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| Delhi continues to pursue a weak-kneed Kashmir policy | | Zardari In UN | | Rustam
Jammu, Sept 28: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on September 26 raked up the Kashmir issue in the United Nations and said "Kashmir remains a symbol of failure of the UN system". "Kashmir remains a symbol of failures, rather than strengths of the UN system," he said in his 20-minute speech at the 67 session of the UN General Assembly at New York. "We will continue to support the right of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to peacefully choose their destiny in accordance with the UN Security Council's long-standing resolutions on this matter," he also said. The UN resolution favours a plebiscite in the State of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed on August 15, 1947. It says such a plebiscite could be held only after Pakistan vacates the aggression and withdraws from the illegally-occupied areas (Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan) its troops, regular or irregular and Pakistani nationals who infiltrated these Jammu and Kashmir territories.
What Zardari shamelessly said not only constituted a grave provocation for New Delhi, but it also indicated that Islamabad will never admit the mistakes it committed after the adoption of the UN resolution that talked about plebiscite. It has refused to vacate the aggression; it has merged illegally Gilgit-Baltistan with Pakistan; and it ceded a piece of land in the Akshai Chin region of Gilgit-Baltistan to China. That Zardari refused to acknowledge the mistakes it committed and spoke what he spoke was not at all surprising. He only pursued the line his predecessors pursued all through, with New Delhi still groping in the dark and pursuing a weak-kneed Kashmir policy. This was quite evident from what the Indian Foreign Secretary, Ranjan Mathai, said in response to the Zardari's outrageous remarks on Jammu and Kashmir.
"We have seen the reference to Jammu and Kashmir in the statement of the Pakistan president. Our principled position on the issue has been consistent and is well known. The people of Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral part of India, have peacefully chosen their destiny in accordance with democratic practices. They continue to do so," Mathai said. He did not take on and expose Zardari. He didn't say that Pakistan subverted the UN resolution on plebiscite the day it was adopted. Nor did he talk about the February 1994 unanimous Parliamentary resolution on Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan. He didn't say that New Delhi is prepared to hold a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir subject to the conditions that Pakistan will fulfill all the conditions laid down by the UN resolution, including the condition that Pakistan will vacate the aggression and the Indian forces will re-occupy the occupied territories and maintain law and order in the POJK and Gilgit-Baltistan regions.
The fact of the matter is that Mathai did not call the Zardari's bluff; he allowed him to go scot-free. Besides, it is doubtful if our permanent representative at the United Nations had taken on Zardari and put things in perspective. Had our permanent representative taken on Zardari, media would have certainly reported what he said. This was not for the first time that New Delhi acted so meekly. It has been acting in this manner and letting down the nation since decades, especially since May 2004, when Manmohan Singh, who represents no Indian constituency, was nominated as the Prime Minister by AICC president Sonia Gandhi. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Indian foreign policy towards Pakistan under the UPA dispensation is one of incremental concessions to Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists. The weak, meek and ambivalent response of Mathai to the grave provocation caused by Zardari needs to be viewed in this context. |
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