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June 4, 2020, 12:49 pm IST Sudheendra Kulkarni in Voices | India, politics, World | TOI
At the predictable risk of being branded as an “anti-national” by BJP supporters, I am compelled by the latest eruption of tension between India and China over our unresolved boundary dispute to affirm two inescapable truths. One, without India-Pakistan-China dialogue and cooperation, India cannot resolve the longstanding issues with its two large neighbours. Two, without peaceful and good-neighbourly relations with China and Pakistan, neither India nor the rest of South Asia can rise to their full potential of prosperity, progress and greatness.
These truths are self-evident. Yet, they will be snubbed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s supporters, whose conception of nationalism is premised, internally, on hatred towards Muslims, and, externally, on projecting Pakistan and China as our arch enemies. In a polarised society, such jingoism may yield electoral dividends to the BJP. However, it cannot help the PM smoothly manage India’s relations with Beijing and Islamabad, as has become recurrently evident during his six years in office. Much less can he succeed in finding lasting solutions to the border disputes that have beleaguered these two ties almost since India’s independence. A great leader is one who changes the course of history. Apply this test to Modi, and it appears that, despite his massive parliamentary mandate, he will have little transformative gains to show on these two principal challenges to his foreign policy.
Until recently, we — and also the rest of the world — viewed India’s problems with Pakistan over Kashmir and India’s border row with China as two separate, largely unconnected, challenges. We can no longer do so after China’s recent muscle-flexing along the frequently contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, where it occupies 38,000 sq km of territory in Aksai Chin that India claims as its own. Neither Modi’s government nor his supporters should feign surprise at this grave development. After all, if there was any doubt that the dispute over Jammu & Kashmir involved not just two nations, India and Pakistan, but also a third power, China, it was removed by the government itself on 5 August last year. Its sudden decision to change the constitutional status of J&K state, and the state’s bifurcation into two union territories, has had the unintended consequence of further solidifying China-Pakistan alliance, which will make it impossible for India to determine the future of Kashmir and Ladakh as per its wishes.
Can India take P*k (Azad J&k) and Aksai Chin back? No.
When Modi abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, his jubilant supporters claimed that this bold decision would put an end, once and for all, to the Kashmir problem both in its internal and external dimensions. Influential official voices, obviously with the PM’s approval, asserted that getting Pakistan's Kashmir and China-oc**pied Aksai Chin were India’s next objectives.
General Bipin Rawat, then army chief and now the chief of defence staff, said, “The next agenda is retrieving P*K Kashmir (which includes ‘Azad Kashmir’, Gilgit-Baltistan and the 7000-sq-km Shaksgam Valley Pakistan ceded to China in 1963) and making it a part of India.”
External affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar said, “We expect one day to have physical jurisdiction over Azad Kashmir.”
Home Minister Amit Shah went a step further and declared in Parliament, “When I talk about Jammu and Kashmir, Azad Kashmir and Aksai Chin are included in it… We will give our lives for this region”.
No PM should make, or allow his colleagues to make, claims the nation cannot deliver. Can India ever get Azad Kashmir back from Pakistan, or Aksai Chin back from China? The answer to these questions, though obvious, was made unmistakable by the developments triggered by the Modi government’s August 5 decision.
First, China rejected India’s claims on Aksai Chin by stating that New Delhi had “hurt Chinese sovereignty” by “unilaterally” altering J&K’s status. It further averred that India’s new law was “not acceptable and won’t in any sense be binding.” Now, by making its newest incursion into an undefined LAC, which is neither delineated on maps nor demarcated on the ground, China is in effect saying it does not accept even India’s perception of the 3,488-km-long LAC as “binding”.
Next, China sent an unmissable message about its resolve to side with Pakistan on P*K Kashmir. Within five days of the Modi government’s new move on J&K, Beijing announced: “China will continue to firmly support Pakistan in safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests and continue to preside over justice for Pakistan on the international stage.”
It’s not difficult to decode the meaning of these words: should India ever attempt to “retrieve” Azad Kashmir militarily, China will be there to give Pakistan its “firm support”.
A nation that chooses to delude itself pays a heavy price for its delusions. For too long, successive Indian governments — Modi’s is by no means an exception here — have been misleading our people into believing that India must, and India can, make all of pre-1947 J&K its own. This stance is weakening India. With government-backed sections of the media acting as drum-beaters, it has fuelled sentiments of ultra-nationalism, which is long on rhetoric and woefully short on realism. Poof? The “Boycott Chinese goods” campaign, and Sonam Wangchuk’s ludicrous claim that Beijing can be brought to its knees by the Indian army responding with “bullets”, and Indian people doing the same with their “wallets”. Furthermore, anti-Pak and anti-China jingoism has made the task difficult for Modi himself. Despite his popularity, he looks incapable of convincing people that compromises would be necessary for a permanent resolution of the disputes with India’s two important neighbours.
The stand-off on LAC has already revealed these weaknesses within the government. For instance, contrast Amit Shah’s bravado on Aksai Chin with the reconciliatory statement by defence minister Rajnath Singh, who indicated India’s clear preference to de-escalate tension with China through diplomatic efforts. Seeking to downplay the gravity of the situation in Ladakh, Singh said both India and China have “perceptional differences” with respect to the LAC. When India is unwilling, because it is unable, to stop Beijing’s frequent LAC violations, can we ever foresee our military seizing all of Aksai Chin and also the Shaksgam Valley after an armed confrontation with China? Similarly, can India fight, and win, a two-front war in that region, which would surely be the case if the Modi government attempted to wrest P*K Kashmir from Pakistan?
Why Modi should welcome India-China-Pak dialogue
mooted by Xi Jinping
Five lessons emerge from the foregoing analysis.
One, if any external power, or an alliance of powers, wages a war on us, India must fight back with all its might, as befits any sovereign and self-respecting nation. However, should India set goals whose fulfilment makes unwinnable wars inevitable?
Two, it is in India’s own vital long-term interest that she attaches high priority to resolving the boundary dispute with China. Keeping the LAC ambiguous is making India a bigger loser than China. The current stand-off in Ladakh may end through parleys. But what will India gain by having to face future flashpoints along the LAC?
Three, both India and China must honestly examine the factors that are breeding, and sustaining, mutual distrust. Many Indians rightly believe that China, because of its heightened economic and military strength, does not sufficiently respect India’s core concerns. The Chinese leadership must take necessary steps to change this belief. On our part, India must acknowledge the futility of, and step back from, strategically aligning with the USA to contain China’s rise. Mutual distrust can be replaced by mutually beneficial cooperation if our two great nations, instead of playing the perilous power games of the West, choose to be guided by the wisdom of our civilisations.
Four, the Modi government’s insistence on resuming Kashmir-related dialogue with Pakistan only on the condition that the latter give P*K Kashmir back is as fruitless as Islamabad’s belief that the Indian side of Kashmir will someday become either independent or join Pakistan. Happily, there are winds of positive change in Pakistan now. Both the civilian establishment represented by Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the military establishment led by its powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, have realised that making peace with India, based on an honourable solution to the Kashmir question, is in Pakistan’s own vital interest. The two establishments have also broadly understood that Pakistan must abandon the dangerous and self-hurting policy of aiding kashmiri Separatists to achieve its foreign policy objectives. Now, here is a question that India’s own political and ruling establishment must answer: If it’s okay for India to tell Beijing that it is ready for “a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” (read: compromise-based) solution to the boundary question with China, why shouldn’t we convey the same message to Pakistan with regard to Kashmir? Why does the Indian establishment, which rightly affirms that India is not a pushover vis-à-vis China, continue to believe that Pakistan is a pushover vis-à-vis India? Moreover, isn’t it obvious that, by resolving the Kashmir issue with Pakistan, India (and Pakistan, too) will emerge stronger in dealing with China?
Finally, Modi must continue his strategic dialogue with Chinese President Xi Jinping even more vigorously. (The two leaders have met more than a dozen times and also held two informal summits at Wuhan and Mahabalipuram.) In doing so, Modi should welcome a potentially game-changing idea proposed by Xi. During their informal summit in Mahabalipuram in October last, the Chinese president proposed to our PM, “a trilateral partnership” among China, Pakistan and India, “free from the influence of third parties” — an indirect reference to Washington. Xi underscored that “the Chinese side sincerely expects sound China-India relations, China-Pakistan relations and India-Pakistan relations, and expects to see all sides work together to promote regional peace and stability and achieve common development and prosperity.”
This proposal was revealed by none other than China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, while briefing the Chinese media that came to India to cover the summit. We do not know how the Modi responded to Xi’s tantalising offer. But all those Indians who keenly wish for a resurgent India to take her rightful place in the global community in the 21st century — which requires it to be freed from the shackles of debilitating disputes inherited from the 20th century — have a right to suggest to our prime minister: “Modi ji, why not give Xi Jinping’s idea a try? And why not, making good use of a peaceful neighbourhood, concentrate on accelerating India’s inclusive and all-round development?”
.
.
.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
.
.
.
.
Source Times Of India
At the predictable risk of being branded as an “anti-national” by BJP supporters, I am compelled by the latest eruption of tension between India and China over our unresolved boundary dispute to affirm two inescapable truths. One, without India-Pakistan-China dialogue and cooperation, India cannot resolve the longstanding issues with its two large neighbours. Two, without peaceful and good-neighbourly relations with China and Pakistan, neither India nor the rest of South Asia can rise to their full potential of prosperity, progress and greatness.
These truths are self-evident. Yet, they will be snubbed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s supporters, whose conception of nationalism is premised, internally, on hatred towards Muslims, and, externally, on projecting Pakistan and China as our arch enemies. In a polarised society, such jingoism may yield electoral dividends to the BJP. However, it cannot help the PM smoothly manage India’s relations with Beijing and Islamabad, as has become recurrently evident during his six years in office. Much less can he succeed in finding lasting solutions to the border disputes that have beleaguered these two ties almost since India’s independence. A great leader is one who changes the course of history. Apply this test to Modi, and it appears that, despite his massive parliamentary mandate, he will have little transformative gains to show on these two principal challenges to his foreign policy.
Until recently, we — and also the rest of the world — viewed India’s problems with Pakistan over Kashmir and India’s border row with China as two separate, largely unconnected, challenges. We can no longer do so after China’s recent muscle-flexing along the frequently contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, where it occupies 38,000 sq km of territory in Aksai Chin that India claims as its own. Neither Modi’s government nor his supporters should feign surprise at this grave development. After all, if there was any doubt that the dispute over Jammu & Kashmir involved not just two nations, India and Pakistan, but also a third power, China, it was removed by the government itself on 5 August last year. Its sudden decision to change the constitutional status of J&K state, and the state’s bifurcation into two union territories, has had the unintended consequence of further solidifying China-Pakistan alliance, which will make it impossible for India to determine the future of Kashmir and Ladakh as per its wishes.
Can India take P*k (Azad J&k) and Aksai Chin back? No.
When Modi abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, his jubilant supporters claimed that this bold decision would put an end, once and for all, to the Kashmir problem both in its internal and external dimensions. Influential official voices, obviously with the PM’s approval, asserted that getting Pakistan's Kashmir and China-oc**pied Aksai Chin were India’s next objectives.
General Bipin Rawat, then army chief and now the chief of defence staff, said, “The next agenda is retrieving P*K Kashmir (which includes ‘Azad Kashmir’, Gilgit-Baltistan and the 7000-sq-km Shaksgam Valley Pakistan ceded to China in 1963) and making it a part of India.”
External affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar said, “We expect one day to have physical jurisdiction over Azad Kashmir.”
Home Minister Amit Shah went a step further and declared in Parliament, “When I talk about Jammu and Kashmir, Azad Kashmir and Aksai Chin are included in it… We will give our lives for this region”.
No PM should make, or allow his colleagues to make, claims the nation cannot deliver. Can India ever get Azad Kashmir back from Pakistan, or Aksai Chin back from China? The answer to these questions, though obvious, was made unmistakable by the developments triggered by the Modi government’s August 5 decision.
First, China rejected India’s claims on Aksai Chin by stating that New Delhi had “hurt Chinese sovereignty” by “unilaterally” altering J&K’s status. It further averred that India’s new law was “not acceptable and won’t in any sense be binding.” Now, by making its newest incursion into an undefined LAC, which is neither delineated on maps nor demarcated on the ground, China is in effect saying it does not accept even India’s perception of the 3,488-km-long LAC as “binding”.
Next, China sent an unmissable message about its resolve to side with Pakistan on P*K Kashmir. Within five days of the Modi government’s new move on J&K, Beijing announced: “China will continue to firmly support Pakistan in safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests and continue to preside over justice for Pakistan on the international stage.”
It’s not difficult to decode the meaning of these words: should India ever attempt to “retrieve” Azad Kashmir militarily, China will be there to give Pakistan its “firm support”.
A nation that chooses to delude itself pays a heavy price for its delusions. For too long, successive Indian governments — Modi’s is by no means an exception here — have been misleading our people into believing that India must, and India can, make all of pre-1947 J&K its own. This stance is weakening India. With government-backed sections of the media acting as drum-beaters, it has fuelled sentiments of ultra-nationalism, which is long on rhetoric and woefully short on realism. Poof? The “Boycott Chinese goods” campaign, and Sonam Wangchuk’s ludicrous claim that Beijing can be brought to its knees by the Indian army responding with “bullets”, and Indian people doing the same with their “wallets”. Furthermore, anti-Pak and anti-China jingoism has made the task difficult for Modi himself. Despite his popularity, he looks incapable of convincing people that compromises would be necessary for a permanent resolution of the disputes with India’s two important neighbours.
The stand-off on LAC has already revealed these weaknesses within the government. For instance, contrast Amit Shah’s bravado on Aksai Chin with the reconciliatory statement by defence minister Rajnath Singh, who indicated India’s clear preference to de-escalate tension with China through diplomatic efforts. Seeking to downplay the gravity of the situation in Ladakh, Singh said both India and China have “perceptional differences” with respect to the LAC. When India is unwilling, because it is unable, to stop Beijing’s frequent LAC violations, can we ever foresee our military seizing all of Aksai Chin and also the Shaksgam Valley after an armed confrontation with China? Similarly, can India fight, and win, a two-front war in that region, which would surely be the case if the Modi government attempted to wrest P*K Kashmir from Pakistan?
Why Modi should welcome India-China-Pak dialogue
mooted by Xi Jinping
Five lessons emerge from the foregoing analysis.
One, if any external power, or an alliance of powers, wages a war on us, India must fight back with all its might, as befits any sovereign and self-respecting nation. However, should India set goals whose fulfilment makes unwinnable wars inevitable?
Two, it is in India’s own vital long-term interest that she attaches high priority to resolving the boundary dispute with China. Keeping the LAC ambiguous is making India a bigger loser than China. The current stand-off in Ladakh may end through parleys. But what will India gain by having to face future flashpoints along the LAC?
Three, both India and China must honestly examine the factors that are breeding, and sustaining, mutual distrust. Many Indians rightly believe that China, because of its heightened economic and military strength, does not sufficiently respect India’s core concerns. The Chinese leadership must take necessary steps to change this belief. On our part, India must acknowledge the futility of, and step back from, strategically aligning with the USA to contain China’s rise. Mutual distrust can be replaced by mutually beneficial cooperation if our two great nations, instead of playing the perilous power games of the West, choose to be guided by the wisdom of our civilisations.
Four, the Modi government’s insistence on resuming Kashmir-related dialogue with Pakistan only on the condition that the latter give P*K Kashmir back is as fruitless as Islamabad’s belief that the Indian side of Kashmir will someday become either independent or join Pakistan. Happily, there are winds of positive change in Pakistan now. Both the civilian establishment represented by Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the military establishment led by its powerful army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, have realised that making peace with India, based on an honourable solution to the Kashmir question, is in Pakistan’s own vital interest. The two establishments have also broadly understood that Pakistan must abandon the dangerous and self-hurting policy of aiding kashmiri Separatists to achieve its foreign policy objectives. Now, here is a question that India’s own political and ruling establishment must answer: If it’s okay for India to tell Beijing that it is ready for “a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable” (read: compromise-based) solution to the boundary question with China, why shouldn’t we convey the same message to Pakistan with regard to Kashmir? Why does the Indian establishment, which rightly affirms that India is not a pushover vis-à-vis China, continue to believe that Pakistan is a pushover vis-à-vis India? Moreover, isn’t it obvious that, by resolving the Kashmir issue with Pakistan, India (and Pakistan, too) will emerge stronger in dealing with China?
Finally, Modi must continue his strategic dialogue with Chinese President Xi Jinping even more vigorously. (The two leaders have met more than a dozen times and also held two informal summits at Wuhan and Mahabalipuram.) In doing so, Modi should welcome a potentially game-changing idea proposed by Xi. During their informal summit in Mahabalipuram in October last, the Chinese president proposed to our PM, “a trilateral partnership” among China, Pakistan and India, “free from the influence of third parties” — an indirect reference to Washington. Xi underscored that “the Chinese side sincerely expects sound China-India relations, China-Pakistan relations and India-Pakistan relations, and expects to see all sides work together to promote regional peace and stability and achieve common development and prosperity.”
This proposal was revealed by none other than China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, while briefing the Chinese media that came to India to cover the summit. We do not know how the Modi responded to Xi’s tantalising offer. But all those Indians who keenly wish for a resurgent India to take her rightful place in the global community in the 21st century — which requires it to be freed from the shackles of debilitating disputes inherited from the 20th century — have a right to suggest to our prime minister: “Modi ji, why not give Xi Jinping’s idea a try? And why not, making good use of a peaceful neighbourhood, concentrate on accelerating India’s inclusive and all-round development?”
.
.
.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
.
.
.
.
Source Times Of India
