nettime maillist on Wed, 16 Jun 1999 09:01:38 +0200 (CEST) |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
Harsh Kapoor: Nuclear Neighbours fanning flare-up in Kashmir (fwd) |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - <nettime-l-temp@material.net> is the temporary home of the nettime-l list while desk.nl rebuilds its list-serving machine. please continue to send messages to <nettime-l@desk.nl> and your commands to <majordomo@desk.nl>. nettime-l-temp should be active for approximately 2 weeks (11-28 Jun 99). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 19:39:22 +0200 From: Harsh Kapoor <aiindex@mnet.fr> To: aiindex@mnet.fr Subject: Nuclear Neighbours fanning flare-up in Kashmir South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch June 15, 1999 Contents: # 1. Truth, the first casualty of current Kashmir conflict # 2. Pakistani Villagers Willing to Wait for Passage to India # 3. Battles in the Mind ================================== ::# 1:: From: The Daily Star (Dhaka), Editorial Page Volume 2 Number 292 Tue. June 15, 1999 NOW, THE INFORMATION WAR Praful Bidwai* writes from New Delhi Truth is the first casualty of war. Even though the Kargil conflict is not war, it is proving this. The government is moving towards censorship. On June 4, it banned journalists from going to Kargil. Now it says it would "escort" them selectively. The decision has no logistical rationale. Consider the government's record. First, it refused to disclose pertinent details about the "infiltrators". The vantage-points they occupied were variously reported at five, eight, and 21. Mysteriously, 10 days into the air-strikes, the number had increased! Second, the [Indian] government banned Pakistan TV. Third, it rejected the reasonable demand for a Rajya Sabha [Upper house of India's Parliament] session. Fourth, it gave out conflicting numbers on the "infiltrators" killed: first 100, later 589, then 500. On May 8, it claimed to have killed 227 Pakistani soldiers, but only produced three bodies. Mr George Fernandes's [Indian Defence Minister] record of contradictory statements is disgraceful. Mr Vajpayee [Indian Prime Minister] has joined him in denial mode, undermining official credibility. On May 5, Mr Vajpayee exhorted the media to consider "the impact" of what it writes on the armed forces' "morale"... "before publishing" it. This was an appeal for self-censorship. Ministers are not censorship's sole advocates. Eleven former generals and bureaucrats have demanded "suspension" of independent analyses of Kargil. They include, unsurprisingly, the hawk K. Subrahmanyam, and, disturbingly, two former foreign secretaries. They say Kargil "is a test of [the] national will". Hence any "post-mortem by analysts should be suspended". We must not talk about "any inadequacies and failures that have led to the crisis". At stake is "our credibility as a nation." This is a plea for suppressing truth and suspending rationality. Unless we have independent analyses, how will citizens know whether the right policies are being pursued? Or must we think our leaders always act competently? Is there no alternative to analyses by sarkari [governmental] "experts"? The signatories' plea to ban non-sarkari analysts is gross. Whom is the goverment trying to fool? Mr Fernandes has done more damage to the army's morale than our enemies. He helped arms- smugglers in the Andamans, sacked Admiral Bhagwat [former Chief of the Indian Navy], offered "safe passage" to infiltrators. This is compounded by diplomatic failure and Mr Vajpayee's poor leadership. The plain truth is, the Right has proved incapable of defending the nation; it has compromised our security. It is trying to cover up its failures through media censorship. There are two larger issues here. We have reason to be proud of our media. But it has regrettably spread ignorance and prejudice on issues of security by towing the official line. In 1962, it reported that our army was fully prepared to meet the Chinese, when it wasn't. The media was partly to blame for public shock and disbelief at the outcome of the China war. Then the media exaggerated India's defeat and the "Yellow Peril's villainy". As independent scholars have shown, the war had its origins in India's impatience with China's attempt to settle its borders in the post-colonial era according to consistent principles. New Delhi followed an arrogantly unilateral approach, citing Imperial claims, and refusing negotiation. Yet, the war was less bitter than believed. Indian casualties were less than during the IPKF operation. The Chinese even oiled Indian firearms before returning them. They did not take prisoners. However, the picture from our media is different and foments chauvinism. Take the Pakistan 1965 war. It ended not in a decisive defeat for Pakistan, as the media portrayed, but in a stalemate. In 1986-89 too, the media was not objective on India's Sri Lanka intervention and the IPKF's [Indian Peace Keeping Force] poor performance. By being manipulated for "national honour", the press added to the poverty of public debate. The media's litmus-test is not loyalty to officialdom, even arbitrarily defined "patriotism", but to truth and critical analysis. It must question and verify official claims and be prepared to cross swords with power. This is doubly important in a crisis. It is profoundly wrong to suspend or abridge the role of the media as mirror of the truth. The second larger issue is the link between Kargil and Kashmir. It is futile to pretend that Kashmir is not a dispute. Numerous UN resolutions and even the Simla agreement recognise this, although this does not mean Pakistan should alter the LoC. The present crisis partly stems from the festering of the Kashmir dispute and periodic border skirmishes. It shows how civilians have become victims of India-Pakistan rivalry. Kargil's Shias have never been part of the Valley's azadi movement. But they have been turned into refugees. This is not inevitable. The Kashmir problem is amenable to solution. This can come about through changed Indian and Pakistani mindsets and involvement of the Kashmiri people in the determination of their fate. Kashmir is not just about Partition and the maharajah's refusal to accede to India until October 1947. Nor is it about Muslim identity. It is about giving Kashmiris a voice in a just solution to the problem, which enhances everyone's security. Kashmir's relationship to India and Pakistan must be settled on a modern, secular, pluralist basis. The Kashmiri people's involvement in the conciliation process will transform its complexion. All concerned will then have to confront the issues of democracy and plurality in culture and society--outside the straitjacket of rivalry. This is just what is needed. Fortunately, an intra-Kashmiri dialogue across ethnic and political divides has started. Around the Hague Peace Conference last month, a large number of Kashmiris, from Pannun Kashmir to pro-Mujahideen, groups met for the first time. They called for an end to all violence, for free dialogue between Kashmiris, and return to Kashmir's traditions of peaceful co-existence. This is a positive step. Real progress will come through such moves, not military conflict with its horrific potential for nuclear devastation.--end-- (* The writer is eminent Indian journalist) ----------------------------------------------------- ::# 2:: From: SAJA E-mail Discussion List Dissecting American Media Now Info: www.saja.org/lists The Washington Post June 14, 1999 Page A18 FOREIGN JOURNAL Pakistani Villagers Willing to Wait for Passage to India PHOTO: A Pakistani man brews tea outside the Indian mission in Islamabad as he waits to apply for a visa. By Pamela Constable Islamabad, Pakistan--It is well after dark, and outside the Indian High Commission clusters of people are settling into makeshift camps for the night. Under a tarp strung between two saplings, half a dozen sleeping women are rolled up like cocoons inside their shawls. Nearby, a group of men sits up, smoking and murmuring as someone brews tea on a little pile of charcoal. The men, cotton farmers from Punjab, have been waiting here for more than a week for an interview inside the commission, the equivalent of an embassy. If it goes well, they will emerge with permission to travel to India. "We don't mind. We are villagers, so we are used to sleeping outside," said Tharia Ram, 24, who said he plans to travel three days by train -- from Islamabad to Lahore, across the Indian border to Amritsar, then on to New Delhi and Jodhpur -- to visit relatives. "I hope things don't get worse between India and Pakistan, because then all travel could stop." Ram and the other campers are Pakistani citizens who have applied for visas to visit India. Despite the current border conflict between the neighbors over the disputed Kashmir region, the demand for visas is heavy. Millions of people in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, which was carved out of northern India to create a homeland for Muslims when Britain gave both nations independence in 1947, still have roots and relatives in India. Relations between the two nations have always been tense, and the border is sealed except for one spot near Lahore. But the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers met there in February to inaugurate a bus service to New Delhi, a symbolic gesture that many people in both countries hoped would offset the long-standing antagonism that reached new heights when both nations conducted nuclear tests last year. The Lahore meeting did not alter the rules for travel to India, but it inspired and emboldened thousands of Pakistanis to visit, some for the first time. By last month, the Indian High Commission was flooded with 25,000 personal visa requests, far more than it could handle efficiently. The crowds grew so large that Indian officials began distributing tokens by lottery to people who line up each day. Each token bears a date for the person's visa interview, and in theory each person can simply return on that day. The reality, however, is that most of the applicants are poor people who have traveled long distances, especially from the southern port city of Karachi, where large numbers of Indian Muslims settled after 1947. They have little money for hotels or return trips, so they simply remain on the commission grounds until their interview date arrives. "I was told to come back on June 17, but I don't have any place to go," Abdul Kadeer, 37, who sells used clothing in Karachi, said last week. An uncle died recently in Delhi, and he wants to pay his respects to the family. Resting on a cloth mat beside his small satchel, Abdul Kadeer said he had applied for a visa last year but it was denied. He speculated half-jokingly that this was because his name is similar to that of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist most closely associated with Pakistan's nuclear weapons development. "On the 17th, I will go and explain to them who I really am," he said. By day, the encampment outside the Indian diplomatic compound swells to hundreds of people. Vendors offer rice and lentil stew from metal pots. Urdu language newspapers are perused and passed on. A baby wails; a cow wanders over to investigate a pile of garbage. There is nothing to do but wait, and some people grow angry and impatient. "My mother is sick, and my husband can't get a visa to go with me to see her," fumed a 34-year-old woman from India who was waiting with her Pakistani husband. "We have been coming here for 15 days and they are disgracing us. I would cook meals and say prayers for everyone if they would just give him a visa." A number of people complained that there is no Indian consulate in Karachi, forcing them to travel 1,000 miles to Islamabad for a visa and then another 250 miles to Lahore to catch a train or bus. There is one daily flight between the two countries, but few Pakistanis can afford to fly. Several waiting applicants also said they had heard that "fixers" circulate in the area, offering to help desperate people obtain visas for a fee. This week, the grounds were swarming with plainclothes Pakistani police agents, but the campers said the police usually leave them alone. Officials at the Indian High Commission could not be reached for comment; none of the listed telephone lines appeared to be working. An official at India's Foreign Ministry in New Delhi said there are few restrictions on Pakistanis obtaining visas for family visits, but that often there are delays because of a staff shortage at the commission in Islamabad. He said Pakistan has severely limited the number of Indians who can work on the commission staff. By far the most frequent gripe among the waiting applicants was that no latrines or portable bathrooms had been installed outside the building, forcing people to hide behind bushes and walls. "There are women and children here, and we have some honor," complained Khairun Nisa, a Karachi sack stitcher and mother of 11 who has been sleeping at the compound for several days. "I would rather set fire to my visa than go through this." CAPTION: A Pakistani man brews tea outside the Indian mission in Islamabad as he waits to apply for a visa. ---------------------------------------------------- :: # 3 :: [A recent paper by the prominent Indian Journalist Teesta Seetalvad; Unfortunately no exact date or publication source is available. The below paper was written just before the June 12, 1999 visit by Pakistan Foreign minister for talks with the Indian govt.]. BATTLES IN THE MIND By Teesta Setalvad Real battles are fought and won in the mind. For both Pakistan and India, with equally rigid mind-sets, the current conflict along the LOC offers another fortuitous occasion to bombard their people with mutually hardened positions on the one issue that begs urgent resolution -- the Kashmir dispute. The opening of a war front in Kargil could not have come at a more opportune time for the political leadership in both countries. In Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif's government, that has faced world censure for blatant human rights' violations over the past few months, Kargil provides a welcome diversion. For the Indian caretaker Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee and his party, nationalism plus Sonia's [Sonia Gandhi] foreign origins will be the potent magic potion to be dished out to the nation before the forthcoming polls. For Pakistan, responsible for this provocation, the commitment to support Kashmiri 'freedom fighters' in their revolt against Indian repression, runs deep - it stems from the Pakistani establishment's ideological resolve to complete the 'unfinished agenda of Partition'. The very basis of the two-nation theory has been seriously challenged within Pakistan itself and what we have today is a thoroughly dismembered state, but Kashmir still manages to recapture much of this lost sentiment. The Qaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah's derision for the Kashmiri people (he had dubbed the Quit Kashmir movement of the Muslim-majority Kashmiris against Maharaja Hari Singh as a movement of goondas!) is conveniently forgotten. What is being pursued with single-minded devotion is not just a territorial proxy war but also an attempt to impose the highly regimental Wahabi Islam on a valley renowned for its Rishism (Sufism). Schools and madarsas run by the local Jamaat-e-Islami have been systematically used in a continuing attempt to transform the local struggle for Kashmiriyat to visions of life under Nizam-e-Mustafa (The Order of the Prophet). For India, too, the discourse in the past week has cynically charted familiar territory. The emphatic assertions about the territorial sovereignty and integrity of the Indian nation resound with a hollow arrogance, echoing through the perceptible absence of any Kashmiri voice in the present discourse. The government's, the mainstream print media's and television channels' black out of the voices of the young leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Yasin Mallik and senior Kashmiri leader, Shabbir Shah from available public spaces is predictable given the surge of patriotic fervour that such conflicts engender. But also absent are the views of a Balraj Puri (a senior citizen of Jammu and an ardent advocate of sanity and dialogue) or a Saifuddin Soz, senior MP representing the National Conference. The absence of a wide spectrum of other local opinion from the region, and in that category I would include representatives of ousted Kashmiri Pandits, is a sorry comment on the dearth of democratic space available here. Why would India be at all committed, morally or otherwise, to promises made to the Kashmiri people in 1947, 1950, 1953 and 1975 when it cannot trust the state with even the bare trappings of democratic governance? The only free and fair elections to that state were in 1977, results of which aroused a Valley-wide euphoria. This legally elected government was yet again, cynically dismissed by the Centre. Going back even further, even the 'Lion of Kashmir', Sheikh Abdullah, was humiliated by his most trusted friend and India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Despite a personal commitment to the region, even Nehru could not overcome his suspicions about the Kashmiri Muslims' allegiance to India. How much of these suspicions that have only hardened over the last 50 years have to do with the fact that the avowedly secular Indian state, under both Congress and non-Congress governments, barely trusts the people of a sensitively located region, basically because they are overwhelmingly Muslim? A failure to confront this history has been reflected in the past and continuing conduct of both the government and our troops deployed in the Valley. What comes to mind is more than just the enormity of the human loss, tragedies that have gone un-mourned by the rest of India. The cynical disregard for both the local people and their beliefs can be particularly observed from the Indian state's apparent equanimity despite the systematic destruction, since 1989, of over 16 revered local shrines dedicated to Rishis, symbolic of inherently Kashmiri, Sufi Islam. The Amarnath yatra has become for all Indians, not just the pilgrims who dare to make it there, an annual test of our military control over the Valley. Television images of Hindu pilgrims braving the militants' fire in defence of their faith are both soothing and reassuring. But when Charar-e-Sharif, a glorious, all-wood shrine en route to Yusmarg in the Valley was gutted, the Indian government did not even order an official enquiry. Folklore in the Valley, however, still revolves around the relationship between Sheikh Noor Adam and a Shaivite priestess, Rishi Laleshwari, though the bitterness against an unfeeling government simmers. Another 14th century shrine, Khanqah at Tral, 39 kilometers south of Srinagar, very dear to the local people apart from being a symbol of the Valley's composite culture was similarly gutted by a mysterious fire on December 18, 1997. The list of betrayals appears endless. There has been not even superficial effort at healing bitter wounds. When Pakistan's foreign minister steps on Indian soil, the 'dialogue' will chart familiar territory. Both the Pakistanis and their Indian counterparts appear united in one resolve -- keeping the talks at a bilateral level, excluding any representative from the region, despite their lip-service to tripartite talks in the last two years. Whether this exercise remains an exercise in utter futility and formality, or whether the meeting actually signals a greater maturity in tackling issues between prickly neighbours, depends critically on whether representatives of Kashmiris and also Jammu and Ladhakh are heard over the gunfire. (The writer edits Communalism Combat and is a core group member of the Pak-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy writing in her individual capacity)