Why must India make territorial concessions?

[JanjaWeed]

Peace with Pakistan is a desirable goal, but peace should be equally desired by both sides and both should contribute to it in equal measure.

The burden of making peace should not fall on India while Pakistan retains the freedom to disrupt it at will. Normalisation of India-Pakistan relations should not be predicated on demands by Pakistan and concessions by India.

Historically, Pakistan is not a victim of India's war-mongering; it is India that has suffered Pakistani military aggression and jihadi terrorism. Pakistan is more obliged to convince India of its peaceful intentions rather than the reverse.

Those who advocate withdrawal from Siachen need to clarify whether we are occupying Pakistani territory​

The notion that India as the bigger and stronger country has to be generous with Pakistan is egregious.

If this principle should dictate the conduct of international relations then China should be generous towards India on issues that divide us - which it decidedly is not - and the US, as the world's most powerful country, should be making concessions to virtually all others - which it decidedly does not do.

Once again we hear talk about culling the low hanging fruit of Siachen in order to politically enable the Prime Minister to visit Pakistan towards the year end.
This agreement will supposedly provide the required substantive outcome that can be jointly celebrated. Why India must make a territorial concession to make its own PM's visit possible and Pakistan need not act on terrorism is not explained.

Those who advocate withdrawal from Siachen - or more appropriately Saltoro as Siachen lies to its east - need to clarify whether we are occupying Pakistani territory.
If we are, withdrawal could be mooted. If we are not, then why should we withdraw from our own territory simply because Pakistan contests India's sovereignty over this part of J&K and insists we accept its position?

Should such obduracy inspire trust in its intentions? The 1949 and the 1972 agreements delineate the LOC till NJ9842, with the line going 'northwards towards the glaciers' beyond that.

'Northwards' cannot in any linguistic or geographical interpretation mean 'north-eastwards', but Pakistan and the US unilaterally drew the line several decades ago from NJ9842 north-eastwards to the Karakoram pass controlled by the Chinese.

In reality, because the entire state of J&K acceded to India legally, the areas not in control of Pakistan are rightfully Indian whether we physically occupy every inch of our own territory or not.

We were compelled to occupy the Saltoro Ridge to prevent Pakistan (under a certain Brigadier Musharraf) from occupying it and threatening our hold over the Shyok valley and potentially Ladakh itself.

Why should Pakistan have wanted to occupy these punishing heights if they have no strategic value?

Saltoro need not have 'strategic' value if our borders with both Pakistan and China were demarcated, neither had any claim to our territory and relations with both were normal and friendly.

It is because this is not the case that we are being compelled to position ourselves the closest possible to the source of the threats.

Why withdraw to positions easier to hold physically and lose available defence depth? Should the army brass take decisions on these questions or the civilian authority?

Siachen is the Pakistan army's agenda. General Musharraf admitted that Kargil was Pakistan's riposte to Siachen.

The argument that an Indian concession on Siachen will strengthen the hands of Pakistan's civilian government in its peace efforts is dubious as we are being asked to appease the Pakistan army for failing to dislodge us from Saltoro.

How will placating it strengthen the army's disposition towards India and the civilian authority in Pakistan itself?

If prior to Kargil India was disposed to end the Saltoro stand-off by experimenting with Pakistan's trustworthiness, with reducing the human cost of occupying such forbidding heights as additional reason, after Kargil India has strong reason to be deeply distrustful of Pakistani intentions.

What is the guarantee that safeguards built into any agreement will not be violated by Pakistan at an opportune time, as happened at Kargil? Meanwhile, with technical and infrastructural improvements the human cost has come down drastically.
What is the compulsion to place faith in an adversary that still fails to address India's key concerns? The jihadi groups in Pakistan still exist; Hafiz Saeed is not being curbed; those responsible for Mumbai have not been tried even after four years and to Kashmir has now been added the emotive issue of water.

Pakistani defiance of the US on the issue of terrorism and truck with Islamic extremists has a lesson for India. Pakistan's Afghan ambitions remain problematic for the region.

Any concession on Saltoro has to be assessed in this larger, unsettled context.

Pakistan's movement on the trade issue is to be welcomed. In response, even without receiving MFN status yet, India has already committed itself to MFN plus treatment for Pakistan and permitting Pakistani investment in India without reciprocal action by Pakistan.

There is no case for rewarding Pakistan also on military- security issues in addition. What happens if just before PM's visit to Pakistan to sign the Saltoro agreement there is a major terror attack in India?

Will we postpone the visit? If this happens just after the visit and the agreement, will we freeze its implementation? What will that say of our political judgment?

Terrorism remains the most critical issue. Ideally, Saltoro should be part of an overall settlement of the J&K issue.

As a first step, before any evenly balanced demilitarisation eventually takes place as a CBM, the LOC should be jointly demarcated beyond NJ9842 along the Actual Ground Position Line, which we now seem to be demanding in what General Kayani sees as a hardening of our posture. Let us stay this course.


Why must India make territorial concessions? | Mail Online

 

[Big Boss]

Bull crap and propaganda by Britishers.

Its the problem created by Britishers who wanted a island and puppet in between communist USSR and India.

We should not give even a inch of our land at any cost whatsoever.

Instead we should liberate pak held Kashmir because it rightly ours and as per giovt. of India and our laws its held by pakistan.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Instead we should liberate pak held Kashmir because it rightly ours and as per giovt. of India and our laws its held by pakistan.

You also claim Aksai Chin as a part of Kashmir.

So in order for you to "get back Kashmir"... you will have to mount a two-front war, and defeat both China and Pakistan at the same time.

 

[Android]

Status quo zindabad!!!

 

[aakash_2410]

Bull crap and propaganda by Britishers.

Its the problem created by Britishers who wanted a island and puppet in between communist USSR and India.

Not true! :/ If anything British favored India during the partition rather than Pakistan.

 

[arp2041]

what the fuss is all about Siachin, i don't understand, why shld we vacate it anyway. That is our own territory, if the question is of economic trouble we can afford stationing troops there if Pakistan cannot afford it then it's there problem not ours. Why we are talking always about giving territories to other nations. We gave a part of kashmir to Pakistan first, then we gave cocoa island to Burma, then we gave Aksai Chin to China not to mention we were thinking about abandoning Andamans once and then we talk about becoming a superpower.

 

[SamranAli]

You also claim Aksai Chin as a part of Kashmir.

So in order for you to "get back Kashmir"... you will have to mount a two-front war, and defeat both China and Pakistan at the same time.

and indians can do that with no more time because of their superpower stataus.

 

[timetravel]

You also claim Aksai Chin as a part of Kashmir.

So in order for you to "get back Kashmir"... you will have to mount a two-front war, and defeat both China and Pakistan at the same time.

dont worry we have North Tibet also to take... wait baby... no one is forgetting its only u forgetting that we are not forgetting

 

[lem34]

Cos they need routes for oil gas and trading routes etc. to the wets Otherwise their companies will not be competitive with Chinese who do have access routes west. It's only a matter of time.

 

[Holmes]

On a side note:

India ready to open more land border crossings: Sharat Sabharwal - The Economic Times

LAHORE: India is willing to look at opening more land border crossings with Pakistan, for instance, at places like Munnabao in Rajasthan, India's high commissioner to Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal said on Monday. He was addressing the inaugural session of the 2nd Aman Ki Asha Indo-Pak Economic Conference. At present, the Attari-Wagah post is the only land border transit point between the two nations.

Later this month, home secretaries of the two countries are expected to sign on an agreement to liberalise the business visa regime. In the works are multiple entry visas, abolishing police check-posts and multi-city visas.

These measures are expected to give a fillip to Indo-Pak trade, which today is languishing at below $3 billion. The Indian commerce ministry believes that trade between the two countries can touch $12 billion in the next five years, Sabharwal said. He reiterated commerce minister Anand Sharma's promise that "for every one step Pakistan takes, India will take two", to further trade between the neighbours.

Delivering the keynote address, Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani said core issues should be settled through dialogue and called for enhanced people-to-people contact. He said his government was committed to normalisation of relations. "Non-state actors from both sides of the border are determined to harm relations. We need to be vigilant. He said that in sectors like information technology, education, health engineering, there is huge scope for cooperation. He commended The Times of India and Pakistan's Jang Group for launching the Aman Ki Asha initiative when tensions were running high between the two nations.

Speakers at the conference highlighted the fact that improved economic relations between India and Pakistan would lead to peace and prosperity. But a few delegates said they were worried that offering most favoured nation (MFN) status to India might result in highly skewed trade relations with the balance tilting in favour of India. These worries were addressed by Pakistan business leaders like Mian Muhammed Mansha, chairman, MCB Bank, and Bashir Ali Muhammed, chairman, Gul Ahmed Group. They were unequivocal in saying that more trade would only benefit the Pakistani people. Industry would benefit from greater competition in the long run. Mansha said he was keen on starting a bank in India.

Adi Godrej, CII president and head of the Godrej Group, said the two largest economies of South Asia should work together to ensure that bilateral trade touches $10 billion in the near term. Textiles, agriculture, engineering, IT, education and health care are sectors which can see immediate traction, he said. "Removal of tariff barriers should set in motion processes for the removal of asymmetries in trade."

Group managing director of Jang Group Shahrukh Hasan said the Aman Ki Asha initiative had helped change perceptions in both countries. "Peace, which has been tantalizingly elusive, is inevitable," he said.

He and almost all speakers said that a liberalised visa regime was a must for any forward momentum in relations. "MFN and FDI are of no use without people being able to travel across the border," he said.

Rahul Kansal, executive president, Times of India Group, said that history has shown that when foes develop deep economic stakes in each other, war becomes a non-option. "We are at a historic moment; it will be a pity if we can't seize the opportunity."

Aman Ki Asha is an initiative of The Times of India and the Jang Group of Pakistan and is co-sponsored by CII and Pakistan Business Council.

India ready to open more land border crossings: Sharat Sabharwal - The Economic Times

 

[janon]

Bull crap and propaganda by Britishers.

Its the problem created by Britishers who wanted a island and puppet in between communist USSR and India.

We should not give even a inch of our land at any cost whatsoever.

The writer is Kanwal Sibal, India's ex foreign secretary. And it is saying precisely what you are saying, that we should not give up any land. Read the article rather than just the headline. The headline is a rhetorical question, intended to mean that we shouldn't make concessions.

 

[clmeta]

India won't give an inch to anyone. Period.

 

[Guest01]

Cos they need routes for oil gas and trading routes etc. to the wets Otherwise their companies will not be competitive with Chinese who do have access routes west. It's only a matter of time.

That bogey has been long identified. So India is focussing East over the last years if you noticed. The Western markets bogey will only last only for a couple more years. There will be reverse goods flow soon from West to China. India gets spared there surely, thanks to our strategic weakness