The U.K. media has reported U.S. plan to freeze the Kashmir issue as “insoluble” in the short run. Instead, the administration will organize a regional security conference. This conference will be attended by India, Pakistan, Germany and Japan, apart from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The main aim of the conference will be discussions over strategic arms control. It is likely that senior U.S. officials like Strobe Talboth and Robin Raphel in the course of their scheduled discussions with representatives of India and Pakistan later this month will thrash out principles and modalities of the proposed conference.

The U.S. plan has many disconcerting aspects. The administration rightly has been expressing its concern about the large scale violation of human rights by Indian security forces in the Kashmir valley. Its anti-climax was reached at the Geneva meeting of the UN. Human Rights commission early this month when the U.S. representatives maintained silence. Was the build-up on the human rights issue being done merely to abandon the whole issue as insoluble? The U.S. administration has also been emphasizing the need for ascertaining the views of the people of Kashmir. The views of the people are crucial in attempting any solution to the problem but the administration left the issue at that without bothering to hammer out how to know the Kashmiris opinion. No amount of Indo-Pak talks, whether within the framework of the Simla agreement or outside, can produce the solution so long as the will of the people of Kashmir is ignored or defied. Knowing their views of the people of Kashmir is not at all impossible. Therein lies the solution to the Kashmir problem. But the administration does not want to displease India on the crucial issue and shies away from solving the problem calling it insoluble. That is not how a super power like the U.S. should run away from its international liabilities.

It is a wrong notion to believe that Indian could be brought round on the strategic arms control issue either. Last year the U.S. had proposed a regional conference on the issue with India and Pakistan participating in it. While Pakistan had revealed its amenability, India’s reaction was one of hostility to the idea, its argument being that the nuclear non-proliferation issue was global and that it could not be solved regionally. The fresh U.S. proposal is most likely to receive the same sort of treatment from Delhi. If that is so, why should the U.S. give up the Kashmir agenda? The fact appears to be that Delhi is not willing on either count. It wants to keep Kashmir in perpetual slavery and to make its position unassailable militarily seeking to go on developing its nuclear arsenal. No amount of pressure whether by holding a regional conference or even an international conference will make India see reason.

The U.S. administration and the international public opinion will have to realize one day that a drastic, collective international action alone will yield results in dealing with India which is a fascist state in the making notwithstanding talk of its being a democratic state. It is bent upon crushing Sikhs, Kashmiris, Assamese and other nationalist segments fighting for their freedom. India finds militarization including acquisition of nuclear armaments systems as a natural consequence of its imperialistic politics and practices. One can not abandon one aspect and take up another in quest for solutions to the problems in India. A wide-ranging, comprehensive approach is required. For that, the U.S. will have to give up the temptation of dealing with India on the trade and investment front. No problem is insoluble. What is required is international will to perform.

Article extracted from this publication >> March 25, 1994