Solving Kashmir
Twenty months after we pushed back Pakistani army from Kargil and restored the sanctity of the Line of Control in Kashmir, Prime Minister vajpayee invited General Pervez Musharraf for a summit. Earlier, we stuck to the stand that there is no question of talking to a State, which perpetrates anti-India violence. We will not talk to a State that consistently trains and sends terrorists to kill innocent Indians from across the border. Analogies were drawn between India and Israel. Both were combating destructive Islamic terrorism challenging the very existence of each State as well as nullify our secular culture. We must deal with them as firmly as Israelis deal with PLO. Sending an invitation to a General who led Pakistani army during Kargil invasion has left people speculating about what brought this shift. The most common answer is that Americans pressurised both sides to sit down and talk rather than fight it out. Pakistan needs loans to put its derailed economy into order. It cannot survive sanctions. If Pakistan wants to stabilise its economy, it must check its hospitality for terrorist outfits and improve its relations with India. India wants to be a world player. Both India and America are victims of Islamic terrorism, which makes scope for their cooperation in tackling perennial Jihad. India is a huge market thanks to its huge middle class. Corporate America requires friendly relations with such a big market. Moreover, our eyes are set on acquiring permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. Good relations with the world boss may help us in our endeavour to bring about second and third generation economic reforms as well as get us the desired place in the Council. Maybe that is why and invitation was sent from our side.
American pressure is one aspect. A realistic assessment of the situation is another. The t4ruth is that Islamic terrorism or Jihad is the fourth curse on mankind. The other three being poverty, disease and natural disaster. All four are incurable. We can check them to some extent but they tend to gain new momentum as if they were self-propelled self-fuelled and automatic. Issues change, political scenario changes but Jihad always finds a subject. It always manages to find an enemy. No arguments, no sanctions, no attempts to make them understand work. For a Mujahid, once an enemy always an enemy. Like an American saying goes, “once a skunk always a skunk.’ You just cannot make fiends with him. Jihad is a culture, a complete economy and a complete social system that finds new recruits for itself. They are so fanatic, so stubborn and so difficult that you cannot make them understand your point of view. For a Jihadi, truth is what he believes and he cares a damn for what others believe. What has Israel gained after fighting Arafat for fifty years? Has America been able to eradicate Qaddafi or finish Saddam? Same is the case with Ladden. The British managed the Arabs well for centuries by dividing them but they are toothless creatures now. If you bring them on the table, they just echo their side and close their ears thereafter. Fighting goes on for years and reason doesn’t work with them. They only way you can silence them for sometime is to give them what they want until the next demand props up. By inviting Musharraf Vajpayee is engaging a troublemaker. If we can keep him in good humour, we can buy peace for sometime. Maybe the boss of the gang can check Jihadi elements within Pakistan a bit.
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