U.S. deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott’s recent visit to India and Pakistan has a disturbing message to the struggling nations in India in general and the people of Kashmir and Punjab in particular. It was that they could not rely on the U.S. administration even relations to the limited issue of human rights. The official’s utterances in public and the reactions of Indian authorities to them are a clear pointer to the new twist to the Clinton policy governing that country.
The main U.S. aim in sending Talbott to Delhi appeared to be, to run out differences that cropped up between the two countries in recent months. The Indian administration seems supremely concerned about this country’s politico- military strategy of denuclearization of south-east Asia mainly dominated by India. It could in retrospect be concluded that all the hue and cry about violation of human rights by Indian security forces in Kashmir and Punjab was made by the U.S. officials essentially not to twist Delhi’s arm to put an end to them, but to seek to put pressure on the nuclear issue. No wonder the deputy secretary staged a dramatic about face on the known U.S. government stand on the Kashmir issue. The Clinton government had refused to recognize Kashmir’s recognition to India. It had also argued that the Shimla agreement failed to resolve the tangle even after 22 years of its signing and that the ways should be found to ascertain the wishes of the people of Kashmir. Now suddenly Talbott has discovered that the issue problem was a complicated one and that its solution could be found within the Shimla framework. In other words, the U.S. administration has virtually endorsed India’s known stand on the issue which substantially means keeping a status quo on the problem.. This stand will have a strong bearing on the human rights issue.
India will be further emboldened to execute its mad plan of eliminating Kashmiri youths struggling to free their land from the Indian imperial domination. How the people of Kashmir react to this development will be known in the days to come. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Kashmir Hurriyat conference wanted to meet Talbott in Delhi but the latter snubbed them by not meeting them.
The question is whether the U.S. administration will achieve its aim of denuclearizing the region or at least exercising some control on India’s nuclear ambitions. It is a safe bet that India will continue dillydallying with the issue and will finally not submit to any international control. India’s politicians are too foxy for persons like Talbott and his associates. The simple-minded U.S. administrators have yet to discover the truth about India and its ruling politicians.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 15, 1994
