Arnab Guha is a NRIOL featured columnist. To read about Arnab Guha, please Know more.
On 26th January, 1950, a free India adopted its own constitution to become a "sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic". Today, fifty years later, we have rung in the New Year with an airplane hijacking that has renewed threats of jihad against India and the West, and placed Kashmir back in the international spotlight. Yet New Delhi is still engaged in a propaganda war with Islamabad, instead of making an honest effort to co-operate with potential allies in Western democracies to negotiate peace in Kashmir, and stability in the subcontinent that bears the Indian name.
The West, we are told, does not wish to get embroiled in the Indo-Pakistan conflict. But it is disingenuous suggest that the West does not get involved with bickering neighbours. Indeed, to the credit of Western diplomats, the West is quite capable of making and maintaining allies on both sides of a conflict. Greece and Turkey are both members of NATO, in spite of the floating Club-Med-Kashmir of divided Cyprus. Perhaps the real reason for the West's reluctance to take sides in the Indian subcontinent is not some general principle of non-involvement, but New Delhi's traditional attitude towards Western capitals. If Kashmir is to be peaceful again, then the relationship between India and the West, and in particular, the United States, will have to undergo some serious revision.
One of the most obvious obstacles to Indo-U.S. friendship was India's pro-Soviet stance during the Cold War. Such equations are hard to re-align. Arsenals are built along diplomatic partnerships. States are divided along F-16s and MIGs,
... the planes need spare parts, and lines remain etched on the ground. The second obstacle, which is partly a result of the first, is Kashmir. Had India not been on the other side of the Cold War line, Kashmir may not have been the problem, just as the West Bank never really came between America and Israel. But India WAS on the other side and Kashmir IS an issue. The sooner New Delhi accepts both points, the better for everybody.
A democracy, and indeed, the world's most populous and diverse democracy, ought to know that national integrity cannot be maintained by force and against the popular will. Israel is currently talking to Syria. India, too, will have to sit together with Pakistan over Kashmir, just as the British Empire had once to negotiate the future of the jewel in their crown. The sooner such a meeting, the better the chance of India's protecting the interests of the Hindu Kashmiris who desire affiliation with the Indian state.
But it is naive to think that India and Pakistan, after all these acrimonious years, can meet in good faith without any mediation whatsoever. And in order to turn the tables on the terrorists and their sponsors, all that India has to do is take the initiative towards peace by calling upon a neutral and well-respected party to mediate between Delhi and Islamabad. By making the first move, India will not only win diplomatic brownie points, but will be in a position to come up with its own wish-list before anybody else. A wise India would seek to formalise the current Indo-Pakistani Line of Control in Kashmir into an international border, and demand strict sanctions against any attempt to violate that unambiguous line. And what better mediator to call upon than Canada, with its reputation for relative impartiality, its own understanding of separatist sentiments through Quebec, its common colonial heritage and membership in the Commonwealth, as well as its ties to the United States?
India and Israel parenthesize the most violent geopolitical corridor today. Israel and the U.S. have long been in agreement over Israel's security concerns. Israel and India, with their history of covert collaboration, both agree on the threats that are common to both states. It is only natural, then, that one closes the third side of the triangle by joining the dots between the Indian and American capitals. Indeed, terrorist organisations already realise the case for an Indo-U.S. convergence. In his recent rabble-rouser in Pakistan, the freed militant Masood Azhar called for war against America and India. Having common foes is good enough reason for forging the strangest of partnerships in this world. And yet so many explicit, common and continued threats have not led to an Indo-U.S. alliance to protect the ideals of democracy and national diversity that both states hold sacred.
India's attitude reminds me of Sidney Lanier's scathing comment on Whitman: "As nearly as I can make out, Whitman's argument seems to be that because the Mississippi is long, therefore every American is God." As nearly as I can make out, New Delhi's argument seems to be that, because Gandhi was a saint, therefore every Indian is above fault; because India is so old, therefore India must be wiser than all; and because India was once tied by colonial shackles, and because the world is largely unjust, therefore independent India reserves the right to fly in the face of diplomatic reason. But it is high time that New Delhi stopped adopting the tone of moral superiority that has been so irksome to most foreign diplomats, and which has often cost India valuable alliances outside the Soviet bloc.
Does this mean that India should give in to any and every demand of the West? Of course not. The size of the Indian market and its skilled labour force, spanning Bombay to Wall Street, and Bangalore to the Silicon Valley, would stand as guarantors against any total surrender of India's sovereign, national interests. But a change in diplomatic direction from New Delhi would see the elevation of the world's largest democracy to something more than a nod of the Western head or a wave of the international arm. And that can only be a good thing for all of us. Read more
- Arnab Guha in Canada
January 26, 2000
The views of this column are the author's own, and do not necessarily represent the views of NRI Online.
For a listing of past columns by Arnab Guha, please Know more.
