Out of the incredible richness of Indian culture rise two images that have immense idealistic power. One is a small bald-headed man in a dhoti and owlish wire glasses who symbolizes for millions around the world the power of peace and non-violence. The other is the Taj Mahal, which shimmers white in the quiet light of a full moon. It is one man’s physical expression of the strength of love.
The posturing and saber-rattling by both India and Pakistan mock the ideals of the former. Khaki camouflage cloth, a dirty shroud for the engines of war, may now besmirch the latter, hiding its whiteness, the very symbol of the purity for which it was built. "The Taj shines as far as 25 miles away and is especially visible on moonlit nights," said a tourism official in Agra last week. "It could become a target."
How overwhelmingly sad and poignant that is! Mahatma Gandhi would weep to see a symbol of love becoming a target rather than an inspiration.
Recent Western rhetoric in the "war on terrorism" may well be the petard on which both India and Pakistan hoist themselves. When a group of extremists attacked the Indian parliament and killed 14 people (including themselves) two weeks ago, India voiced the suspicion that they were Pakistanis. Now India claims to be at war against "state-sponsored terrorism," arguing that if the US was within its right to destroy the terrorists who attacked it, then India is within its right to destroy the terrorists who attacked New Delhi. What will happen if Pakistan adopts the same attitude with respect to Kashmir?
India seems not to have learned certain lessons from its own history. How can it claim to have the right to "teach Pakistan a lesson?" From where did it acquire such a right? Perhaps the Indian leadership is adopting the somewhat cynical approach that "history is not what happened, but what was written — usually by the winners." Are they desperate to "win" over the Kashmir issue, and then write history as they want it to be? This is where folly resides.
The certainty is that Kashmir is the problem for both India and Pakistan. To attempt resolution by the threat of war is unlikely to work. India is part of the global community. The last world superpower, the United States, sought a larger role in India well before Sept. 11. India is a major recipient of American investment and Delhi knows that largesse demands various kinds of return. America has bought influence with its generosity. It will not react kindly if threats, rather than responsible fairness, become the norm in regional politics.
India aspires to be a superpower in the region. That position incorporates the responsibility to exercise power with magnanimity and good intent. Threats and the desire to settle old scores — often from within the ranks of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s leadership — are a result of the inability of some elements to accept the partition of India in 1947. These very elements will in every way obstruct progress toward a peaceful solution of the problem.
It seems that India is combining two issues in a slightly unfocused attack. One is Pakistani-backed Kashmiri fighters and the other is the Pakistani state’s share in the intransigence that both sides are exhibiting over Kashmir. Both are high-profile issues and offer easy options for justifying protests and possible action. By using the justification of "the war on terrorism" to attack alleged training centers in Pakistan, India can flex its military muscle with the double bonus of going with the flow of anti-terrorist opinion and demonstrating the strength of its own military.
The muscle-flexing would certainly bolster the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party that currently leads the government and which is especially suspicious of Muslim Pakistan.
Key elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled for next month supply an extra incentive for the party to engage in some image building.
Does this, however, bring the resolution of the Kashmir problem any closer? Or does it simply increase the danger of India’s choosing some kind of retaliation? In the wake of the September attacks, India felt itself more self-consciously to be a superpower, but the attacks should have provided reasons for meaningful negotiation toward a mutually beneficial relationship with Pakistan.
The United States is in a position to assist both India and Pakistan, making use of its current fortuitous connections with both. These also provide the opportunity for a third party to separate the two issues — militant activity and territory — and apply pressure to both sides to focus distinctly on each issue.
Once the two have been separated, there is a possibility of Pakistan’s turning its attention to the extremists and India’s taking a less intransigent stand on Kashmir. There may well be deeper and subtler reasons than "terrorism," behind India’s flexing its military muscle. It is one of the oldest political tricks in the book — well-known to the ancients — to take public attention off internal problems. In addition, there are questionable motives behind the creation of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO), which widens police powers and has the effect of alienating Muslims and other minorities, yet at the same time does nothing for security. And what can possibly be gained by the rewriting and alleged "Talebanizing" of school history books by a ministry under the Hindu zealot, Murli Manohar Joshi? Proponents argue that the rewriting removes a secular bias; opponents say that it leaves out inconvenient truths and is biased toward Hinduism. Perhaps it is simply a case of history’s being written by the winners. In the same vein, what’s happening now might be a case of trying to manipulate events to determine Kashmir’s future.
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