Fast on the heels of a new government in Maharashtra, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Monday said that Central Bureau of Investigation Judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya’s death should be re-investigated if there is a demand and need for it. Sharad Pawar said in an interview to a Marathi news channel, “If there is something in it [the demands], then maybe a re-investigation should be done.”

“I don’t know, I read in the paper in some articles, that there is a discussion among Maharashtra’s people to investigate in-depth [the death of Justice Loya],” said Pawar, adding that he had no detailed information about it.

“If there is a demand [for an investigation], then one should think about it – on what basis are they making this demand, what is the truth in it, this should be investigated. If there is something in it, then maybe a re-investigation should be done. If not, then it is not right to make baseless allegations on anyone either,” he said.

Judge Loya was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case at the time of his death, in which India’s home minister and BJP President Amit Shah was one of the accused. Serious question were raised on whether Loya’s death was natural after The Caravan published a report in November 2017, in which Loya’s family said the circumstances of his death were suspicious and that he had been under pressure to deliver a favourable judgement.

Immediate demands were raised for the Supreme Court to treat these concerns seriously.In July 2018, the apex court had dismissed a review petition seeking an investigation into Loya’s death. The court was hearing a plea filed by the Bombay Lawyers Association seeking a review of the top court’s April 19 judgement dismissing pleas for an independent inquiry into Judge Loya’s death.

In its April 2018 ruling, the top court said there was no reason to not believe the judicial officers who were present with Loya at the time of his death. It accused the petitioners of trying to “malign the judiciary” and called their petitions “scandalous and amounting to criminal contempt”.

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Serving an ultimatum to Devendra Fadnavis, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief SharadPawar asked him to focus on the government formation in Maharashtra, which has taken a backseat following a wrangle between the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena over ’50-50’ power sharing.

Speaking to CNN News 18, Pawar insisted that the government be formed before the Ayodhya verdict – the hearings for which concluded recently. He said, “Everyone knows what happened in Mumbai last time over Ayodhya”. “For a peaceful Maharashtra, a new government should be put in place.”

He was referring to the gruesome Bombay riots which took place 25 years ago in 1992, after the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. More than 900 lives were lost in the incident.

The BJP and Shiv Sena, for the past week have been embroiled in a prolonged battle, with the UddhavThackerey led party demanding the chief minister’s post after they dipped the BJP’s share with a striking performance in the elections.

The Sena on Thursday indicated that it had not given up its claim to the post of chief minister, saying that equal sharing of power must mean sharing of the top post as well. Adopting a harsh tone, it accused the BJP of enacting a “second act” of the “use and throw” policy while dealing with its ally.
After Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut met Pawar on Thursday, speculations were rife that the party could take the opposition’s support and settle for an alternative arrangement.

But, Pawar denied having a talk with Raut, while also confirming that his party would not support the BJP to enable a stable state government. He said, “The mandate in Maharashtra is not fractured. It is the responsibility of the BJP-Sena to form the government.”

Yet, he showed hos continued support for Sena citing that the BJP had promised to reach an understanding with its ally before the elections. He added, “BJP had said there will be an understanding on equal basis. This was prior to assembly elections. That statement shows what Sena has said has some truth.”
This year, BJP ended with fewer seats in the elections that it did in 2014. The Sena believes it deserves an equal timeshare in power, which means two-and-a-half years for a Chief Minister from each party.

As did Sanjay Raut on Twitter, Pawar too called Fadnavis ‘arrogant’ and ‘overconfident’. Also taking a dig at Union Home Minister Amit Shah he said he wasn’t sure if Shah was the Home Minister because he seemed to be working only for the BJP “full-time”.

Related:
Saffron Fades: Maharashtra State Elections 2019
VadaPav Stall to VidhanSabha: Meet Vinod Nikole, Maharashtra’s lone communist MLA
Uneventful Dance of Democracy
The Adivasi communist who made it to the Maha assembly
 
 

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Mumbai: Veteran Maharashtra politician Sharad Pawar lobbied Prime Minister Narendra Modi to defang the National Green Tribunal (NGT) after the tribunal-imposed damages of at least Rs 105 crore on Goel Ganga Developers (India) Pvt. Ltd, a Pune-based real estate company, Huffington Post in its exclusive story reported.
 
The damages were imposed for violating environmental laws, and to undo the environmental destruction caused when the company expanded the scope of a residential and commercial construction project beyond what was allowed in its environmental clearance, official documents accessed by HuffPost India reveal.
 
The documents show Pawar’s efforts began in October 2016, and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) took his lobbying efforts seriously.
 
The PMO told the Environment Ministry and the Finance Ministry to gather inputs and prepare comments within five days, the documents show. The environment ministry’s internal communication shows its officials treated the matter as a “priority.”
 
The following year, in March 2017, the Modi government gave itself wide-ranging powers to appoint and dismiss members of the NGT by making changes to the NGT Act. These legally questionable changes were subsequently stayed by the Supreme Court in mid-2018.
 
HuffPost India has previously reported how the PMO overturned a decade’s worth of environmental law to aid the real estate lobby and improve India’s rank on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index —only to be halted in its tracks by the NGT. One of the particular provisions detailed in this investigation was how the government sought to remove the real estate sector from the purview of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
 
One of the suggested amendments to the NGT Act made in an attached document to Pawar’s letter was to remove the residential building construction projects from the need to get consent to operate and consent to establish —both provisions found in air and water pollution laws. A demand which CREDAI had lobbied for as well, HuffPost reported.
 
But it is not only the real estate sector. A closer look shows the pattern of dilution of legal safeguards for the environment is much more broad-based in terms of sectors. And as HuffPost India reported in March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is personally overseeing this process. This may well be the reason why Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar felt confident enough to lobby against the NGT and in favour of a builder with the Prime Minister himself.  
 
Read the full article on HuffPost here.
 

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Post-Kargil, imported mujahideen are pedalling a Talibanised Islam in the Valley. And succeeding in good measure, thanks to the unholy nexus between the BJP-led government at the Centre and an unscrupulous National Conference in the state

There has been a significant change not only in character of the movement but in the mood of  the Kashmiri people post argil. The reason for this is the even deeper and greater sense of alienation and outright bitterness among the local people – in the Valley, in Jammu and in Ladakh. As far as militancy is concerned, there has been a sharp decline in the Kashmiri-speaking people component among the militants. 
 

The actions of the militants, too, signal this sharp shift. Earlier, the victims of militants used to be civilians — soft targets. There used to be harassment and extortion of the local population. This has stopped. Today, post-Kargil, the attacks are directly on the army and BSF headquarters. 
 

The militant activities are more dare devilish, more direct, more desperate in a way. A group has emerged that calls itself Fidayeen (Lovers of God). Unlike the activities of earlier militant groups, their targets are not civilians but the army and security forces. There is now no extortion from the local
population, distinct attempts are being made to ingratiate them and win their sympathy.
 

The Kashmiri movement has, as a result, and very unfortunately, been virtually taken over by outsiders. The Jamaat-e-Islami has never had any faith in the Kashmiri brand of a more liberal Islam. A more standardised version of Islam is being offered to the local population that is completely out of sync with the region, with Kashmiriyat, a characteristic that typified the movement before.
 

This weakness of the Kashmiri movement that is fast-losing its Kashmiri identity — and, for this a variety of factors are responsible — is more than compensated on the other side. RSS and even more extreme brands of Hindu nationalism are gaining currency among Hindus in Jammu, as elsewhere in the country. 
 

What are the factors responsible for this hardening of position on both sides? The sham of the recent elections is one of the most significant contributory factors. It is a sorry tale for any country that is proud to call itself a democracy. Elections were far from free. Official figures themselves reveal a fast-declining rate of voter participation, not only among Kashmiri Muslims, but also Pandit migrants and Jammu Hindus. What does this signify but increasing alienation?
 

In its report published on October 6, 1999, The Times of India revealed that the opinion expressed by me on the recently conducted elections in the state were shared by a team of four IAS officers sent as independent observers to the state. I quote from their report: “Elections were neither free nor fair but full of violence. The electorate was coerced by the security forces to vote. The presiding officer at several polling booths corroborated the charges of coercion made by the voters. The observers found even minors in the queue and several mobile voters”. 
 

The observers saw matadors carrying women voters. They intercepted these matadors. The four senior IAS officers made a demand to the EC to countermand the elections. These demands were not even considered by the EC, while in states like Bihar and elsewhere, more prompt action was taken. 

There has been a significant change in the character of the movement in Kashmir with the presence of a militant outfit like Fidayeen (Lovers of God). The actions of the militants are more sympathetic to the locals and are targeting the Indian security forces

The conduct of the election commissioner (GV Krishnamurthy) on a visit to the state was blatantly partisan, when he commented that the “conducting of the elections was the answer to militancy.” The EC would have performed a far more signal and patriotic service to Kashmiris, residents of Jammu and
the whole country if he had simply concentrated on ensuring that the conduct of the elections was ‘genuinely free and fair’.
 

The boycott call by militants and a heavy presence of the military has been a constant factor in the state since the 1996 elections. How come then, that given these constants in the last three elections, there has been such a sharp decline in voting percentages this time? 
 

Look at the official figures. During the 1996 parliamentary elections, in the Srinagar city segment, 35 per cent of the electorate voted; this was down to 30 per cent in 1998 and touched an all-time low of 12 per cent in 1999. The story is similar for Anantnag. In  1996, 50 per cent of the voters came out; in 1998, this was down to 28 per cent; but in 1999 the voting percentage dropped to 14 per cent. In Baramulla, while 41 per cent of the voters came out to cast their vote in 1996; the turnout was the same in 1998, but this time it plummeted to 27 per cent.     If one goes into further detail and scrutinises figures for the Srinagar segment that has recorded 12 per cent of voters, we see that the Charar-e-Sharif and Badgaon segments recorded 45.50 and 45 per cent of voting respectively while Srinagar city registered barely 3–5 per cent votes. The extent of voter disillusionment or alienation can well be gauged from these statistics. 
 

Jammu and Kashmir also recorded the highest rates of invalid votes anywhere in the country; EC statistics tell us there were 9-12 per cent invalid votes in the state. It is worth analysing the factors responsible for such a low voting percentage and high rate of invalid votes in the state. 
 

As stated before, the boycott call by militants, the heavy and obtrusive army presence, the acute disillusionment of the Kashmiri people over the Kargil episode were the main factors. 
 

But an additional factor was the acute disillusionment of the Hindu migrant voters in the Valley and Hindu Pandits in the Jammu region with the BJP. This is evident from the number of Pandits who voted for the BJP. The BJP vote in the Jammu-Poonch region fell from 7,90,000 in 1998 to 2,90,000 this time. This means that only one-third of Pandit voters who supported the BJP last time extended their support to the same party this time. In Udhampur, too, the Pandit vote for the BJP declined from 5,23,000 votes in 1998 down to 1,94,000 this year. 

If there is such a sharp decline of votes within one year, from a particular segment with a particular party, what does it show? Obviously that, completely disillusioned with the BJP, which is also the ruling party at the Centre, Pandits have turned away from it. The BJP has led them up the garden path with false promises.
 

In the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, the percentage of Muslim voters is high. Within the Jammu region, too, 30 per cent of the electorate is Muslim.
 

With an open alliance between the BJP and NC, is it really believable that seats with a high domination of Muslim voters would so willingly back the NC’s collaboration with the BJP? There is hardly a constituency anywhere in India where Muslim votes are sizeable in number and where they have wholeheartedly supported the BJP. So, it is hardly believable that they would do so in Jammu and Kashmir.

The disillusioned local population, both Muslim and Hindu, were looking for an alternative, a secular outlet to channelise their protest against the unholy nexus between the BJP and the National Conference
 

In short, both the Hindus and Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir are completely disillusioned with the ruling parties — the National Conference and the BJP.
 

There was blatant coercion of voters at the voting stage and subsequent manipulation of the results. My opinion is corroborated by EC observer’s report. 
 

In the midst of all this, secular parties, particularly the main opposition party, the Congress, that had converted secularism into a mantra all over the country, was conspicuous in that it put up only a nominal fight in the state. Since nothing can be expected from the opportunistic politics and regime of Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference and the communal worldview of the BJP, secular forces within the country must take their share of blame for the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
 

Why did they betray the interests of Kashmiri Muslims, Jammu Hindus and the migrant Pandits living in the Valley? This is not what secularism is about. They had a wonderful opportunity during the last elections to intervene. They not only squandered an opportunity for themselves but have also compromised the national interest. The disillusioned local population, both Muslim and Hindu, were looking for an alternative, a secular outlet to channelise their protest against the unholy nexus between the BJP and the National Conference. 

The National Conference was a regional party which should have necessarily pitted itself against the insensitive and centrist politics of the Indian state. But, today, it has willingly been reduced to a mere tool of the BJP. It has completely lost the raison d’être of its existence. The Jammu Hindus, who were against Kashmiri Muslim domination, had under certain circumstances arising out of this, supported the BJP in the past. With the BJP shamefully allying with the NC, the raison d’être of this support, too, has also been completely eroded.

Given this state of a huge political vacuum and accumulated discontent what happens? Like I said before, it was the ideal situation for a secular formation with civil liberties, human rights perspective to intervene. 
 

In its absence, the local population has been pushed to the wall and a fresh lease of life has been given to militant activities. Without local support, no sophisticated weapons, no armed training can help militants succeed in any region.
 

This choice has, in my opinion at least, been forced on both the Kashmiri people and the people of Jammu. In 1996, when Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference came before the people, despite his past record, the people were willing to give him another chance. But over the past three years, his rule has been the worst ever, extremely corrupt, allowing no avenues or channels of protest.
 

All this must be seen in the context of heightened ‘national’ and ‘patriotic’ interest on the territory of the state during the Kargil conflict. The earlier ‘conviction’ and ‘assertion’ of the Indian authorities that, after Kargil, militancy would collapse has been disproved comprehensively.
 

Indian arrogance and insensitivity was manifest throughout the Kargil conflict?  The Indian media, most of it, swooped down on Kargil. But none mentioned the people of the state, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, where the war was being fought. Little mention was made then of the displaced persons either. This failure of the Indian media to even cursorily look at the plight of the Kashmiri people, with an ongoing struggle for democratic rights for decades, in my mind, constitutes a significant omission on the part of the Indian media. 
 

Conversely, there was a studied detachment among the local people at the war being waged. Unlike earlier occasions, there was no enthusiasm for the Indian army, throughout the operation, no donations for the jawans were collected, no blood banks held here. No state government ministers, with a few exceptions, even visited the front at the time.
 

I had made a special visit to Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee on this question. This visit was an attempt to apprise the Indian political leadership with the issues crucial to the people of the Valley, the Jammu region and Ladakh. The Shia Muslims who live in Kargil have a continuing disenchantment and discontent with Pakistan across the LOC, so even tactically it would have been wise of India to address their grievances. Though I was given assurances during my meeting with the Prime Minister, nothing has resulted.
 

The Indian government and the Indian people have consistently refused to address the grievances of the state. There is the struggle for Kashmiriyat. There has also been the expression of Jammu Hindus against Kashmiri Muslim domination. There has also been a movement for autonomy within the Ladakh region in which Kargil falls. 
 

For a month or so, things were silent after Kargil. The Pakistan-sponsored militancy movement remained silent. Local disillusionment with Pakistan, US and UN was also simmering. Pakistan had to do something to keep the movement alive. But what helped Pakistan significantly was the chief minister of the state, Farooq Abdullah’s coming out in open support of the BJP. At an RSS-sponsored function, he sang praises for the organisation and went to the extent of declaring that “the RSS is the most patriotic organisation”.
 

The political vacuum, the issue of acute discontent and disenchantment, during Kargil and post-Kargil especially at election-time, was unfortunately not addressed by any Indian political party, not even the so-called ‘secular’ Congress. 
 

The biggest betrayal of the state was in fact by the ‘secular’ Congress, as we can expect nothing from the BJP outside its self-declared divisive agenda. How interested the Congress party is in reflecting the genuine aspirations of the people of the state can be seen from the fact that the party had one member in Parliament and another in the Assembly. It got rid of both leaders, including Mufti Mohammed Sayeed just before the elections simply for suggesting dialogue with the militants. 

Has the party forgotten that during the last Congress government, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s cabinet colleague, Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi (then minister of state in the PM’s office), had, around 1995, offered unconditional talks with militants in Kashmir? How do political parties accept a resolution of the Kashmir issue without having such a dialogue?
 

If the government can talk to Naga leaders in Paris, and other people ‘without conditions’ why not in Kashmir? This was the issue on which Mufti Mohammed Sayeed felt let down and resigned, and the Congress put up a token fight during the recent elections in the state.
 

The failure of secular forces to give an adequate response to the ground-level reality in Jammu and Kashmir was most visible in the failure of established political parties and NGOs and civil liberties groups to campaign for Saifuddin Soz who stood as an independent. It was Soz’s single vote on which the BJP’s central government had fallen.
 

None of the national secular parties have raised a single voice against Farooq Abdullah’s support to the BJP. There has been not a word of disapproval for this open and unprincipled collaboration. The Congress goes to town criticising Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh for their individual “hobnobbing with the BJP”. But here is a leader who is openly allying with a communal force and there are no comments, no condemnations, no interventions from the top Congress leadership.
 

Former information and broadcasting minister, Pramod Mahajan was blatant about this cosy relationship before elections were held. On a visit to the state, when asked to comment on the prospects of the BJP-led NDA coming to power, he said that the “six seats from Jammu and Kashmir (all these are seats over which the National Conference had claim) are already in the NDA basket.”
 

How can we complain against the BJP and their agenda? Their agenda is clear and open, as is the Jamaat-e-Islami’s. But Farooq Abdullah’s open support to both these ideologies has been ignored and allowed to pass by secular parties. This is a great act of omission on their part.
 

There is every evidence of a serious comeback of militancy in the state. If militants can get at the very nerve centre of the Indian security system, the army, it means they are back. But what needs to be emphasised is that it is out of sheer desperation that local sentiments are being exploited like this. This is the only way they can express their resentment and that is why there is this silent but growing support for militant activities.
 

The political vacuum, if unaddressed, will be filled by extremists on both sides. The process has been assisted by lack of secular commitment on the part of Indians to the state. In Jammu, the BJP’s failure to meet the aspiration of the Hindu section of the population, will, soon give birth to outfits that are more extremist than the BJP even. 

The local Kashmiri leadership, too, is isolated and cannot be heard. Shabbir Shah is a leader who had projected a more tolerant ideology but whose voice was hardly heard in between. Soon after the recent elections, he and others were jailed by the National Conference without any charge. Why? 
 

Personally, I am not inspired by All-Party Hurriyat Conference, especially after they accepted the leadership of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who is openly pro-Pakistan. Yasin Mallik, who once showed so much potential as the young and daring leader of the secular JKLF, has also fallen in with the official Hurriyat line. None of these Kashmiri leaders, by the way, condemned Pakistan’s conduct during Kargil and that I think was a major failure on all their part. 
 

India is obsessed with blocking the Kashmir issue internationally, outwitting Pakistan etc. Why are we not concerned with trying to solve problems within our control? If we regard the people of the state as our own, why do we not espouse or display any desire to hear their legitimate grievances and thereafter attempt solutions?

I now fear the political eclipse and redundancy of saner voices such as mine in such a situation. Physically, too, I am vulnerable. So far, I have been able to communicate with both sides in the dispute. But with the complete shrinking of space for sane and secular dialogue, I fear that with hardening, extremist stances on both sides, I will lose my space completely. 
 

A far stronger figure, like Gandhiji, found himself redundant in 1947 and eliminated in 1948; what chances has a far smaller man like me under the circumstances?
 

Just like the RSS and the BJP have assumed the sole monopoly on the Indian point of view, the Kashmiri protest movement has increasingly been epitomised by a Pakistani Muslim fundamentalist flavour. On both sides, extremists have taken over. The military coup has not helped matters but generated further confusion.

A very stable and dangerous triangle has emerged after the last elections. 
 

The three points in the triangle are Farooq Abdullah, the BJP (driven by the extremist RSS) and the Hurriyat (now openly supported by a pro-Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami).  While the three points of this triangle appear to oppose each other, they are in fact supporting each other. Hindu communalism supports Muslim communalism and an opportunistic National Conference makes political gain for itself, crucially dependant as it is on both the extremes. No points ever threaten each other; they depend on the other for their own survival. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999, Year 7  No. 53, Cover Story 1

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The Dilli–Lahore goodwill  bus had been cruising  along comfortably — in the right direction if not at the desired speed. The reception which the most important passenger on that peace route — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee — received in February during his brief journey across the Wagah, and the response the visiting Pakistani cricket team got from spectators in India a little earlier — both when they won (Chennai) and when they lost (New Delhi) — made it evident that the Jamaat–e–Islami and the Bal Thackerays notwithstanding, amity was the prevailing mood on both sides of the divide. Who then is to be blamed for hijacking the peace process to the chilling Kargil heights?

When investigating a murder case, the first thing any crime investigation agency looks for is motive: Who stands to benefit? An analysis of how things have so quickly, and apparently inexplicably, degenerated from friendship talks to a ‘war–like’ situation can similarly benefit from asking the elementary question: Who benefits from the ominous developments on the border?

From the Indian ‘nationalistic’ perspective, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is the obvious villain of the piece. Why should Sharif invite Vajpayee to Lahore in February and then up the ante in less than 100 days? The explanation is that the Pakistani Prime Minister, embroiled into an increasing number of difficulties on the domestic front, badly needed a scapegoat to divert public attention. 

In early 1997, Nawaz Sharif was returned to power with a massive mandate. Barely two years later, his popularity is on a nosedive. Economically, Pakistan is in a shambles, forex reserves are down to a mere one billion dollars (as against India’s reserves of over 33 billion) and the Karachi Stock Exchange in an acute state of depression. 

Politically, there is increasing talk within the country today of Pakistan being a “failed state”. Sharif’s only response to the deepening crisis has been to damage or dismantle any institution that could act as a forum for the articulation of censure, dissent or mass discontent. The Pakistani Prime Minister has ensured that a person of his choice heads the army, the courts have virtually been turned into “handmaidens to the executive”, the free press is under constant assault, the country’s independent Human Rights Commission has been ordered to cease publishing its newsletter and a witch–hunt is now being conducted against all “anti–state” non–governmental organisations (NGOs). Not surprisingly, the highly influential Economist published from London has recently advised the World Bank not to bail out Pakistan since, with the institutions of democracy being attacked and undermined one after another, there will be little accountability left in Pakistani society.

In the face of mounting problems and criticism, inside Pakistan and globally, one option before the beleaguered Sharif was to do what U.S. President Bill Clinton, the former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and many other international leaders did to lift their sagging political fortune — raise the bogey of the external enemy, rouse nationalist fervour and rally people behind yourself. Fortuitously for Sharif, with only a caretaker government in charge in neighbouring New Delhi and with snow melting in the Himalayas, the political and natural climate was just right to play the Kashmir card.

In short, the easy answer to whodunnit question is, Nawaz Sharif.
But from the Pakistani ‘nationalistic’ perspective, the blame is to be heaped entirely on India’s door. Faced with a fresh challenge from ‘freedom fighters’, the Indian state has chosen to pretend it is dealing with Pakistani army–backed infiltrators. Besides, with elections round the corner, the BJP hopes to reap in extra votes by raising the Pakistan bogey. 

Until a few weeks ago, indications were that the outcome of the polls due in the next few months will not be very different from the results of the last Lok Sabha elections in held in early 1998. The BJP–led alliance was hoping to score over its main political rival, the Congress, by raising a hue and cry over the fact that the latter’s prime ministerial candidate is a foreigner by origin. However, there are two problems with the ‘foreigner card’: firstly, the result of recent opinion polls indicate that the electorate is not particularly perturbed with Sonia’s Italian origin; secondly, with Sharad Pawar having revolted on the same issue and with other potential constituents of the new Third Front in–the–making — Mulayam Singh Yadav (U.P.), Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra), Karnataka’s chief minister, J. H. Patel, segments of the Left Front — also bent on playing the same card, the BJP and its allies are unsure about how much dividend the ‘foreign card’ will yield. 

But an Italian–born Prime Minister at a time when the country faces a grave threat from across the border? Surely, the ‘nation in danger’ and ‘foreigner as PM’ mix makes for a much more potent cocktail?

Thus, theoretically speaking, irrespective of their present posturing, continued tension on the Kargil front suits the political needs of both Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Factually speaking, the U.S. and the British response to the Kargil crisis, as also reports in The New York Times and The Independent (London), indicate that they agree with India that Pakistan is the guilty party. Besides, India also claims to have conclusive proof, in the form of dead bodies of Pakistani soldiers, that what it is dealing with in the Himalayan heights is not ‘freedom fighters’ from Kashmir but infiltrators from across the border backed with equipment and personnel of the Pakistani armed forces. But nothing debunks the ‘freedom fighters’ thesis more than the fact that after a gap of nearly 10 years, Kashmir is overflowing with tourists from the rest of India. Surely, it is not guns in the hands of the Indian jawans that are keeping the houseboat owners on the Dal Lake from reaching for the tourists’ throats? 
Even if one assumes this to be the facts of the case, there remains a mystery on the Indian side on what is presently being passed off by different analysts and opposition parties as ‘intelligence failure’, ‘lack of co–ordination between the intelligence and the Indian armed forces’, ‘failure of the defence ministry and the Indian government’ to respond with alacrity to the security threat. Should not a more specific clarification be sought on the timing of the action initiated at Kargil, an action that (coincidentally?) suits the caretaker government facing an election better than resting on the laurels of a newly–initiated peace process? A point being made, in private, by several senior retired army personnel would support this contention: Pakistan’s crossing of the LOC in the Kargil heights is nothing new; what is new is the decision of the caretaker government to challenge the intrusion. 

The question, in other words, is: had the Vajpayee government not fallen in April leading to the imperative of fresh elections, would India and Pakistan still be talking peace, never mind the violations 18,000 feet above sea level?

We reproduce in the following pages an article by a senior journalist from Pakistan (See page 13) who argues that the need for an external enemy — India — is written into the very logic of the direction in which the Pakistani state is moving. On the Indian side, what the caretaker government’s game–plan is for now will become clearer as we get closer to the polls. But beyond the immediate, Teesta Setalvad’s article (see page 16) highlights the fact that in the continuing battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the people of Kashmir barely figure in the discourse on either side.     

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999, Year 6  No. 54, Cover Story 1

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