India & Pakistan At the Brink Of Nuclear War

IN the weeks since the Kargil crisis erupted into an undeclared war, countless people on both sides of the divide in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir have been uprooted from their homes and are forced to live in a constant state of anxiety about their future.

Whether it is the intensive military operation which India is carrying out in the Kargil sector or the intermittent shelling across the LoC in Neelam Valley, the plight of the displaced persons in both parts of the state is uncannily similar: women with stunned expression on their faces, children with cherubic faces clutching the dupatta or the shirt sleeve of their mothers and young boys despaired because of their schools having been destroyed or the meagre income which they made lost to them, at least for the present because of the disturbed conditions.

One hopes that as the diplomats and government leaders shuttle across the borders to hold their consultations what is uppermost in their minds is the fact that it is the state of the people which is at stake. The right and wrong of a particular situation is, of course, of supreme importance. But what should not be lost sight of is the fact that it is the common people who most have to suffer misery and acute deprivation whenever peace is disturbed.

A resolution of the Kargil crisis may mitigate the suffering of the affected people for the time being. But whether they would also be assured of a peaceful environment for any length of time is by no means certain that can only happen when the Kashmir dispute is out of the way.

During his tour of the Kargil sector over the weekend the Indian prime minister cold-bloodedly confessed that the Indian troops had been firing at targets across the LoC. The way he put it, it almost seemed that they were exercising what they regard as their right of hot pursuit, even if technically they may not have actually violated the LoC.

Nothing that he said suggested that disturbed at the fact that it was mostly the common people's humble homes which Vajpayee could feel his army had actually destroyed or that it were the makeshift hospitals and children's schools which had been reduced to ruins.

The coverage on India-based TV channels merely showed Indian heavy guns firing shell after shell at targets which were not in view, across snow-capped mountains. The Pakistani authorities, too, have spoken of heavy artillery exchanges, especially across the Neelam Valley. What havoc all this has caused is anybody's guess.

Ironically, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's statement disclosing that Indian guns had fired across the LoC came simultaneously with an Indian military spokesman's claim that India "respected" the LoC. Surely, chasing a perceived enemy physically across the LoC is not the only way to demonstrate that one has no respect for an agreed dividing line; shells flying across an agreed border also amount to a violation of the dividing line.

The difficulties which were encountered in demarcating the LoC, following the Simla summit between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi, are perhaps not generally appreciated. The generations which have grown up after 1972 may not even be aware of them.

For one thing, India was initially not willing to withdraw from all the areas which it had managed to occupy during the 1971 war, since it insisted that the whole of the disputed state of Kashmir was its territory. India also decided against the presence of the UN observers on their side of what used to be the ceasefire line (CFL) before the 1971 hostilities.

India even claimed in the Security Council that the old CFL had ceased to exist with the onset of hostilities. The demarcation of the LoC was also apparently delayed because of Pakistan's reluctance to withdraw from two posts in the Lipa Valley which were occupied by its forces during the war. Progress towards demarcation could be made only after a meeting of senior level officials from the two sides - Foreign Secretary Aziz Ahmed from Pakistan and P.N. Haksar, Mrs Indira Gandhi's close aide from the Indian side. Ultimately they come to an agreement that the task of demarcation should be completed by September 15, 1972.

According to an Indian scholar, Prof Surendra Chopra of the Gurunanak Dev University of Amritsar, the Aziz-Haksar agreement also provided that Sindhi leaders from the areas close to the Sindh-Rajasthan border should visit the Indian refugee camps to give the inmates the assurance that their life and dignity in Pakistan would be fully protected and that India would provide facilities for their return home.

At one stage it appears that Bhutto even suggested a second summit to resolve the differences which could not be sorted out by the officials or the military commanders on the spot. However, this was not acceptable to Ms Gandhi. Prof Chopra has also pointed out that it was India's perception that the actual demarcation of the LoC was delayed because of the delay in the admission of Bangladesh to the United Nations with China exercising a veto. Ultimately, a meeting between the army chiefs of India and Pakistan - Maneckshaw and Tikka Khan - was arranged for November 28, 1972 in Lahore. Initially, there among them too there was a difference of opinion on the interpretation of certain clauses of the Simla Agreement. However, in a subsequent meeting the two army chiefs came to an understanding on the broad basis for the demarcation of the LoC in "a spirit of give and take."

The agreed LoC which was then agreed was recorded on 19 maps by two senior generals of the Pakistan and Indian armies and the actual demarcation of the line on the ground taken in hand.

Robert G. Wirsing, professor at the University of South Carolina and a keen observer of the South Asian affairs, has suggested that the problems over Siachen Glacier arose basically out of the fact that India and Pakistan had to contend with three distinct types of 'boundary situation's in Kashmir from the outset; although he is not on record on the subject but his reasoning would suggest that the present Kargil crisis has also arisen out of the same problem. The three boundary situations, according to Wirsing, are: no boundary at all in the far north, about 500 miles of delimited (but formally undemarcated) CFL cutting through "most of the state", and about 124 miles of "traditional, quasi-recognised working border at the southern end of the state. Wirsing believes that the trouble in the northern parts started when on April 13, 1984, India airlifted certain special units of its army to preselected mountain outposts in the northern undelimited sector of the state in "a daring manoeuvre code-named Operation Meghdoot."

According to Wirsing, the problem arose from the decision of the LoC designers to leave the northern terminal point of the line untouched. This caused serious concern not only to Pakistan but also to China. Several attempts have been made by India and Pakistan to rationalise the situation but to date these have proved unproductive. Wirsing points out that Pakistan regards India's move to occupy Siachen as "the single most serious violation of the Simla Agreement."

Former foreign secretary (and one-time caretaker foreign minister) Abdul Sattar, who has served two terms as Pakistan's ambassador to New Delhi, has similarly referred to India's action in Kargil as a most serious violation of the Simla Agreement. At a panel discussion in Karachi the other day, he maintained that for years India had been nibbling away at territory on the Pakistani side of the LoC, at the same time refusing a mediatory role to the UN observers group to intercede and determine the validity of the rival claims in the snow-bound areas. Sattar also believes that the events in Kargil are not isolated in nature but part of "a discernible plan... to create an empty belt of scorched earth between Indian occupied Kashmir and the rest of the state... and consolidate the temporary line of control and turn it into a permanent line of partition."

Departing from the written text of his statement, Abdul Sattar vehemently argued that the Simla agreement was signed "under duress." He seemed to imply that the agreement therefore need not be treated with the sanctity that has been associated with it. This, to say the least, is a dangerous line of argument. Abandoning the Simla Agreement or diluting its sanctity can open up a whole Pandora's Box of problems. Apart from everything else, Pakistan's position on Kashmir has been sanctified by the international community on the basis of the Simla Agreement. We will lose this important point of reference if Simla Agreement is jettisoned.

In contrast to the increasing belligerence evident from the Indian leaders' statements on the Kargil crisis, it is commendable that Pakistan has not lost its patience and continues to maintain that it would keep its doors open for a serious and sincere dialogue not only on the Kargil situation but on the core problem of Jammu and Kashmir. In reality, Kargil is only a symptom; the real malaise is the unresolved issue of Kashmir.

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