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(Francois Gautier on Kargil and other wars) I have just come back from Kargil. I am not an Indian, but a foreign correspondent, but I have lived long in this country — I am even married to an Indian — and I love India dearly, in spite of all its faults. I have been a number of times with the army in ground operations in Kashmir and I have always thought that the Indian army is a well-trained, professionally outfit, with educated, dedicated and articulate officers. Even in the case of Kargil, where the army intelligence was caught napping, I have no doubt that if the political leadership gives it a free hand, they will be able to dislodge the militants. It will not be as easy as it was made out; it will take more time than first thought and it will be a bloody battle. The militants are well entrenched, well-equipped and they have the invaluable strategic advantage of being on heights. I feel though, that even if that battle is ultimately won and the infiltrators go back dead or alive to the Pakistan side of the LoC (what’s wrong with the Defence Minister’s offer of safe passage? What’s important is that they leave, regardless of the means!), there is one war which India has been constantly losing since 1947. It is the public relations battle. Look at this particular case. Not only is Pakistan the aggressor — it trained, armed, financed the Kashmiri separatists, put them under the command of Pakistani soldiers in civil and Afghan Mujahideens and pushed them into Indian held territory — but now it is able to portray itself as a peacemaker (and blackmail the world with the threat of a nuclear war). What an irony! I have been listening to the BBC and CNN and that is exactly what they have said in the last few days. I quote Lise Doucet of the BBC: “In spite of Pakistan’s peace overtures (the proposal to send Aziz and the release of the airman), India is proceeding with its military offensive”.... And India has not only lost the propaganda battle in this “near war” of today, but lost it the three preceding Indo-Pak wars, all of which lost initiated by Pakistanis. Even in 1971, when India had to intervene after Pakistan committed a terrible genocide in what is now known as Bangladesh, the United States took the side of the Pakistan. Twenty-eight years later, whatever the Indian government says, Western public opinion is still not on its side, as Kashmir proves. For 15 years, various Indian governments have been saying that Pakistan was sponsoring, arming and training Kashmiri militants. In the beginning, we foreign journalists were a bit sceptical, but after some years, it became obvious to a few of us that it was the truth, because it made sense, it was logical — we were even, shown aerial photographs of training camps inside Pakistan. Yet today, if we dare to mention in our dispatches on Kashmir “the Pakistan-trained Kashmiri militants”, some of our editors in Paris, London or New York will immediately correct the text to: “India says that the Kashmiri militants are backed by Pakistan”. After 15 years the Indian Government has not been able to convince the western press of the truth of its accusations against Pakistan, which has a very sad record in terms of human rights. One obvious reason of course is that the major media players in India — the BBC, CNN, the big wire agencies: AP, Reuters, AFP — are the ones who are setting the rules of the game and for years they have stuck to their stories: “India says that: “These dispatches are the ones which fashion the opinions not only of our editors in Paris or London, but also of our politicians. And we can do nothing about it. Mr Vajpayee could take a lesson or two from China. This country has probably one of the worst human rights records of the 20th century: it killed nearly a million innocent Tibetans and Mao Zedong wiped out in Chinese camps at least three times that number of its own people. Since the communists took power, China has been under the rule of a ruthless dictatorship — the tenth anniversary of Tianenmen has just reminded us of that fact. But look: not only the West is doing business with China, but it is a very fashionable place to visit today — China gets ten times the amount of tourists that India receives! On top of that, China does not take any nonsense from anybody, whether it is the Christian missionaries, who would have never dared to do in China one thousandth of what they have done in India, or the western press, which is not even allowed to go out of Beijing without the government’s permission. Not that India should become like China! In spite of its anarchy, this country is a beacon of pro-Western democracy in Asia — and it is very sad that the United States is incapable of recognising that simple fact. India should never lose this great tolerance this inner goodwill of India, which made it so great. But at the same time, it has to devise a code of ethics for the western press here, which often reports only on the negative aspects of India: its catastrophes, its wars, its poverty, the City of Joy... The Indian press and government should stop setting its standards by what the Western media think or say about India. During the troubles of last year with the Christians, for instance, very few of us bothered to mention that India allowed all persecuted minorities of this planet to find shelter in it over twenty centuries — including the Christians — who have shamelessly exploited that tolerance. Witness what they did in Goa! There is an element of Gandhian naivete in Mr Vajpayee. It was wonderful of the Prime Minister to go to Pakistan by bus to embrace Sharif — but generosity is best suited to strong people who can afford to munificent. For while Pakistan was talking peace, it was quietly sending across the Line of Control its infiltrators. India must learn to be a little more ruthless. Finally, the Prime Minister should realise that India, at least the leaders of the Congress who shaped India’s destiny at independence, accepted the absurd, monstrous and illogical rule of the partition, which was devised by the British to divide a wonderful nation. For the division of India on religious lines is an aberration, it created a State-Pakistan — whose only “raison d’etre” is Islam and its only preoccupation, the hatred of Hindu India which it has inherited from Mughal times. Kashmir is the visible result of that monstrosity, the living proof of the falsehood of that division. And it is a dead end a problem without solution. India feels rightly that Kashmir has always been part of its territory — once it was a centre of Hinduism, then of Buddhism and at the beginning of the century there were several hundred thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who have now fled, thanks to the terror tactics of the Muslim separatists (it is Kosovo ethnic cleaning in reverse — but then nobody in the world is bothered). Pakistan feels that in the (mad) logic of partition, Kashmir should have reverted to its new nation, as the Kashmir valley had a Muslim majority. There is no doubt in my mind that the only solution to Kashmir is a rapprochement between India and Pakistan, a coming together of the two brothers, who share the same cultures, the same languages, the same ethnic stocks, under some kind of federation, where the other nations of South Asia would also find their place. After all, if the two Germanies, the two Vietnams could do why not India and Pakistan? Meanwhile, the government has to put across to the world that India is a great ancient and wise civilisation — and a superpower in the making; and as future superpower, it is entitled to a little bit more of respect and attention from the West and its press. But for that, you will have to bang your fist on the table quite a few times “a la Chinoise:.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An article from Pritish Nandy. The skirmish in Kargil has served one purpose. It has showed up the real difference between India and Pakistan. The difference in the way we see each other. While we both talk about peace, Pakistan is always ready for war even though it is clever enough to know that it can never win one. Why? Why should a nation be ready for a war when it knows it cannot win it? The reason is simple. Pakistan has grown up on a self-sustained myth that it is a strong, powerful, absolutely unified, military nation with a single religion that binds it together. It also believes that by chalu PR and clever misrepresentation of facts, it can persuade some of the stupider Western nations to back its military misadventures. As for us, they see India as this large, confused, politically unmanageable and flabby neighbour too busy trying to cope with democracy to know how to keep its squabbling castes and communities together. In their lexicon, we are a soft target. A Billy Bunter of sorts. That is why they laugh every time we stretch out our hand of friendship. But they are smart enough not to show their disdain openly. Instead, they make all these vague, conciliatory noises that mislead us (and the world) into believing that they are serious about peace while actually, behind our back, they keep fomenting trouble whenever, wherever they can. For fighting India is the only way that Pakistan can stay alive. That is what binds them, not Islam. That is what keeps their politicians in power, gets them cash and weapons, sustains their feeble economy. If there was no war with India, open or secret, there would be no Pakistan as we know it. You will have a nation poorer than Bangladesh, where every ethnic group will be fighting for freedom and the entire military and political elite, which is so rich and powerful today, will be either behind bars or living in exile with their millions of dollars stolen from the state exchequer and the people of Pakistan. In other words, if there was no conflict over Kashmir, Pakistan would have to invent another reason to go to war with India. The demonology would be, otherwise, incomplete. For they cannot afford to give their people what we do. Freedom. This freedom has taught us many things. Which is why Indians all over the world are doing so well. We are the richest community in the US, in UK and god knows where else while Pakistan languishes at the bottom of every economic table, looking like a sad basket case. For us, however, Pakistan serves a very useful purpose. It reminds us of all the mistakes we could have made over the past 52 years and did not. We could have murdered democracy like they did. We could have allowed the armed forces to run away with absolute power. We could have driven our economy into the ground and lived on foreign charity like they have done for decades. We could have spent more money on arms and made instant millionaires of our army top brass. Yes, we could have easily replicated Pakistan and become a caricature of a nation. No better than Idi Amin's Uganda. It is to Pakistan's terrific credit that they have been able to sustain the myth for so long. You have to applaud their savvy PR, their trendy marketing in international forums. So much so that the world speaks in the same breath about India and Pakistan, as if they are comparable nations. Every fact, every statistic actually shows otherwise. It is like pitting a midget pom with an attitude against a huge, sloppy, good-natured Big Dane who hates getting into a scrap. But so clever is the positioning that even we sometimes pit ourselves against Pakistan as an equal rival. Our rivalries in hockey and cricket have also added to the myth making. Every time Pakistan wins against India, that victory acquires a special emotive edge. Defeat is also used, equally smartly, to arouse the people and whip up their sense of self-esteem. Meanwhile, their economy is in a shambles. The poor have become infinitely poorer and human rights is a term they have not heard. The tragedy of the people of Pakistan, who live in such awesome poverty and backwardness without any hope in sight, is that our intellectual elite still believes, like idiots, that it is possible to have a decent, responsible relationship with their rulers. And so does the West. No such relationship is possible. For five decades now, Pakistan has been ruled by a bunch of ruthless, corrupt thugs who have enriched themselves at the cost of the nation through lies, threats, organised crime. They have used the absence of democracy, the gullibility of the Western powers, the suppression of human rights, and the naivete of our political leadership to dig their heels in. They will never let go of this power unless we expose to the world what Pakistan really is. The career diplomats who represent our case before the world are a bunch of fatheads who love to be seen as fashionable liberals in the capitals of the Western world. They are not going to speak the language of truth for you and me and India. They have no intention of showing up Pakistan for what it is. For they would then lose their jobs, their relevance, the raison d'etre of their existence. That is how Pakistan gets away. Its showman diplomats have done extraordinary work to sustain regime after regime steeped in corruption and crime. Its poets and musicians and cricketers have distinguished themselves in distracting the world from the ugly reality of Pakistan. While its politicians, one after the other, have spoken with a forked tongue. To make monkeys out of us and those silly Yanks who have pumped in billions of dollars into a theocratic, military state that promotes, encourages and funds terrorism while keeping its own people hungry and poor. All in the name of maintaining the balance of power on this subcontinent. What balance of power? You cannot pump steroids into a snarling rat and expect it to grow into a Royal Bengal tiger. You cannot arm a midget nation led by a bunch of ugly goons and expect it to become the Salvation Army. Pakistan can never be a democracy. It can never countervail India. It will always remain a cheap, tinpot dictatorship masquerading as a modern nation. It is time we figured out (and so did the West) that Pakistan is our creation. We have, each of us in our own way, contributed to the myth. The West (and particularly the United States) by pitching it against India and pumping in huge amounts of dollars and arms to shore up a nation that first needed a democratic political system and basic human rights in place. We made the same mistake. By seeing them as an equal and stretching out our hand of friendship, assuming that they also wanted peace and goodwill. They never did. Peace and goodwill cannot sustain Pakistan. Only hate, war and belligerence can. It is time we, therefore, gave up all attempts at conciliation and dealt with the crisis as we would deal with any other thug. There is nothing special about Pakistan. If your next door neighbour walked into your flat, killed your son, shot your father and tried to grab a room, what would you do? Let us do exactly that. Let us also give them one extra hard slap for gouging out the eyes and chopping off the genitals of our soldiers. Let us not get carried away and allow such perversity to distort our own response. Remember, only the weak and mentally depraved do things like this. It is a sign of their own frustrations. A fight with Pakistan does not deserve the title of war. For a nation of our size, our might, it will just be a skirmish. Foolish as they may be, the generals of Pakistan are unlikely to be suicidal enough to use nukes. They have too much stashed away in the Swiss banks to want to risk their lives. So we need not lose our sleep nor our souls over such a conflict. That is unfortunately what we have done for so long, and thus created such a big song and dance over Kashmir. There is no question of delaying the election or forming a national government. We are not fighting China or the United States. We are fighting Pakistan. Let us get our perspectives right in the first place. Let us swat them hard, keep international opinion on our side, and get on with the task of nation building. For India is about to enter a brave new millennium and there is no time to lose sleep over this buzzing nuisance. Pritish Nandy Kalki India: Read President Zia-ul-Haq's presentation before Pakistan's ISI to understand Pakistan's long-term strategy in Kashmir: available at http://www.atlas.co.uk/indiaforum/kashmir/role/topac.html Excerpts: In the first phase, which may, if necessary last, a couple of years we will assist our Kashmiri brethren in getting hold of the power apparatus of the State by political subversion and intrigue. Adopt and develop means to cut off lines of communications between Jammu and Kashmir and within Kashmir and Ladakh by stealth, without recourse to force. The road over Zojila upto Kargil and the road over Khardungla should receive special attention. Phase 2: Exert maximum pressure on Siachen, Kargil and Rajuri-Punch sectors to force the Indian army to deploy reserve formations outside the main Kashmir Valley. Phase 3 Detailed plans for the liberation of Kashmir Valley and establishment of an independent Islamic State in the third phase will follow. Of course, if we are in a serious trouble, the Chinese and our other powerful friends shall come to our rescue one way or the other. They will ensure that if we do not win - we don't lose. Finally, I wish to caution you once more that it will be disastrous to believe that we can take on India in a straight contest. We must therefore, be careful and maintain a low military profile. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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