Many a slip…
US President
Donald Trump’s remarks about a possible mediation role in the Kashmir dispute
between Pakistan and India have caused a furore in India and expressions of
‘triumphalism’ in Pakistan. Trump said during the meeting with Prime Minister
Imran Khan in the White House that he would be willing to play a mediatory role
in the dispute if both sides asked him to. Further, he made the startling
revelation that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in fact asked him to
play such a role in their interaction during a G 20 summit. Predictably, given
India’s long standing position that based on the Simla Accord of 1972 and the
Lahore Declaration of 1999, the Kashmir issue could only be discussed
bilaterally, with no room for third party mediation, the development caused a
political storm in India. The clarification by India’s External Affairs
Ministry denying Trump’s claim in both houses of the Indian parliament failed,
however, to satisfy the raging opposition, who insisted Mr Modi himself must
clarify the matter before parliament. In Pakistan meanwhile, the media and
commentators hyped up the development as a major diplomatic victory for
Pakistan. Perhaps a more sober reflection on the issue would remind us of a few
undeniable ground realities. India insisted in the Simla Accord in 1972 that
the Kashmir issue would henceforth only be discussed bilaterally, based on its
international embarrassment over many years after then Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru took the dispute to the UN Security Council after the 1947-8
Kashmir war soon after Independence. The move came to haunt India in
international forums since then. Pakistan’s defeat at India’s hands in 1971
over the Bangladesh conflict left little room for manoeuvre. Then President and
civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who came to power
after the debacle, conceded the demand in the light of the fact that 90,000
Pakistani prisoners of war and slivers of territory along the Kashmir Line of
Control were in Indian hands. Since then, and even more so after the Lahore
Declaration signed by then visiting Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
and Nawaz Sharif in 1999, India has invoked the bilateral basis for any talks
about Kashmir to spare itself past blushes in the international arena. However,
the stalled bilateral dialogue has found shipwreck on New Delhi’s insistence
that alleged ‘terrorism’ in Kashmir emanating from Pakistani soil be stopped
before the dialogue can be resumed. That is where matters stand for the moment.
Pakistani media
and commentators are cock-a-hoop over the fact that a sitting US president has
seen fit to even talk about Kashmir, let alone offering his good offices for
mediation. The general run of such coverage and comments dwells on the
superpower status of the US and how it could therefore help leverage India off
its intransigent perch. But on cooler reflection, Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks
should not have more ascribed to them than they deserve. Mr Trump is by now
well known for his unpredictability and gaffes. By claiming Modi asked him for
mediation over Kashmir, Trump has not only breached diplomatic protocol, he has
embarrassed India and Modi to the point of the Indian opposition being up in
arms at the perceived ‘shift’ in India’s approach to the issue. A simpler and
perhaps truer interpretation of this Trump-style revelation is that the US
president was merely saying what Imran Khan and Pakistan wanted to hear. Since
Washington is currently hoping for and wooing Islamabad to help extricate it
from the unwinnable Afghan war, it may simply be a no-cost lubrication of the
US’s desire for Pakistani cooperation in this matter. Interpretations that tend
towards seeing Trump’s remarks as a ‘quid pro quo’ for Pakistan’s help in the
Afghan conflict may be stretching it too far. Let us not forget that in the
global and regional context, it is India the US sees as a strategic partner
against the rise of China and in the US’s own interests. Given India’s official
reiteration of its bilateral approach to Kashmir, perhaps we should not hold
our breath in anticipation of Trump’s mediation becoming a reality any time
soon.
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