Of late, there has been a frenzy of activity in India and Pakistan with regard to the Kashmir problem. Especially, in the aftermath of the visit of president Clinton, we see all sorts of sentiments being aired on either side of the border: triumph, dejection, jubilation, solace, pride, disappointment and what not ?. there has been tremendous debate in Pakistan about its isolation and the "obvious tilt" of US towards India. the president's words in India and Pakistan are being interpreted in a in a host of ways.

To have a clear perspective of the messages that President Clinton conveyed, we must analyze the perceptions of the three parties of significance in the Kashmir problem, - the world community, India and Pakistan - the way these perceptions evolved and how India and Pakistan played out. Let me explain them one by one.

Some conventions first:

i-Kashmir : Indian Administered Kashmir

p-Kashmir : Pakistan Administered Kashmir

Kashmir : i-Kashmir + p-Kashmir

one-to-one land dispute : where both parties claim the same land

First the world: what the world's perception of Kashmir IS ?. Well, it is truth is that the international community considers Kashmir as a disputed territory. a piece of land that both India and Pakistan fight for, and therefore, is a potentially dangerous war zone. This is the world perception today. No matter whether it is in line with the UN resolutions on Kashmir or not. Have you noticed, whenever the international media specifies 'Kashmir', it invariably adds the sentence - "over which the two neighbors have already fought two wars" ?. that's the manifestation of this international perception of Kashmir as a potential war place.

On to India's position: India claims kasmir as its own territory. it considers p-Kashmir as its territory occupied by Pakistan. but, notwithstanding her leaders' verbal rhetoric, India's "body language" has been consistently suggesting that it wouldn't be averse to the idea of converting the LoC into international border.

The world's perception, as i have described above, had never been overtly supportive of India's position. to this day, no significant world power has pronounced that Kashmir is India's territory. At the same time, the world perception has never been inimical to India either, as is evident from the fact that India has never been condemned internationally for its "occupation" of i-Kashmir.

India has very carefully and successfully ensured that the world always viewed Kashmir problem as a straight, one-to-one, indo-pak "land dispute" which had a potential to flare up any moment. at the same time, she never exhibited any serious inclination to "recover" p-Kashmir from Pakistan. this has served well to project an image of India as a non-expansionist and non-ambitious nation (vis-a-vis Kashmir).

now, all that India needed to do was to prove convincingly to the world that the dangerous war-prone situation always existed in Kashmir ONLY because Pakistan harbored a dangerous ambition to grab i-Kashmir. but, she could never provide a convincing proof to this effect. until suddenly Pakistan itself voluntarily obliged - with Kargil.

Kargil was the greatest favor Pakistan could have done to India. Prior to Kargil, India was suffering from one big handicap in decisively nailing down Pakistan: there was no way for it to convincingly prove that Pakistan indeed harbored territorial ambitions on i-Kashmir. All the 'evidences' and arguements produced by India to this effect were scoffed off summarily either as propaganda ploy or something of that sort. then out of the blue, Kargil came. that was the clinching proof, and India completed the circle. and the alignment was perfect.

See from this point, and you will realize the real magnitude of the short-sightedness of Pakistan's Kargil "adventure". And view Kargil in the backdrop of Lahore process...well, that was double fault for Pakistan. and, advantage India.

That's why i consider Kargil as a deadly conspiracy of Pakistan against herself...a war of Pakistan against herself...and a ignominious defeat of Pakistan at her own hands. And ultimately, it became the greatest gift Gen.Musharraf could have given to his mother('s) land.

when successive PMs and Defense ministers of India has been repeatedly making huge noises of "proxy WAR" by Pakistan and were relentlessly issuing all those irresponsible "big bellicose" statements, do you think they were/are doing it to whip up "war hysteria" in India ? ...or to coerce Pakistan ?..NEVER ! they had been just playing to the world, to ensure that the world view of Kashmir as a mere "one-to-one land dispute" and a dangerous war-zone never changed....and it indeed never changed.

to summarize: the world has been viewing (all of) Kashmir as a disputed war-prone trouble spot. and India conducted itself very cautiously as to ensure that the world always maintained this view; and on top it, India could convincingly prove that the situation in Kashmir is so only as a RESULT of Pakistan's quest for land.

lets now analyze Pakistan's position and the options it had, in a retrospective mood.

Unlike India, Pakistan has never explicitly laid claims to Kashmir. All along it has been insisting - obviuosly because of the absence of any "evidence" in her favor - that the status of Kashmir was yet to be decided and that the Indian occupation of i-Kashmir was illegal. and Pakistan firmly believes that it has a very strong legal and moral case to prove that the Indian occupation of i-Kashmir is illegal. Perhaps rightly so, because the UN resolutions of 1948-50 apparently gives her a good basis to carry on with this conviction.

this Pakistani position gives the Kashmir problem one of its important features: that this is NOT a straight one-to-one land dispute between India and Pakistan, as the world has generally been conditioned to believe. instead, from the Pakistani point of view, the prime issue at dispute has been the legality of Indian occupation of i-Kashmir. And its objective has been to evict India from i-Kashmir, and a plebiscite to be conducted there, to decide the status of i-Kashmir. Look closely, and you will see that there is an element of inconsistency at the core between the Pakistani view and the world perception.

there were primarily two avenues for Pakistan to successfully influence the world opinion in her favour:

One, bridge the apparent inconsistency between the perceptions of herself and the world, thereby getting the world to pronounce that the Indian occupation of i-Kashmir was illegal. bringing the whole world to see the Pakistani viewpoint, especially in the face of Indian counter strategies would have been a herculean task. But not an impossible one. for example, Pakistan could have unilaterally conducted a "plebiscite" in p-Kashmir, and "proved" (do you get what i mean ?) that the people of Azad Kashmir had opted to be with Pakistan. That would have lent a decisive credibility to the Pakistani claim of the champion of Kashmiri "self-determination". That would also have increased the pressure on India to follow suit.

The second option would be to prove convincingly ("somehow", again!) that the war conditions existed because of "some" adverse fallout of the Indian "oppression" of innocent Kashmiris on herself. the emphasis should have been completely on "some adverse fallout" on itself. for a clearer understanding, think along the lines of the Indian position on the 1971 war: "they are butchering innocent people...and millions of refugees are pouring in here...that creates a tremendous strain on our economy...and we had to intervene somehow to save our economy...this war is the end RESULT of that...." Get the point ?

This option would have proved even more difficult than the first option, especially in the absence of any large scale inflow of refugees into Pakistan from i-Kashmir. (This is true even now). But the positive side would be that, this would have made the world voluntarily focus closely on Kashmir, and with a definitive anti-India outlook. What more Pakistan would need ?

Neither of these option would have been simple to carry out. analyze closely and you would realize that both of them are very hard but challenging propositions. pursuing either of these options would have involved very thorough understanding of the scope and the context of the problem, acute foresight, meticulous planning and very intelligent machinations. more important, both of the options would have required an independent and non-reactionary approach relative to India. The most disastrous things to do would have been to embark upon provocative military posturing and threatening confrontations with India. Sadly, for Pakistan, neither her rulers, nor the environment those rulers operated in, was cut out for that daunting task of outsmarting and outmaneovering the Indians.

Then there was this risky third option. To push India out of i-Kashmir "physically". This would involve carrying out persistent "violent campaign" in i-Kashmir, to the point that it becomes too costly for India to hold on to i-Kashmir any longer. This option involved a very comprehensive role for the military. Pursuing this option would be like walking on the razor's edge. There would be success, if the world community was convinced that the Indian occupation of i-Kashmir was illegal and the end-objective was just to evict India from i-Kashmir to pave way to implement UN resolutions. (This takes us back precisely to the first option above). If failed, this option had the risk of projecting Pakistan as a greedy land-grabber. Pakistan chose to follow this option, without bothering to satisfy the "essential pre-conditions", and failed miserably.

With a "we-are-no-less-than India" sort of reactionary approach, Pakistan gobbled up the deadly Indian bait: all bellicose statements made by Indian leaders were very "enthusiastically" echoed back. only much more vocally and with more venomously; all kinds of brave jehadic rhetoric were freely broadcasted. there were wars, then came the nuke tests, then kargil, then coup and more and more rhetoric spiced up with the slogan of Kashmiri self-determination etc. As if none of these things were not valuable gifts for the Indians, there was the explicit support of armed "freedom-fighters", with utter disregard for how the world perceived them.

and Pakistan played spectacularly into Indian hands, with the kind of precision she never displayed anywhere else. all along it had been sending signals to the world, may be even "unconsciously", that Kashmir is a "land dispute" and therefore a dangerous war-zone. precisely the same perception that India has so carefully been nurturing...and the world was absolutely convinced. once and for all.

View the US President Clinton's actions and words in the light of the above, and there would be no scope for any confusion and frenzied search for "favorable interpretations". The President has been merely expressing the perception the world has been carrying all along.

But this tendency to see a "tilt towards India" is really uncalled for. If this is not enough, attributing this "tilt" to the "Indian market" is a bigger joke. For the US, even a country like Singapore is a "good market". Not to speak of Pakistan. The question is, a market for what ?. That's for the Pakistanis to find out and market.

But for now the fact is that, Pakistan has made India stronger, by defeating herself. Pakistan has only herself to blame. And India's position vis-a-vis Kashmir is very strong now. much, much stronger than most Indians themselves would be ready to believe.

if today India commands "Let there be mediation!", there will be mediation tomorrow...

if today India commands "Let there be bilateral talks!", there will be bilateral talks tomorrow...

if today India commands "Let there UN resolutions of 48 go to hell!", there's where they'll go...

if today India commands "Let there be plebiscite!", there will be plebiscite... :)

India is safe UNTIL the international media adds "which India occupies illegally..." or "where India is involved in a brutal oppression..." when specifying Kashmir, instead of "...two wars already..."....

And India has only Pakistan to thank.