The Hindu : Losing the initiative

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 30, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Losing the initiative

INDIA'S OVER DEPENDENCE in strategic terms on the United States and its partners has led to a predictable outcome. Any naive assumption that reliance on the U.S. to pressure Pakistan would not lead to the internationalisation of the Kashmir issue has been laid to rest following the comments of the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, wherein he seemed to ignore Indian sensitivities in respect of the term "international" being appended to the Kashmir issue. He went on to suggest that a democracy that has consistently held elections could improve the conduct of this exercise if foreign observers were allowed to watch the upcoming Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir. In comments made weeks ago, Mr. Powell had in what was pleasing to Indian ears, rejected the proposal for a plebiscite and at his press conference in Islamabad he seemed to downplay the relevance of the U.N. resolutions. But if the Union Cabinet had hopes that the U.S. would consider the Assembly polls as a validation of India's stance in the dispute with Pakistan, these have been dispelled by Mr. Powell's observation that these elections alone could not solve the problems between India and Pakistan. Elections in Jammu and Kashmir as well as Pakistan could only establish the conditions for the initiation of a dialogue between India and Pakistan, Mr. Powell noted. In emphasising the term "credible", Mr. Powell appeared to implicitly criticise India's record in respect of successive elections in the troubled State.

A situation where the U.S. Secretary of State had to publicly, if politely, deny some of the Central Government's fondest hopes could well have been avoided if New Delhi had not transferred to Washington the handling of its own Pakistan policy. India should not have been in a position where it had to be told that elections in Jammu and Kashmir had to be credible and that it must engage in a dialogue with Pakistan. The markers on both counts are well known to the citizens of this country and have been internalised by successive Governments including the present one. If India had made obvious its readiness to engage in a dialogue as soon as it was satisfied that its concerns on cross-border terrorism were being met, it could have offered Pakistan a face-saving way of de-escalating the situation. Instead, much strategic space has been lost in the course of expending too much diplomatic effort in pursuit of the goal of pushing Pakistan into the international doghouse. The futility of these efforts have been vividly brought out in Mr. Powell's refusal to be drawn in by Indian efforts to label Pervez Musharraf as "the problem rather than the solution". The potential for exercising an Indian initiative has been further eroded in the search for a third party certification of a reduction in cross-border infiltration.

Any pique at Mr. Powell's reluctance to adopt some of India's formulations should not inhibit New Delhi from considering on its merits the suggestion that people who are not Indian citizens should be allowed to observe the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. There can be no scope for foreigners, individuals or groups, to intervene in a supervisory role as monitors of a process that will be conducted solely by the Election Commission. But India's hopes, and its promise, that the elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be free and fair can only be strengthened if neutral observers and the international media are around to verify that they were indeed so. The presence of such observers might also serve to mitigate the threat that elements opposed to the election could pose to those willing to cast their votes. Similarly, any Kashmiri who is willing to participate in the poll should be allowed to do so. In allowing people such as Yasin Malik to enter the fray, the Centre would send a strong message that it is committed to an election exercise that would offer the Kashmiri people a genuine and wide-ranging choice of leaders to represent their aspirations.

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