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| Conclusion of the poll should set the stage for a big push forward in internal reforms within J&K | | Indo-US collaboration: India's world, Obama's world | | B G Verghese
JAMMU, Nov 26:The welcome for Barak Obama’s election victory was overplayed in India, symbolically important and fascinating as it was. The alarm and dismay some days later over the President-elect’s reference to getting Pakistan fully on board in fighting terror, by vaguely suggesting that India compromise and make some concessions on Kashmir and also get it to sign the CTBT were equally excessive and misplaced.
The response betrayed an astonishing lack of self-confidence in many quarters that are tireless in demanding a permanent seat for the country in the United Nations Security Council but simultaneously imagine that it is a big banana republic that can be played like a yo-yo.
India is already engaged with Pakistan in a peace process that includes, but goes well beyond, Kashmir. The current polls in Jammu and Kashmir are moreover a sure signal that separatism is a wasteful phenomenon and all people want is good government in which they are both participants and prime beneficiaries.
There is a growing realisation that self-determination means roads, schools, better farming, employment opportunities, power supplies, peace and order and not the chimera of independence or an azadi that simply does not exist in Pakistan, let alone the northern areas. The ordinary resident of J&K is tired of the gun and the corruption that the gun culture has bred.
There may yet be desperate efforts to disrupt the subsequent stages of polling through violence affecting polling percentages in certain pockets. But the first round of voting has indicated the unfettered mind of the people.
The conclusion of the poll should set the stage for a big push forward in internal reforms within J&K in the direction of a multi-tiered autonomy that has been mooted. Preparations for this should commence now by quietly building a consensus both within J&K and in the rest of the country. The moderates in the Hurriyat have the choice to come on board or lose all relevance. Simultaneously, this is the time for India to propose discussions on joint management of the Indus waters with Pakistan, extension of the Srinagar-Baramulla rail link to Muzaffarabad and the opening of international flights to Pakistan and elsewhere globally from and via Srinagar. If Obama can help facilitate dialogue on such an agenda, based on making boundaries/the LoC irrelevant, there should be no cause for concern. Shorn of all the humbug in which the J&K question has been wrapped, such a package would represent a huge ‘concession’ and a handsome bonus for India.
The second bogey is the CTBT. India has been in the forefront of those seeking a nuclear free world. If Obama can persuade the new US Congress to ratify this treaty, which it declined to do a decade back, this initiative would need to be married to proposals for comprehensive and universal disarmament, in verifiable stages. Such a development would also be a practical way to reverse the wholly avoidable slide towards a new cold war triggered by the US/NATO thrust to move its missile defences further east to the borders of Russia, ostensibly to contain Iran, which has evoked a strong response from Moscow.
This leads to the need for Obama to look afresh at Iran, West Asia and Afghanistan on all of which American policy has gone seriously awry at a heavy cost to peace, throughout the region. This is a geo-strategic area of the greatest political, economic and cultural interest to India which has, however, abdicated any role despite its own high stakes and the good relations it enjoys with all players on both sides of the fence.
The US/NATO intervention in these areas is part of the problem. Maybe India could lend its good offices to assist a dialogue in Afghanistan with other regional players such as Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, Central Asian neighbours, the US, EU and the UN that could lead to isolation of the Taliban-al Qaeda elements and phased military withdrawals all round as a prelude to a new Loi Jirga and a guaranteed settlement in Afghanistan.
A parallel effort to secure an early, phased US-Alliance withdrawal from Iraq would need to be brokered in concert with Iran, in order to prevent a possible Shia takeover and balkanisation of that state, even as a separate effort is made to secure positive movement towards an Israeli-Palestinian-Arab settlement. Since all these issues are interlinked, simultaneity in approach would not be as far fetched as might first appear.
This initiative must in turn be linked to efforts to combat gathering recession through national efforts as much as some bold global pump-priming. Such an approach was indeed independently canvassed at the recent G-20 summit in Washington. However, linking any such endeavour to parallel efforts to catalyse the conversion of ‘swords into ploughshares’ in these sorely troubled regions of the world and to ‘un-demonise’ Islam, would appear to make eminent good sense and offers a perfect fit between sturdy self-interest and global economic and political imperatives. This is not easy or non-controversial, but from seeds of thought are great enterprises launched. |
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