Tag: Kashmir solution

A Book on the Negotiations That Got Kashmir Closest to a Solution

Satinder Lambah says in his book ‘In Pursuit of Peace: India-Pakistan Relations Under Six Prime Ministers’ that great powers should not wait passively for events to unfold, but should seek to shape their environment in pursuit of their national interest.

The India-Pakistan relationship has been blighted by animosity, prejudice, lack of trust and war – both overt and covert. In recent years, the anger of the Indian people at Pakistan’s conduct and electoral politics on the issue have given rise to an increasingly ill-informed discourse in sections of our media and political space. 

Against the above backdrop, the posthumously published book of Satinder Kumar Lambah, who passed away in June last year, titled In Pursuit of Peace: India-Pakistan Relations Under Six Prime Ministers comes as a breath of fresh air. It is a valuable account of diplomatic history, in-depth analysis and policy recommendations, which could have come only from the pen of someone like Lambah, who spent more than half of his public service of nearly five decades dealing with matters relating to Pakistan. 

 Chapter 1 of the book contains some deep insights into the evolution of a military state in Pakistan, the dominant role of the army and ISI and Pakistan’s ‘India-centric’ and ‘Kashmir-oriented’ strategic culture. The plight of civilian leaders in Pakistan is clear from an account of the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto signalling to a senior Indian interlocutor in Karachi in 1988 that the meeting room was likely to be bugged and sensitive issues would be communicated by handwritten exchanges on a notepad. The book is replete with other interesting anecdotes. In contrast, the author mentions the prominent role of prime ministers in India in shaping the Pakistan policy and underlines the importance of top-down decisions in view of the absence of clear-cut answers and the tendency of bureaucratic and political processes to favour safe options and the status quo. 

Satinder Kumar Lambah
In Pursuit of Peace: India-Pakistan Relations Under Six Prime Ministers
Penguin, 2023

In the remaining chapters, the author takes the reader through a fascinating diplomatic journey during 1980-2014 with six prime ministers, introducing important personalities and landmark events on the way, such as Mrs Indira Gandhi’s announcement in the Lok Sabha on December 16, 1971 of the emergence of Dhaka as the free capital of a free country and the tumultuous welcome she received in Dhaka in March 1972. It was also a journey of discovery for him and his wife, whose families hailed from Peshawar and Lahore respectively. 

The author describes December 6, 1992, when he was High Commissioner to Pakistan, as one of the most difficult days in his professional career in view of the strong and violent reaction in Pakistan to the destruction of Babri Masjid. He and his colleagues faced criticism regarding the condition of Muslims and the treatment of minorities in India, with jibes at Indian secularism. They countered it by highlighting the role of Muslims in secular India and the outstanding contribution of minorities in comparison with conditions in Pakistan. He regrets  that “decades later, the situation in India too is undergoing a change.”

The author describes Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the “Persistent Statesman with a Vision of Peace” and quotes him as telling the Pakistani ambassador in 1977 on becoming the external affairs minister that there would be no change in policy towards Pakistan as the existing foreign policy ‘was based on more or less a national consensus’. Later, Vajpayee played a leading role in 1994 in the successful efforts of the Narasimha Rao government to thwart Pakistan’s attempt to get a resolution, alleging human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, passed by the UN Commission on Human Rights. These instances are worth recalling in the backdrop of foreign policy issues, particularly the policy towards Pakistan, becoming a matter of political slugfest in recent years. 

The book has an interesting and revealing account of the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December 2001, in which the author led the Indian delegation.  

The chapter titled “A New Sustained Approach and a Near Solution” covers the back channel discussions on Kashmir between the Musharraf-Manmohan Singh governments, in which the author was the Indian interlocutor from 2005 to 2014. It brings to light some hitherto unknown aspects of the process and why it could not be taken to its logical conclusion. Besides consultations within the government, former PM Vajpayee, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha L.K. Advani, former NSA Brajesh Mishra and some important J&K leaders were also kept informed. 

The back channel agreement not having been made public, the text of the author’s speech on a possible solution to the Kashmir issue, made in Srinagar in May 2014 and contained in the book, is the best indicator of its content. It refers, inter alia, to no redrawing of borders, disavowal by Pakistan of terrorism as a state policy, respect for ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and LoC to be like a border between any two normal states. 

The author states that he briefed PM Modi on the back channel after he assumed office. The file on the subject was reviewed by the incoming government and he was even told that no major change was required. In April 2017, a senior PMO official told him that Prime Minister Modi wanted him to go to Pakistan to meet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif, but the visit did not take place.  

The author refers to but does not address criticism of the back channel in India. He was perhaps unable to do so due to the non-availability of the back channel agreement in public. He, however, believed that it could be taken forward with or without modifications and rightly stated that great powers should not wait passively for events to unfold, but should seek to shape their environment in pursuit of their national interest. 

Also Read: A Diplomat’s Memories of India-Pakistan Back Channel Talks

The author offers some valuable suggestions for a way forward: memories should not become perpetual shackles on shaping our future; while responding appropriately to Pakistan’s covert operations, the process of engagement need not be frozen; not engaging with a strongly antagonistic neighbour with a growing nuclear arsenal and worsening stability is not a wise choice; expectations have to be kept at a realistic level and policies structured to manage the relationship. 

The book’s narrative makes it clear that though the author worked relentlessly for peace, he was a realist. He was a hard-nosed diplomat, but not uncompromising when he saw an opportunity to promote India’s interest; above all, he was true to his calling as a diplomat and never lost faith in the value of diplomacy and engagement even in the most difficult circumstances. 

A gripping book, it will be of as much interest to general readers as to professionals and scholars in the domain of foreign affairs. 

Sharat Sabharwal is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.

As They Mourn Those Killed in Action, Veterans Must Also Ask the Govt Some Basic Questions

The tragic killings of army personnel deserved the outpouring of grief and condolences that flooded social media. But they also deserve to be stopped.

On May 3, 2020, five security personnel – Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh Kumar, Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and sub-inspector of Jammu and Kashmir Police Shakeel Qazi – were killed in action in Handwara district of Kashmir. According to the press statement issued by the army public relations officer, the commanding officer of 21 Rashtriya Rifles had entered a house in a bid to rescue the civilians who were taken hostage by two militants. In the gun battle that followed, all the civilians were rescued and the two terrorists were killed.

Two days later, three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel came under fire in the same district. Two died on the spot and one on the way to the hospital. The terrorists escaped. Subsequently, the dead body of a mentally unstable adolescent was found a little distance away. Apparently, he was killed in retaliatory fire, in a case of mistaken identity.

In early April, five Indian Army Special Forces soldiers were killed in action in the snowy slopes of Kupwara. They were air dropped there to intercept a group of infiltrators who had come across the Line of Control (LC). The five SF troops, split in two squads, moved to hunt for the infiltrators. One squad, comprising two soldiers, accidentally slid down the slope exactly at the same spot in the gorge where the terrorists had taken cover. In the ensuing fire-fighting, including hand-to-hand combat, four of the terrorists died. One more was killed while trying to escape. Success, however, extracted the cost of 5:5.

It is still early days of summer. The snow is yet to melt on several ingress routes. Yet, the blood has started to congeal. According to the South Asia Terrorist Portal (SATP), since January 2020, 25 security personnel have died in Jammu and Kashmir. In the same period, 74 militants have died in the state. Civilian deaths stand at 10.

Yet, despite the red summer in the Valley, no questions are being asked about the unusually high price that the Indian military is being forced to pay for maintaining a semblance of control. “It is not the right time,” the cheerleaders and the mourners, led in huge number by the ex-servicemen, say sanctimoniously. Actually, it is never the right time to ask uncomfortable questions. Because if the questions are uncomfortable, the answers will be more so. Yet, the questions must be asked; because the life of an Indian soldier cannot be lost so cheaply.

Apart from the loss of the brave soldier’s life, each casualty has a permanent impact on the lives of those he leaves behind, possibly a young widow, small children, elderly parents and a huge financial liability. After the Handwara encounter, a video of Major Sood’s mourning wife surfaced on news media. The headline of the accompanying article read: ‘Photo of Handwara Braveheart’s Mourning Wife Chokes Up Thousands.’ Without even realising, we have turned grief into a spectacle.

And this is the reason the cheerleaders do not like questions; because they don’t want to miss the spectacle, which also reinforces nationalist narratives that the government has been spinning for the last few years. Serving officers cannot ask questions because of service rules. Also, to be fair, they have a lot at stake. The only community that can, and should ask questions, are the ex-servicemen.

A decade ago, Indian ex-servicemen started a campaign. They wanted to be called veterans, as their counterparts in the United States armed forces are called. Two arguments were offered for this: One, it is a more respectful way of referring to someone who dedicated his youth to the nation; and two, a majority retire while in the prime of their productive lives and hence, can still make a meaningful contribution to the nation. A decade later, the ex-servicemen have become veterans, but, with some notable exceptions, many of the more vocal ones have mortgaged their intellects and voices to the government in exchange for better post-retirement benefits.

Nothing exposes their collective absence of conscience than their overzealous nationalist sloganeering on social media. While many have become voluntary mouthpieces of the government, some have become card-carrying members of a political party and most have reduced themselves to a herd, ready to be led wherever their chosen master decides to lead them.

While in service they didn’t read much—‘where is the time to read’—and after retirement they don’t read much either—‘I have worked enough in my life, now I just want to enjoy myself’. As a result, the capacity to think, which was not exercised in youth, is allowed to atrophy in middle age. This is a monumental tragedy for a nation where a huge human resource choses a vegetative existence when actually it can make enormous contribution to not only the military it once served, but by extension the nation.

If only they read and think. If they do, then they would know what is happening in other militaries, how the thinking on war-fighting is changing, how technology is setting new terms of engagements, how geopolitical dynamics are evolving, how India’s neighbourhood is transforming and why what may have worked in the past is no longer useful. One does not need to be officially briefed on these issues. The internet is full of both free and subsidised resources like articles, research papers, YouTube videos, podcasts and so on. Then there are books, written by western veterans, especially from the US.

Of course, writing books is not possible for everyone. Not many can write articles either. But what stops them from uniting themselves into a lobby, which can keep the government of the day on its toes. If they can come together for their personal interests like One Rank, One Pay, Disability Pension etc., what stops them from coming together for the good of their own service? And those who are able to must write on subjects other than history and media management (the media can manage itself, thank you).

This article began with the recent encounters in Kashmir for a reason. The tragic killings of army personnel deserved the outpouring of grief and condolences that flooded social media. But they also deserve to be stopped. The senior military leadership has to obey orders from the government. But at least the veterans can raise their collective voices and ask for how long young lives will have to be sacrificed for government’s lack of policy. What holds the veterans back from saying that the time for rhetoric is over; that we need to have an end-state in Kashmir; that it is not enough for the prime minister to avenge a few deaths by dramatic ‘surgical strikes’; that the macabre dance of death must stop; that raising the issue of cross-border terrorism at every international forum has yielded nothing and that we need a different approach.

Service to the nation doesn’t start and end with nationalistic sloganeering—that’s the politicians’ job. Concerned patriotic citizens have to make governments accountable. And for that, they must start asking uncomfortable questions.

Ghazala Wahab is executive editor of FORCE magazine