Kashmir. Pakistan is at the receiving end and the Pakistani agents in Kashmir are a demoralized and dejected lot. The ongoing secessionist movement in Kashmir has started fizzling out, with the common people not extending support to the separatists, as was the case some two months ago. The Kashmiri separatists have been able to hold their own not because of the Pakistani support. They have been able to hold their own because there are elements in the political establishment in New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir who have been consistently providing the separatists moral and political support. Now that the United States has described Jammu and Kashmir as an internal issue of India and the United Nations excluded the state from its list of disputed territories, it is very necessary for the authorities in New Delhi to discard its 63-year-old weak-kneed policy towards Pakistan and Kashmiri secessionists and call a spade a spade. New Delhi has everything to gain by changing its foreign policy. Don't pay any heed to a vague report that Jammu and Kashmir still remains on the UN agenda. The fact of the matter is that the UN Security Council has not even once formally taken up the Kashmir issue during the past more than three years. (Concluded) |
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