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| Diplomatic triumph for Modi | | | Hari Om | 10/5/2014 10:54:04 PM |
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Pakistan's acknowledgement that its Delhi High Commissioner's meeting with Hurriyat leaders, which led to the cancellation of Foreign
Secretary level talks, was "ill timed",
shows that the Prime Minister has been right in taking a 'no nonsense' stance on the Kashmir issue.
The days are gone when the then Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his ilk would taunt and ridicule India by saying that New Delhi blinked first and offered talks with Islamabad to resolve all outstanding issues, including Kashmir. "Two days ago, India had approached and said they want to sit and talk to us and want to resume their relationship with us. Pakistan hasn't knelt…It didn't kneel. India knelt. Pakistan held its ground," Mr Qureshi had said on February 9, 2010, in a public meeting in his home town of Multan.
Even before finalising the dates for Foreign Secretary level talks, Mr Qureshi, now a member of Imran Khan's party, had claimed that Pakistan had forced New Delhi to the negotiating table. He could take the liberty to say so because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's regime had developed the habit of swallowing taunts, humiliations and grave provocations, as also because his foreign policy was not guided by Indian interests in the real sense of the term. What he did at Havana in 2006 and at Sharm-el-Sheikh in 2009 still lingers in our minds. But these are only two instances indicating how he and his administration messed up the situation. Today's regime is that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who means serious business and whose commitment to Indian sovereignty and territorial integrity is unflinching. He proved it on August 18, when the Ministry of External Affairs cancelled the scheduled Foreign Secretary level talks, following the provocative and uncalled for meeting between Pakistan's High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit and Hurriyat leader Shabir Shah in New Delhi. And Mr Modi proved his commitment to Indian interests again on September 27, when he told the United Nations General Assembly that terror and talks couldn't go hand-in-hand. At the global forum, he also made clear that, if Islamabad really wished talks with New Delhi, it had to acknowledge that Jammu & Kashmir was a bilateral issue and stop exporting terror to India. That would create a congenial atmosphere for talks. This was Mr Modi's response to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif's strident speech on the Kashmir issue on September 26 at the UNGA. That Mr Modi's remark produced the desired result - and instantly - could be seen from the statement that Pakistan's National Security and Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz gave in New York during an interview with an Indian correspondent. Mr Aziz candidly acknowledged that the meetings between Mr Basit and the Hurriyat leaders were "ill-timed". He said, "There was no urgency. They could have held meetings sometime later. Yes, I admit that the timing of the meeting was not appropriate." Earlier, he had said that the cancellation of talks was an "overreaction" on the part of New Delhi. To be more precise, he vindicated New Delhi's stand and enhanced the Indian position in the eyes of the international community. This was an extraordinary admission considering the aggressiveness, arrogance, unreasonableness, belligerence and contempt for cardinal principles of diplomacy the Pakistani state is known for. Indeed, Mr Aziz's acknowledgement could be legitimately interpreted as a diplomatic triumph for Mr Modi and those who have been managing Indian foreign affairs since May 27. They have won the hearts and minds of the nation. The fact that even the Congress, the Left and the Samajwadi Party, arch rivals of the Bharatiya Janata Party in general and Mr Modi in particular, endorsed the Prime Minister's statement at the UN, should establish that India has started moving in the right direction. That the BJP, the Congress, the SP and the Left have, in one voice, hailed Mr Modi, augurs well for the nation.
However, this is not to suggest that Mr Aziz adopted a rational approach towards Jammu & Kashmir. He didn't. Contrarily, he asserted again and again that the Hurriyat leaders represent the political urges and aspirations of the people of Kashmir, and their views cannot be ignored if a lasting solution to the Kashmir issue is to be found. His basic argument was that the Hurriyat leaders are the sole, or at least most important, factors in the State's political scenario. Hurriyat leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah do not see eye-to-eye with one another, and do not represent the will of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. If anything, they represent only a small minority. Their approach is fundamentally sectarian and their areas of influence confined to a few pockets in certain localities in Srinagar. During the recent floods in Jammu & Kashmir, the irresponsible manner in which these self-styled freedom fighters treated the victims in the valley, have further eroded their already small support-base. Their hypocrisy today stands exposed. It would not be out of place to mention that the discredited Hurriyat leaders, who run their own money-minting shops and live like maharajas at the cost of common Kashmiri Muslims, have no say whatsoever in the Jammu region, which houses almost half of the State's population and is twice the size of Kashmir. The people of Jammu despise their perverted ideology. They want a dispensation that brings them closer to New Delhi, empowers them and frees them from the clutches of the valley-centric 'mainstream' Kashmiri leadership. So much so, the people of Jammu dismiss with contempt those who seek greater autonomy and self-governance for the State.
The story of Ladakh, which together with Jammu, makes for over 88 per cent of the State's land area, is also similar. The people of Ladakh are an integral part of the national mainstream. They also vouch for a regime that is within the Indian Union and under the Constitution, minus Article 370. There are also several religious and ethnic minorities in the State, including the persecuted internally-displaced Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs, who, it is too well-known, are committed to the cause of a united India. They have voiced their opposition to the separatists.
The truth, in short, is that an overwhelming majority in Jammu & Kashmir has utter contempt for Hurriyat leaders. It views these leaders as mercenaries, self-seekers, rabble-rousers, blackmailers and Pakistani agents. But Mr Aziz and others in Pakistan will not acknowledge this for obvious reasons. This should not surprise anybody in India. Let them say whatever they want to say. It hardly matters.
India, finally, is in safe hands. There should be no doubt about it. Courtesy: Daily Pioneer |
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