Rethinking Plebiscite In Kashmir

re:#22 by godot
Even if Musharraf survives long enough to come to a lasting solution with ABV, the big question is: will the deal last after he is gone?
The person who takes over from Mushy is not obligated to respect the deal reached by Mushy with India. This is why Pak needs to institutionalise mechanisms of decision- making and respect of International agreements.
Sridhar

#re:26 by Romair
``Kashmir gets split into three pieces. Azad being officially a part of Pakistan. Jammu and Ladakh going to India, and the Valley being independent, in some manner.``
Is that the reason why India is busy finishing the fencing on the LOC. Surely, there is no urgency to it if India had already agreed in principle to the independence of the Valley.
I think LOC = I.B is the only possibility. Pak`s H and D has to be considered and blow softened so that this is more acceptable to the Pak Army and the mullahs.
Since when is Pak public`s opinion sought? Did Mushy seek their opinion when he staged a coup? The only deal in the offing is to let Pak army retain its power base but let democracy sprout in Pak. USA is pushing for this. Forget the valley. You guys are never going to see it. If you give me your e-mail address, i may send you some pix after i visit it in near future.
Sridhar

re: Ramblings of Chowk`s marshal
``The question is what is India willing to do to satisfy the wishes of the Kashmiris. Forcefully trying to control them has not worked. Is India willing to give a portion of them independence``
India is talking to Hurriyat. There is a popular govt of Mufti sayeed in place,which is addressing economic and other issues. Independence for Kashmiris is not on the card. I think Kashmiris will get substantial autonomy.

``India`s atut-ang stance...``
When India talks about Kashmir being its atoot-ang, it is talking of Indian and Pak held Kashmir. For India, converting LOC into I.B is a major concession.

``And If Vajpayee is a man of peace, I think he will agree to an independence of the Valley. Pakistanis will accept that. And I think Kashmiris will, as well``
Valley`s independence is not on the cards. Why did Mushy give up the UN resolution demand? The demand stipulates that plebescite be held to determine the wishes of the Kashmiri people. This was central to Pak`s demand for over 50 years.
Why did Mushy give up that demand? No doubt there was tremendous pressure from USA but plebescite demand was a non-starter under the present changed circumstances. Hurriyat is split, India is talking to the more popular Hurriyat leader, India is winning the war against jehadis from across the border and has been busy completing the fencing that will seal the LOC for ever. In this changed scenario, demand for plebescite made no sense. So, Mushy gave up the demand which was a non-starter. So, by virtue of dropping this demand, he has signalled his intention of going ahead with what is natural: conversion of LOC to I.B. If he were not giving up on the Valley, he would never give up a demand that had formed the basis of Kashmir policy for 50 years.


``Musharraf has played his cards well. I had suggested he would play them well, years ago (when many of the Chowk, ``intellegensia`` were jumping up and down on Pakistanis for supporting a dictator). Nobody from inside Pakistan is going to assassinate him, over Kashmir. He is generally quite popular in Pakistan (outside the very upper class groups and PPP feudals and maulvis). I think people will turn against him, if they think he completely sold out the Kashmiris, and left them in no man`s land. This will include the normal Pakistanis, and not just the maulvis.``

When you say: nobody from inside Pak is going to assasinate him, i feel like laughing. Do you even read the newspapers? Musharraf recently survived 2 assasination attempts. Care to tell us why he is being targeted if he is so popular? Obviously, some deal has been worked out between Pak and US and India is agreeable to it, otherwise ABV will not make the trip to Pak. Someone in the ``powerful army coterie`` is not happy with the deal. Hence, the assasination attempts.


``So, one statement from Vajpayee (similar to the one made by Musharraf) could change the future of the Sub-Continent. Will the Indians allow (or even encourage) him to make it? If not, then, in my opinion, all this talk about peace, from our Indian colleagues, is just an eyewash. Peace is always a comprimise. It can never be on one person`s terms.``
ABV cannot say things which are not popular in India. He cannot gift away the Valley. This will be a political suicide that will cost BJP the next election. So, you are allowed to dream on but the valley is going to stay with India. India will make peace with Pak on its own terms. This is what US is pushing for. This is the Geopolitical reality today. If you have not realized this, you have been sleeping all this time.
Sridhar

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Mushy was a blighter tough
Said them mullahs is freedom fighter stuff
Now Mush got them damn mullah on his tail
And Mush gotta let go the holy grail
Of President, Ataturk and General Alpha Male.

calling non-insistence on plebiscite a huge step or `` breathtakingly bold``are still premature.

While agreeing to the core of what Dr. PH says in his article, I also feel that the Pak Army often backs off for temporary gains and gets back to the original stand later. Kashmir issue is directly linked to the Army monopoly of Pakistan political body. Without this issue, the Army will have serious problems in holding power in Pakistan.
It is another debate as to why the army leeched on to the Kashmir issue in the first place. Now that it did, its complete internal set up and more importantly, mindset is geared towards showing lot of support for Kashmir militants.
What is happening now, notwithstanding the latest attempt on Musharaf`s life that the Army needs to show a lot of progress to the international community in establishing a civilian rule and its ability to resolve issues diplomatically rather than thru Jihadi.
Historically, India has signed only one agreement with any Military regime in Pakistan and that too was in 1966 when both countries signed Tashkent Agreement. All others agreements were signed by Civilians govts. in Pakistan. Recall that just before the Agra talks Musharaf become President from CEO. Indian Prime Minister found it difficult to have high-level talks with Pakistan Army chief at that time.
Recently, we saw that Musharaf govt. settled with MMA before the SAARK meeting to provide legitimacy to Musharaf before possibly some discussions and agreements with ABV, while the Indian PM is in Islamabad. Withdrawing from plebiscite demand should be looked into this perspective. If talks with Mr. ABV are not successful, Musharaf can always go back and deny ever saying any thing about plebiscite.
It does not seem likely that India and Pakistan would resolve the Kashmir issue in the next couple of months or years. International community expects both countries to show some progress in a civilian discourse for resolving issues and at a later stage developing better relations.
I think offer to set plebiscite demand aside for the time being is to provide some incentive to India and satisfy the International community that Pakistan too is willing to move forward in resolving issues between the two countries.
Any speculations beyond that and calling non-insistence on plebiscite a huge step or `` breathtakingly bold``are still premature.

Nothing here a sincere and honest indian could disagree with. In fact, I would go one step further that autonomy/azadi within the indian union be granted to kashmir valley (and relevant portions from Pakistan). An andorra-style administrative unit could also work. This was the legal promise given to the Maharaja of J&K and indians need to honor it.

Interestingly, there are similar compromise proposal being worked on with the Nagas. The suggestion is that Nagas be treated as ``Naga Indians`` -- somewhat special status and different from other indians.

The key to all of this is respecting indian security needs externally (i.e. in Pakistan) and internally within india greater self-confidence, economic growth and integration into the world economy. Without that we will remain mired in these crude nationalisms and disputes of the past.

Dr. Hoodbhoy,

As always right on the mark. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
But after the intransigence developed in india after kargil, other than LOC=IB, it would be difficult to sell anything else. You have been objective in delineating the Kashmir issue, but your objectivity perhaps is not shared by the majority in pakistan. Not just musharraf, but anyone else in his position would have been forced to reach the same conclusion. What`s pathetic is that anyone who replaces him(if his enemies succeed) will go through the same cycle of hard posturing then surrendering to the reality. During this hard posturing, majority pakistanis will again feel empowered and sing praises for his leader. Please go through the list of pakistani responses on chowk during the failed agra summit to realise what i`m saying.

Personally i think musharraf is in danger now more than ever after announcing his intentions on kashmir plebiscite. The snake which has been so lovingly reared in pakistan is trying to strike the owner himself. We can just hope for the sake of ksahmiris, indians and pakistanis that a deal is finally made that brings peace to the people finally and stops the bloodshed. Although, I`m sure this deal may be a bitter pill for many to swallow (especially the extremists in pakistan).
Adios

India does not need to do a damn thing.

India will agree to convert LOC=IB AFTER making sure certain adjustments are made on the LOC to PREVENT any further spontaneous, indegenous ``uprisings`` from recurring again. That, you can rest assured will INCREASE Indian territory in the Pir Panjal and the Kargil area.

But don`t expect this to happen any time soon. Unlike the Americans, we don`t believe Musharaff is a bulwark against anything. In fact, we believe he is the root cause of it so we will shed as many tears as Bush is shedding over Saddam if Mushy catches a jihadi bullet.

My New Year wish...

I would like to see a proper full fledged free for all in Pakistan between the Paki Army and the their devil spawns, the Jihadis. ;-)

nasah #37: ``if he really wants to survive the killers of Jihadi fundamentalism -- he must turn to the leaders of the two mainstream parties in Pakistan -- ``

The attempts of assasination on Musharraf have been from Al-Qaeda. Not from any Pakistani religious group. Al-Qaeda established its base with the Taliban. And the Taliban were created by Benazir Bhutto`s govt. Please read Burki`s article or Ahmad Rashid`s book Taliban.

Fazl-ur-Rahman had a senior foreign policy position with the Benazir Bhutto govt. Also, the Nawaz Sharif govt. was just about to pass the Shariah Bill, when the coup occured, and the bill luckily got thrown in the wastebasket. So BB and NS have never had the will power to take on anyone, including maulvis.

Even now they are in an alliance with the maulvis in the ARD.

So the leaders of the two mainstream parties have done more than their share to destroy Pakistan. I am not sure why you are interested in bringing them back in to destroy Pakistan furthur. Let them fight their corruption cases in Switzerland.

What Musharraf should do is turn to the two parties that these leaders belong to. And try to bring them into the fold. They were forced to hold internal elections, which they have never held before. And from what I have read, the new head of the PPP, Amin Fahim, was the first person who was offered the Prime Ministership of Pakistan, even though his party did not have the most seats.

I doubt Mr. Fahim would have deliberately given up the PMship of the country. No politician deliberately gives up power. However, BB is too scared to give up her control of PPP, and allow someone else to lead it. It is the only leverage she has in trying to get all her corruption cases dropped. So she refused to allow PPP to accept the PMship of the country, thereby relegating it to the sidelines.

PML(N) barely has any members left. All of them are in PML(Q). Only the die-hard NS supporters are left in it. All these PML(N) (and Q) guys supported Zia-ul-Haq to the fullest. Including Javed Hashmi, who was his minister (he should be released, but the guy is definitely not the poster-child of democracy). He was on the forefront of putting Najam Sethi in jail. So PML(N) is no longer a force. It cannot do anything.

The maulvis are a fraud also. They all supported Zia. And they have been the biggest opposer of this govt. Yet they have played their cards shrewdly. And have used their leverage to get the maximum gains. That is what politicians are supposed to do. They have been able to do this, becasue BB is holding her own party hostage.

The ideal situation, within the limited circumstances, in my opinion, would have been an alliance of PML(Q) with PPP in running the govt. With either a PPP or PML(Q) prime minister and a civilian Musharraf as a President. That was the first option tried. But BB cut it down, because it left her out of the loop. After that MMA was the only option left.

The problem with Pakistan is not that BB is not being let into Pakistani politics. There is actually nothing barring her from coming to Pakistan. She just has to face the courts for her crimes, so she is, herself, staying outside Pakistan, voluntarily. She has now been convincted by the Swiss court, as well. So it is beyond a doubt that she is a crook. If she loses her party`s lifetime leadership, also, then she will have no leverage in getting the cases dropped.

The problem with the PPP and Pakistan is that BB is still in politics. I am convinced that the day PPP gets out of the clutches of the Bhutto family, and becomes internally democratic, is the day the will start becoming a true force for democracy. Until then, they will only have mostly feudal votes.

The longer BB and NS stay out of Pakistan, the better. Their parties should be bigger than BB and NS. And the parties are still functioning in Pakistan. They would function a lot better if they weren`t remote controlled from abroad. The MMA is the only party that is not remote-controlled from abroad, and whose leaders do not have corruption cases against them, in any country. This is why it has gained so much of the political space in the country, even though Musharraf himself, has been anti-maulvi.

At the same tim, if BB retires from PPP, I think then the PPP will be able to reclaim this place from the maulvis. PPP`s outward progressive manifesto is probably the best option for Pakistan, in my opinion. However, the PPPs internal feudal dominance and heridatory leadership is a disaster for the country. It is even more dangerous than the maulvis.

PPP would be one of the first parties I would vote for, if its progressive urban leadership was allowed to run it. It would be one of the last parties I would vote for, if it remains the main representive of heridatory feudal leaders.

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sac

actually, it isn`t just outsourcing....romair`s disease is getting to you too now :)

* * * *

From India, genius on the cheap

New York Times, Monday, December 15, 2003

Stream of patent applications flows to U.S. tech companies

BANGALORE, India In clusters of modern low- and high-rise office buildings set amid acres of lush greenery here, thousands of engineers are hard at work, writing software for the latest telephones, designing next-generation microprocessors and developing wireless broadband technology that they hope will transform homes around the world.

The work of these engineers is generating significant amounts of intellectual property for American companies like Cisco Systems, General Electric, International Business Machines, Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments, whose various Indian units have filed more than 1,000 patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

A few applications, with patents already granted, date to the early 1990`s. But most of the applications from India have been filed in the last two years and still await decisions by the patent examiners just outside Washington.
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For U.S. technology companies, under pressure to generate quick breakthroughs and develop products while curbing costs, India`s big draw is its deep pool of well-educated but low-cost talent. The Indian research centers of Cisco and Motorola, for example, are now those companies` largest outside the United States.

While outsourcing lower-level technical tasks to India has been a practice of American industry for years, the U.S. technology titans` increasing reliance on Indian research-and-development operations is a relatively new and growing trend.

``In the process of getting low-end work done in India,`` said Chandra Srinivasan, chairman of the Indian unit of the consulting firm A.T. Kearney, ``multinationals discovered that there are not too many locations where they can find this abundance of superior talent at these kinds of costs.``

Nearly two decades ago, Texas Instruments became the first global technology company to set up a development operation in India, and the company has reaped the benefits in the form of 225 U.S. patents awarded to its Indian operation, most of them in the last few years.

It was the company`s Indian design center that made a central contribution to a chip Texas Instruments announced this month. That chip is one of the world`s fastest for converting analog signals, like the human voice, into digital signals that can be transmitted across computer networks.

Sammy Sana, managing director of Motorola India Electronics, said, ``Thirty percent of all software for Motorola`s latest phones is written in India.``

In a Bangalore plant for Intel, the world`s largest chipmaker, Ajith Prasad and 20 other engineers are designing and developing a set of chips that they hope will, within a few years, power new types of high-speed broadband wireless technology within the confines of a home or an office.

``This is technology of the future,`` Prasad said. ``Even the standards are still being written.`` Prasad`s team has filed six of the 60 U.S. patent applications from Intel`s India unit in the last 22 months. (Because patents can often take four or more years between filing and granting, no Intel India patents have yet been awarded.)

The Bangalore center`s rate of innovation compares favorably with that of Intel`s mature development centers in the United States, said Ketan Sampat, president of Intel Technology India, who holds six patents for his work in the United States.

``I`m doing exactly what I might have been doing if I worked for Intel in Santa Clara,`` Prasad said, referring to the company`s California headquarters. In the lobby of the high-rise building that houses hundreds of Intel engineers, Prasad`s photograph hangs on the ``Wall of Fame`` with pictures of a dozen other company engineers who have filed for patents from India.

Elsewhere in the building, one floor is out of bounds to other employees as a group of engineers works on a microprocessor chip scheduled for introduction in 2006. The 32-bit processor, designed entirely in Bangalore, is to have one billion transistors. (Intel`s Pentium 4, its most advanced 32-bit chip for desktop computers, has 55 million transistors).

India`s technology talent pool extends beyond software and chip development. In General Electric`s John F. Welch Technology Center, in a Bangalore suburb, 1,800 engineers with backgrounds in fields such as mechanical engineering and polymer science are at work on products as diverse as aircraft engines, power and transport systems, and plastics. They are part of a global GE research team that also has centers in Munich, Shanghai, and Schenectady, New York - all of which are able to collaborate via computer networks.

The growth of research-and-development opportunities for Indian engineers is helping to propel a repatriation wave of Indians who have been working in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

``First-rate talent is moving back and helping bridge cultures, bootstrap new work and build skill sets in organizations,`` said Vijay Anand, managing director of Sun Microsystems`s India Engineering Center in Bangalore.

According to India`s software trade body, the National Association of Software and Services Companies, about 5,000 technology professionals of Indian origin with more than five years of work experience have moved back to India from the United States in the last two years. These include professionals holding U.S. work visas and green cards, and even U.S. citizens.

Despite the spurt in research in India, some skeptics say the country is nowhere close to being a global electronic development hub in the way Taiwan is now a manufacturing center.

Sampat acknowledged, ``The ecosystem of design tools, silicon design, systems design, is not completely formed yet.``

For Anand of Sun Microsystems, it is mainly a perceptual issue.

``India has the talent and the infrastructure, but it has a branding problem,`` Anand said. ``It`s a matter of convincing the rest of the world to see India as large-scale and high-end.``