India and Pakistan – a Perpetual War: Decapitation vs. Capitulation

Are India and Pakistan at war? If we take a pragmatic view, then there has never been peace between the two nations. Does this translate into war? Should crossing the border, killing soldiers, infiltrating be treated as war during peacetime?

On January 8, the Pakistani army killed two Indian jawans, Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh and Lance-Naik Hemraj. It was made out to be as though they ambled across, fired at the two, beheaded one and took away the head as trophy or proof. But this wasn’t a random act. The mainstream media has largely been talking in terms of “giving them a bloody nose” whether it is stated explicitly or implied.

Combat across the Line of Control (LoC) where both countries are involved does not amount to “diversionary manoeuvre to push infiltrators into J&K”, especially if the Intelligence Bureau was aware of it.

Winters in Jammu and Kashmir were generally considered as downtime for infiltration, the snow making it difficult for such incursion. If the IB had tipped off the Army, why were there no adequate pre-emptive steps taken? This is where it gets interesting.

False peace

Pakistan has, expectedly, denied any such killings. But what has the Indian government done? It termed it “provocative action”. The Indian Army also called it “grave provocation”. If the ceasefire is not respected, it is beyond provocation. This is not some game.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid said: 

“I think it is important in the long term that what has happened should not be escalated…We have to be careful that forces ... attempting to derail all the good work that's been done towards normalisation (of relations) should not be successful.”

Who are these abstract forces that want to derail the peace process? Unlike in most countries that have a dispute, here peace is the Damocles Sword that hangs over the heads of India and Pakistan. It is ridiculously forced and caters primarily to the commercial and elite classes that gain points at seminars and encourage exchange of artistes to uphold a common heritage. If the heritage is common, why do we need clones?

Has any treaty been signed without ho-humming about the Kashmir issue? No. So, let us accept that the two governments are not interested in peace or a solution to Kashmir. We treat such casualties as collateral damage for a non-existent détente.

The two sides have taken position – away from the border – and ironically both are using the same excuse: non-state actors. This is particularly perplexing, for after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai India had categorically blamed the Pakistani government and finally its ‘non-state actor’ Ajmal Kasab was hanged to death. This time, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has suggested that the mastermind behind those attacks, Hafiz Saeed, was seen having a chat with people across the LoC and therefore the Lashkar-e-Toiba could well be responsible.

How, then, can we blame the Pakistani government for being in denial? If this is an act of terror, then no government will accept the blame, even if there is complicity and jihad training camps.

Besides, between different versions of truth and lies, facts become the casualties. According to a Reuters report: 

“The body of one of the soldiers was found mutilated in a forested area on the side controlled by India, Rajesh K. Kalia, spokesman for the Indian army's Northern Command, said. However, he denied Indian media reports that one body had been decapitated and another had its throat slit.”

The theory of provocation assumes that needling is part of our respective foreign policies.

Bollywood’s Killing Fields

Her life is pornography. Even as their bare bodies are entwined for a few minutes of pleasure, Mahi Arora is capturing the scene on her camera.

I know a wannabe Mahi from years ago. Strange hands splashed whipped cream in her cleavage, crawling higher and lower than needed, the movements robotic. There was awkwardness in her demeanour. I watched this helplessly at a photographer’s studio. The girl and I both rookies, our silences bought by fake dreams. She was a struggling actress and I was there to capture that struggle, write about it, take the message to the world. I felt like a lowlife. And when I did speak, the response hit me: “We are preparing her for the movies.”

This was foreplay where everyone wanted to be a part of what might be a success story. Kingmakers, rag makers stitching clothes so close to the skin that the needles poked into pores. 

***

The film Heroine has been panned by critics because it uses clichés. By turning away from clichés we often lose out on truth. It is superficial in parts because Bollywood is superficial.

The casting couch is a reality few want to accept even if they have made the mandatory visit to The Permanent Suite.  After the first time, it ceases to be about sex or even power. The “heroine ka rate-card” reveals how she is being degraded to fight for every endorsement, party invitation, paid guest appearance at some rich person’s wedding as the bride’s friend and not a celebrity. The diva is now a hanger-on, acting that part in real life so that she can retain the title of superstar.

I wept during the film not because Kareena Kapoor has torn every emotion to reveal shreds, but because I thought about whipped-cream Shanti. A name so common it had to be changed. It did not alter her destiny. Her foundation lay thick on the face, ending at the jawline, revealing another shade of neck. She was the tacky adornment in a few films that released in seedy cinema halls. Then, she disappeared.

I saw her a while ago at a televised award function. She was clapping away, her makeup a bit garish but not gauche, and a new body that she could afford to buy. Her rate-card had been made. She did not need to act anymore. Her applause was genuine. It was for a contemporary who had made it. She knew what their respective prices were. This was happiness projected.  

***

Every day brings a new story of desperate measures to seek attention. Some years ago when I read about a starlet’s tale of woe, I knew there was something amiss. She called up a newspaper office in an agitated state to talk about a photographer who was blackmailing her. She said, “The pictures were taken of me in a bathtub, but there was no indecent exposure. It’s no big deal, but I just felt they should not be published anywhere.”

So why was she making a big deal of it? If she believed that a picture in a bathtub did not constitute indecent exposure, then what was she worried about? Nobody pushed her into it. She had posed for them, some had been printed, and she had not objected at the time. The photographer would not gain much, for the supply of women in bathtubs exceeded the demand. But, by creating a buzz, she sent out a message to those who mattered – the filmmakers – that she had no qualms about posing in such a manner. She had to rescue her soap bubble existence.

It is not difficult to understand the extent people will go to in order to become automated products in phantom factories. It is a cruel world and they unknowingly make it even more cruel by sleeping with the nightmare. Often, the women hang on to men, sometimes to further their career or to portray themselves as a hit pair or to enhance self-esteem.

***

In Heroine a desperate Mahi, hands shakily holding cigarettes, liquor glasses, pills, eyes glazed with self-pity, is addicted to love. She clings to it and when she is tossed out like a squashed insect, its hair-like feet still writhing with life, she does not hesitate to use her private moments. She tells her PR agent to leak out the love-making clip with her star boyfriend. Had she captured it as a keepsake, or did she instinctively know that the only way to keep people was to be ready to risk losing them?

It happens with madams in brothels who were once prostitutes. They sting back at the new girls and the pimps with a mixture of benevolence and cunning. They are recreating their misery. The masochism psychologically scars them.

Heroine’s director Madhur Bhandarkar has created some caricatures. There is also pop psychology about people from broken homes and he is not as harsh on men. In a way, this works because the female star’s loneliness comes across more poignantly. She is leading an LSD existence, hallucinating about herself. Bollywood has amplified her persona, so when she sees it reduced in the bedroom or when her mouth tastes dust from the street, she internalises these as her own flaws. 

Clark Gable, who had a number of famous Hollywood stars as conquests, said he preferred prostitutes. “Because they go away and keep their mouths shut. The others stay around, want a bit of romance, movie lovemaking.”

He was expected to recreate in his bedroom what he had done under the arclights. That is the fantasy many of them begin to believe. And they try out various ruses on fading magic carpets.

Mahi, beaten and defeated, leaves for autumnal Europe where she can deny who she is. Is there really any escape? The Bollywood she was a part of thrives on killing identities. It is always synthetic spring here.

Published in Express Tribune, Sept 29

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Also an old post here: The Fedora in us 

The Hina Factor: Pakistan’s Wicked Ploy

Oops, you did it again! Krishna and Khar

This is Asif Ali Zardari’s shrewdest move. Sending Hina Rabbani Khar on what amounts to be the equivalent of cricket diplomacy. This is not meant to be a sexist comment. She pretty much sailed through the India test by fire even as Pakistani intellectuals and the media have been rubbishing her ever since she was appointed to the post.


What are the dynamics here? It seems impossible to disregard the references to what she wore, how she looked and spoke, and it is a tad stupid for well-traveled Indians to comment on her designer labels as though they are not exposed to these. If anything, they look a bit awestruck even as they seemingly reduce her to superficials. The Times of India decided to tread carefully and mentioned our foreign Minister S.M.Krishna’s necktie, as though it were mandatory to give him equal sartorial time.


Zardari’s victory is that he knew the attention would be diverted from important issues although he had said that giving a 34-year-old with little experience the plum assignment was “a demonstration of the government's commitment to bring women into the mainstream of national life". There is no contradiction in his mind that the mainstream is the elite. He is sending out a few messages here: our societies are obsessed with the façade of economic progress, so let us dress the part even if we are dependent on foreign aid. A report had said that Richard Holbrooke was keen that she was given more responsibility. As foreign affairs minister she does not need to know what happens in the bastis. Does Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, know? She has to convey Pakistan’s intentions, which is an easy job to do because India already knows it. As she said in a television interview, when questioned about her meeting with the Hurriyat leaders before her official itinerary, that this was the “stated position of Pakistan”.


Rather smartly, she also took the age issue head-on and said it was a matter of how one sees it. She has been an elected MP and served two terms as junior minister that helped her “learn on the job”. This sounds like a simple statement. Think about it, though. The head of our government is not elected; the woman running this country has no experience; the youth leader has been learning on the job for years now with the added advantage of dynasty. If we decide to look into our own backyard, Ms. Khar’s debut would appear like quite a masterstroke.


So, what is it about her that has riled Pakistanis? A former envoy, Zafar Hilaly, had been dismissive: "Asif Ali Zardari clearly does not want a heavyweight in the job. Hina will play the role and say her piece; but I don't think anyone is expecting anything significant from her."


He should know that no minister can do anything significant with India. We have been playing a carrot-and-stick game for years and will continue to do so. All paperwork, statements and dossiers will be cosmetic offers.


There are derisive put-downs that she is just a rich spoilt woman from a feudal family. This comes from the media; most of the owners and editors are rather well-off and have other businesses and most certainly give the time of day to social butterflies. In fact, some noted writers have made a career of carousing for the Chanel chicks. They seem to have forgotten that none of their prominent leaders has been a grassroots person. Zardari is himself a greenhorn with a shady history. What about Benazir Bhutto? What was her experience except to belong to a political family? Jemima Khan had dismissed her  as "The Kleptocrat in an Hermes scarf" (my rejoinder was here), completely forgetting her own posh Goldsmith girl days. What is Imran Khan’s experience that some people think he’d, be a great prime minister? One will not question the political experience of military leaders because they rule either by coup or from the coop.


Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy added some perspective but a bit harshly: “In a male dominated culture, she will be derided as no more than a pretty face. This would be true even if she was hard-as-nails and an exemplary negotiator. She will also be the object of jealousy within the PPP, where sycophants know that the boss decides and suck up to him. How forcefully Khar is able to present Pakistan's position as foreign minister remains to be seen. Although she was selected for her docility rather than bold originality, there could always be surprises."


How many Pakistanis, forget politicians, have expressed a position that is boldly original on matters of foreign policy? Any national psyche makes it incumbent for people to believe in certain aspects; much of it is inherited baggage. If she is to push Pakistan’s position, that too with regard to India, how can she be original?


Before her visit, a report had quoted an unnamed observer who said, “It is well-known that Pakistan's foreign policy is in the hands of agencies, not the foreign minister or even the President. Hina will have a tough time proving that she is not just a puppet. I don't think anyone is going to forget that her roots go back to the Musharraf administration."


This goes in her favour. Pervez Musharraf conducted the biggest PR exercise in India during the Agra Summit although it ended rather badly. He became a martyred hero, so the connection is her silent trump card. Again Zardari, who it is suspected could get close to Musharraf again in one of those opportunistic alliances that his father-in-law was so adept at, has played his cards well.


And for those who are talking about maintaining the status quo, that is what Indo-Pak relations are about. That or months of sulking. The outcome is, as expected, simplistic. India and Pakistan have agreed “on the need to strengthen cooperation on counter-terrorism including among relevant departments as well as agencies to bring those responsible for terror crimes to justice”. This is worth a yawn although it gives sufficient grist for several yarns.


The confidence building measures (CBMs) will be another Samjhauta – compromise. You take some missiles out of the way, but that does not prevent the threat perception and the real threat. It is not about whether either country decides to attack, but how much it feels the need to defend itself. This is never overtly at the government level. We have coined the phrase “non-state actors” just to make sure that foreign ministers can “agree” without having a clue as to what is happening behind their backs. The intelligence agencies have to deal with the headache, unless they are the headache.


The Line of Control will now be accessible for travel and trade. Is this a big leap forward when the economies of both sides of Kashmir are not really bullish? As regards travel, residents of Kashmir are anyway given visas more easily.


In general terms, trade opening acts as one more people-to-people initiative.


By far her entertaining the Hurriyat leaders at the Pakistani High Commission before meeting our foreign minister  - while deemed undiplomatic and a kick to protocol - was her real moment. Tutored she was, but she made it seem like the most natural thing to do. India and Pakistan are just two nations. Emphasise Kashmir and you sit on the TNT bomb. To keep it simmering has proved to be the most lucrative aspect of Indo-Pak politics. CBMs are just loose change.


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Also published in Countercurrents

They don’t have terrorists in Norway?

He is just a killer. Got it? No? Don’t you read the papers, watch the news, listen to the experts? Heck, don’t you see that Muslim organisations are so accustomed to being taken for granted that they jump in claiming that they did it. Ah, one more terrorist attack. But Norway? Why not? There are Muslims there and somewhere in Islam Norway too must have been mentioned. It did not work. This time someone was scoring points. That is what it is made out to be when a nice blond, clean-shaven guy in cop/military uniform, confesses.

He is not called a terrorist, no blanket judgement yet. Even as radical, he has his reasons – he is anti-Islam. He wreaked this terrorist attack to draw world attention to the end of multiculturalism. The New York Times had this precious nugget:

“Yet, some of the primary motivations cited by the suspect in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, are now mainstream issues. Mrs. Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain all recently declared an end to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism “has failed, utterly failed,” Mrs. Merkel told fellow Christian Democrats last October, though stressing that immigrants were welcome in Germany.”

Is this not great? The bloke is now supposedly speaking or echoing the views of world leaders and the international media is going along with it?

The fact that he is seen to have acted alone puts him in the romanticised category of the lone ranger. He has himself said about how it was all “in the head”. They might just analyse it as mental trauma due to seeing so many immigrants around; maybe he suffered from claustrophobia; perhaps he was just playing some video games and decided to re-enact those scenes in real life. It would be attributed to madness. I would like to know why other sorts of such attacks are not. Because, they are not. They are planned and always have a purpose. There is, therefore, no reason to give him the benefit of doubt and to put him on a psychiatric couch only because he was alone. He has already displayed enough gall to declare that he wants to explain his stand. Explain the killing of a hundred people? He also wants to appear in uniform for the court hearings.

I am afraid but all this adds to the ‘heroism’. It won’t be stated in so many words, yet the subtext is clear. In a rather surprising statement quoted in the NYT piece, Joerg Forbrig, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin who has studied far-rights issues, said:

“I’m not surprised when things like the bombing in Norway happen, because you will always find people who feel more radical means are necessary. It literally is something that can happen in a number of places and there are broader problems behind it.”

Stunningly simplistic. “More radical means are necessary”? So says the Al Qaeda too, but they are not given this Prozac kind of treatment. “Broader problems behind it”? Sure. While radical Islamists train and prune everything, except their beards, they could have broader problems as well – like their countries being decimated by powers that have no business to be on their land in the first place, and every person being considered a suspect if s/he is a Muslim, and their clothes and lifestyle being questioned.

Had this terrorist – yes, do use this term – been wearing a hijaab would it be seen as concern over multiculturalism? After all, when westerners go bang-bang and bomb-bomb in Iraq and Afghanistan, those places are superimposed by another culture and a fascist regime that seeks puppets to play with. Multiculturalism is not only about one nation deciding who the bad ones are, if they have granted them visas and they are working and in many ways contributing. If they are criminals, treat them as just that. Not as terror suspects. That does not happen. The chap at the pharmacy could well be a terrorist and if he takes an afternoon break for prayers, then he has had it. The teacher who wears a hijaab could be smuggling in Islamic literature for the bright kids who will soon turn into terrorists. Europe and America cannot take such risks.

We will forget the evangelists, the guys who burn the Quran, the people who say god told them to do it, the guys who move away if they see a person who does not look like them. Oh, they love chicken tikka and now vegetable jalfrezi. The curry kingdom was great till it lasted. Now it is time to just take the recipe and make it very clear who the boss is. As though it is not evident. As though it were any different when they ‘got Saddam’, they ‘got Osama’.

Breivik’s terrorism is as bad as any other is, so let us stop making excuses. The immigrant problem is there and must be dealt with by the relevant department. Neo-Nazi groups have been active long before 9/11. The new xenophobia has got a pedestal.


I also have problems with questions about how Muslims must integrate into societies they adopt as home. It brings the idea of globalisation down to a convenient ghetto. It is like Wall Street where you can get bullish and wager over funds the world over sitting at a desk. A closed group. You go to Muslim societies and Westerners work there and make no change in their lifestyle. They are immigrants in Middle-East countries that clearly call themselves Islamic and have never pretended otherwise. There is talk about how people cannot wear bikinis and I have maintained that a bikini is not a dress, not even casual smart. It is meant for the beach and beaches in those countries do permit people to wear what they want.

This is a digression because multiculturalism has different meanings. The West has always promoted itself as such a haven, a melting pot. It appears to be a simmering pot where discontent is now being given a more aggressive form. It is done slyly, as a protective garb.

Breivik’s “individual capacity” act is one such manoeuvre. This is what he had written before going on the killing spree about how he will be portrayal in the media after the act:

"However, since I manifest their worst nightmare (systematical and organized executions of multiculturalist traitors), they will probably just give me the full propaganda rape package and propagate the following accusations: pedophile, engaged in incest activities, homosexual, psycho, ADHD, thief, non-educated, inbred, maniac, insane, monster etc. I will be labeled as the biggest (Nazi-)monster ever witnessed since WW2."

He gets points for getting the media down pat. It has stopped being a kangaroo court; it is now all about pop psychology.

Those people who died and their families do not know why this happened. Do they agree with him? I won’t be surprised if days later some adept media person will land up at their doorstep and get an ‘understanding’ version of the misguided soul who was disturbed by what the world was turning into because their jobs and lives were at stake. He was frightened, do you understand?

And you will see images of Islamic terror more than this act. There will be great editing. Shots of Norwegians weeping. Cut to some bombing by Islamist groups.

Who will this help? Both. The West in its endeavour to keep the ‘war on terror’ iron hot. And the radical Islamic groups who are so gung-ho about their role that the media attention will in fact help them by default. They did not do it, but they could. They always can.

Neither will realise that the world is not about them, but about people who are just living their lives.

(c) Farzana Versey

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Published in Countercurrents

Surely They’re Joking, Mr. Fai! Kashmir’s American Counsel?

At the Kashmir border

Surely They’re Joking, Mr. Fai! 
Kashmir’s American Counsel? 
by Farzana Versey
Counterpunch, July 22-24

The fact that there is an element of surprise over Ghulam Nabi Fai’s arrest after the FBI exposed his connections to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) reveals that this was probably a sudden brainwave.

The allegation is that Mr. Fai’s Kashmir American Council (KAC) was illegally funded by the ISI to exert influence on the US Congress to swing the Kashmir debate in Pakistan’s favour.

Did the ISI do it? Possible. Did Mr. Fai use this money? Possible. Was the FBI unaware about it all these years? Not possible.

There are a few important aspects to this development:

1.       The FBI keeps track of all funds, so why was it quiet all along? KAC is not an underground movement. It puts up petitions; it has a Google groups forum; there is a Facebook page of its affiliates; its conferences are held in university halls and invitation is free. Often dinner is served.

The huge amount of money discovered should prompt the FBI to question the recipients and investigate as to how it has impacted on US policy. Instead, the focus is almost entirely on the Fai-ISI link. Is it possible to forget that the ISI virtually runs Pakistan and that Pakistan is also the beneficiary of American funds? Ergo, the ISI is by default propped up by the US financially and, given the strategic political dynamics, on the ground too. The ISI is nobody’s fool to depend on a Kashmiri organisation in the US to lobby for Pakistan’s interests in the Valley when it already has its people in the region with help from the Lashkar-e-Taiyba and other forces, including a faction of the local Hurriyat Conference.

This is not a simple case of getting the bad guy. It is about creating one more bad guy, and this is notwithstanding Fai’s role in the larger Kashmir issue and sponsorship.

2.       Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just visited India and set the tone for Indo-US relations. However, the dog-and-bone attitude continues with an emphasis on American interest and interests in Pakistan. There is most definitely an attempt to influence the talks between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan scheduled for July 27.

3.       The proposed US move out of Afghanistan would necessitate having some presence in the region. In fact, after the Clinton meeting, India’s Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said, “We have impressed on the United States and other countries who have a major presence in Afghanistan that it is necessary for them to continue in Afghanistan.”

Pakistan is handy for some sado-masochism. Recently, there were video clips in the media of the Taliban killing Pakistani soldiers, in a reversed version of Gitmo.

4.        Osama Bin Laden’s killing is being regurgitated on a tangential topic by implying yet again that Pakistani intelligence agencies knew about his abode. There have been arrests that seem suspiciously like red herrings.

5.       David Headley is deposing before the courts in the US and providing details of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Headley’s departure from the US to India is a major goof-up by security forces in that country as well as the Indian embassy. His implicating the ISI would surprise no one except the US in its studied ‘naïve’ state. It is pertinent that Ms. Clinton mentioned these attacks (with only a cursory sympathetic reference to the recent Mumbai attacks only days before she arrived). This is much like Headley who wanted to fight for Kashmir, but ended up taking pictures of Mumbai’s landmarks to help his ‘handlers’.

6.       One is aware of the ISI’s crucial strategic role in Pakistan. But, how does the FBI function in the US? Does it push the agenda of the party in power? If so, then its bolt from the blue could be another means to assist the current government in the coming elections.

The major beneficiary of Mr. Fai’s political contributions seems to be Republican Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana. This has been going on for 15 years. For 15 years the FBI has managed to trace the $23,500 contribution to US lawmakers that is legally available with the Federal Election Commission. What made the FBI now want to dig into the over $ 4 million that was illegally brought in?

If indeed it is true, then the onus ought to be on the security agencies and those who were expected to lobby for the Kashmir cause.  There are murmurs that Fai is only a front. This is a convenient ruse. You have some evidence, claim other evidence, arrest the man based on these and then leave a small opening for the bigger fish, well aware that the bigger fish are not born that way but plumped up artificially in diplomatic laboratories.

* * *

It is time to ask how exactly lobbying works and whether the United States can take an ethical stand when it is open to such influencing.

The political action committee (PAC) is a blatant forum to ensure that groups can help political candidates and parties, which in turn promise to assist them. Contributors range from real estate agencies, insurance companies, defense contractors and oil companies. There are also special interest groups based on race, gender, nationality, and religion too. In less developed societies this might be deemed as bribery. Legalising it makes the process transparent only to a small extent. If KAC has really managed to get in the millions of dollars illegally, then it suggests that there are loopholes in the system.

Fai in a soup

However, does this ensure that the lobbying group will truly benefit? Mr. Fai was a US citizen; he organised conferences as many do. There was one held on February 2011 and the list of speakers included Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Norwegian Member of Parliament Peter S. Gitmark, author and South Asia Analyst Victoria Schofield, Pakistani envoy Husain Haqqani. The others listed as “invited” were the Indian ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, Chinese ambassador Zhang Yesui and US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Jr.

Rather curiously, reports have made it sound ominous by stating, “Another group which has come under the lens is Indian liberals and so-called bleeding hearts who accepted Fai’s and KAC’s hospitality to attend conferences in US on the Kashmir issue…” The liberals go on junkets for several causes, including plane rides with ministers of the ruling party or the opposition depending on their agenda or that of the organisation they represent. This includes the media. Does their presence help the cause? What is their contribution in real terms?

A peripheral but telling aspect is how some Indians view the unfolding of this episode. A Hindutva group functionary sent an email with an article from the Times of India appended with his comments. He writes, “First, the author calls those who have exposed the Indians (either citizens or those who are of Indian origin) as 'Indian hypernationalists and right-wingers' and 'hardline nationalist'.  However, those Indians who attended the seminars organized by the Pakistan's ISI sponsored front as 'liberals', instead of traitors.  Clearly he wants to prejudice the minds of the readers.  But, you cannot hide the truth. The Indians who were invited to the various programmes were obviously those who would be taking an anti-India position, and not ones who would project a holistic picture.  It is absolutely necessary to expose those Indians who attended these programmes.  Actually, they themselves should come forward and identify themselves.”

There is nothing secret about this. As mentioned earlier, the KAC’s activities were open. While the person is quick to label those attending such conferences as traitors based on the implication of the ISI role in the council, he assumes they would take an anti-India stand. One must remember that there are several influential Hindutva groups too in the US. There are Jewish lobbies.

Since I was never invited, let me add that it is more important to first find out whether anyone has managed to score points for Pakistan on the Kashmir debate and how much it can change the ground realities. The US is interested in counter-terrorism that affects it directly. Has it ever spoken about lives lost in the state – civilian and military?

On what grounds can the US plan to question Kashmiri separatists when they were given visas to travel for seminars that were in the public domain? Should it not look into its own backyard and see how and why anyone can lobby for positions that it claims to be chary of?

Pakistan has, naturally, denied any role. What is the Indian position? If it cannot take a stand regarding a person of Indian origin only because he is Kashmiri, then it only reiterates the attitude of disenchantment that people in the Valley suffer from.

In November last year Ghulam Nabi Fai had written:

“Once again, Kashmir is giving proof that it is not going to compromise, far less abandon, its demand for Azaadi (freedom) which is its birthright and for which it has paid a price in blood and suffering which has not been exacted from any other people of the South Asian subcontinent. Compared to the sacrifice Kashmir has had to endure, India and Pakistan themselves gained their freedom through a highly civilized process. That is a most poignant truth. But even more bitterly ironical is the contrast between the complex and decades-long agony the Kashmir issue has caused to Kashmiris, to Pakistan and to India itself and the simple, rational measures that would be needed for its solution. No sleight of hand is required, no subtle concepts are to be deployed, and no ingenious deal needs to be struck between an Indian and a Pakistani leader with the endorsement of the more pliable Kashmiri figures. The time for subterfuges is gone. All that is needed is going back – yes, going back – to the point of agreement which historically existed beyond doubt between India and Pakistan and jointly resolving to retrieve it with such modifications as are necessitated by the passage of time.

“That point of agreement is the one India as well as Pakistan, each independently, brought to the United Nations Security Council when the Kashmir dispute was first internationalized. In fact, the Council itself took that point as the basis of the resolutions it later formulated.

“The point was one of inescapable principle- -- that the future status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be decided by the will of the people of the State as impartially ascertained in conditions free from coercion. The two elements of a peaceful settlement thus were, first, the demilitarization of the State (i.e. the withdrawal of the forces of both India and Pakistan) and a plebiscite supervised by the United Nations.

“With propositions of such clarity and character accepted, what room was left for the dispute to arise?”

Is this not the position taken by many political groups within Kashmir, by separatists, by the people?

It would be a pity if due to the ISI angle, the real issues will be pushed aside. America has the arsenal to deal with the ISI, but does it have the will? If Mr. Fai is a front, then why only name the ISI people and not the Congressmen who knew what they were expected to lobby for? Culpability in this case lies across the board. It is utterly ridiculous to make this sound like a terrorist plot when the monies have been traced and people of some stature have been consistently raising the Kashmir issue, not just abroad but at home.

And Kashmiris are not pawns of the United States of America that some official can pocket the money and decide its fate. 

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Also published in Countercurrents , July 24