After making tight rope walk statements on issues pertaining 0 India subcontinents, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, John Malott, visited Pakistan and India Carly this week. His discussions with Indian officers covered the anticipated fields such as Kashmir, Indo Pak relations, NPT and Indo US bilateral ties. Malott’s is the first visit to India by a representative of the new US ‘administration headed by President Clinton, He is relatively a junior functionary of the administration and his contact with India has been on a low level. He met India’s minister of state for internal security, Rajesh Pilot, and foreign secretary and principal secretary to the Indian Prime Minister, Significantly, India officially treated the Malott visit on a low key by presenting junior officers for talks with him. Through his meeting with Pilot, the U.S. official presumably was given the message that India regards the Kashmir affair as its internal matter whatever the U.S, administration may Say about its being a disputed territory. From the U.S. administration’s angle, the visit may be aimed at probing the Indian mind on the matters of concern for President Clinton; But the Indian diplomacy is far too shrewed for the Americans. India used the Malott presence in Delhi to coneretise its plans to entrust Kashmir to the army. This, as India’s leading newspaper, “Times of India,” noted amounts to declaring martial law in Kashmir. Is that what president Clinton had bargained for by drafting Malott to probe the Indian mind? Assuming that the U.S. administrations consent to India’s martial law plans is not available, the President still can not escape his responsibility in encouraging Delhi to undertake ham-handed methods in Kashmir. Repeated talk of Pakistan’s alleged interference in Kashmir and Punjab itself is sufficient for India to justify to the world its warlike actions in the valley. Fuel to fire is added by the U.S. when its spreads rumors of declaring Pakistan a terrorist state, Thus whatever the motives of the administration in talking of Pakistan vis a vis Kashmir and Punjab, the net result is that India is being encouraged to declare a full scale military aggression on the population of Kashmir including its women, children and old people. Could the ‘US_ administration still talk of India as a democracy when regions after regions of the country are being subjected to a cruel martial law? Is not the talk of human rights a mere ritual when the administration simultaneously holds briefs for India on account of so called democracy and economic liberalization? President Clinton ‘doing business with a martial law regime? President Clinton’s initial error is his belief that what India is fighting against in Kashmir and Punjab is “terrorism.” He can not proceed to oppose the imposition of martial law once he recognizes the Indian pro paganda hype on the nature of the struggle in Kashmir and Punjab’s terrorism. The President will have to make the administration’s position crystal clear on the so called terrorism which is actually a freedom struggle. Unless that proposition is corrected, the U.S. administration willy-nilly will have to go along with India whatever it docs in Kashmir or Punjab. That will, in effect, make Indo US. Relationship nothing but an axis against freedom. That is how at least the people of the two Indian states will view it. Any talk of human rights in Kashmir or Punjab by the US administration under these circumstances will be widely viewed as empty. On the question of NPT also, India’s position remains quite rigid. Indications are that President Clinton has already written off India as a signatory to the NPT “due to its government’s internal compulsions.” No wonder, the BJP issued a hard hitting statement on the day Malott was in Delhi asking the Rao government not to compromise on India’s nuclear option; The B.J.P. may well be talking on the prodding by the Rao government itself. This aspect of India’s | diplomacy is not perhaps known to the U.S. administration, India has agreed to hold further discussions on NPT in July but such discussions will continue to be futile unless the administration takes a comprehensive new look at the gamut of political problems rather | then merely depending on the US army’s security concems and _ perceptions. The current US postures through the Malott visit are not likely to help. In fact, President Clinton’s weak-kneed policy will only embolden India to pursue its military fascist course more openly and unabashedly.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 21, 1993
