HULL (NORTH ENGLAND):The Kashmir problem is a result of the “follies” of the Indian Government “of which the neighbors has taken advantage,” the former Foreign Secretary, J.N.Dixit, has said.
“It is time we wake up and compromise with our own people,” he said. “The government must enter into un- conditional talks with the Kashmiri people,” Dixit told a meeting at Hull University on India’s relations with its neighbor. “We must tell them that their views will be a major factor, but this can only work if they don’t shoot at us on the shoulders of Pakistan,” he said.
“If we talk reasonably, they’ll be equally sensitive to India’s concerns over territorial integrity,” he said. Pakistan also seeks to champion the Sikh cause, he said. “But Sikhism has its origins in a struggle against Muslim tyranny,” he observed. If Pakistan genuinely cares about the Sikhs it must offer them Peshawar and Lahore, Dixit said.
On the breakup of Pakistan, Dixit said, “We did not ask their military to discriminate against their own people for 30 years.” The Indian Government did not ask the Pakistan military to reject the November 1970 election that would have made Mujibur Rehman the Prime Minister of the whole of Pakistan, he said. If Pakistan today hopes to get Kashmir by grenades and guns, “they can forget it,” he said.
On Sri Lanka, Dixit said if the country was united today it was because the Indian troops went in, he said. “Sri Lanka would have broken up by the summer of 1987, I can tell you positively.” Dixit, a High Commissioner in Colombo during the critical period of the late 80’s, said.
India had to act then “to maintain the unity of a country with an unwise government,” Dixit said. Defending the Indian Government’s controversial decision, Dixit said that the Indian Government had earlier armed Tamils in its own interest. “When they took to arms we encouraged them” he said. At that time, he said, the Sri Lankan Government was talking about granting bases to the Americans for intelligence operations. “So we had to react,” he said.
“We did not ask the Sri Lankan Governments to sign agreements with the Tamils from 1920 to 1973 and then reject them” he said.
Dixit spoke at length about India’s relations with its neighbors. If there was a critical situation with a neighbor today it was a result of their policies, Dixit said.
The neighboring countries often echoed western criticism that India was hegemonist, Dixit said.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 17, 1995
