The Hindu : Opinion / Editorials : Accusations that are over the top

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 21, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Accusations that are over the top

Atal Bihari Vajpayee's letter to the Prime Minister recording "apprehensions" about the "disturbing turn" the peace process with Pakistan has supposedly taken is the first evidence that the crisis within the Bharatiya Janata Party triggered by Mohammad Ali Jinnah's ghost is beginning to do collateral damage to the body politic. The BJP is evidently keen to demonstrate that in the wake of the `softening' of party chief Lal Krishna Advani towards Pakistan's founder, the Sangh Parivar can overcompensate for this, so to speak, by taking a `tough' line on Pakistan. The result is the parody of a protest that contradicts most of what Mr. Vajpayee said and did on the subject as Prime Minister. Whatever be the party's internal compulsions, the charge that the United Progressive Alliance Government is compromising India's Pakistan policy and "allowing Pakistan to slip out of the commitments" it made in January 2004 is over the top.

Mr. Vajpayee accuses the successor Government of converting the peace process into a "Kashmir-centric" one. The charge is wide of the mark, since, if anything, the issues being fast-tracked are Siachen, Sir Creek, and energy cooperation, including the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. The former Prime Minister cites "the growing demand for trilateral talks, `international guarantee' for [a] settlement and including [the] Hurriyat as a representative of the people of Kashmir" as proof that the "laboured achievements of the past few years" are being undone. He objects to the Hurriyat leaders being allowed to use the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus to travel to Pakistan without passports. No one can contend with a straight face that the recent visit of Hurriyat leaders to Pakistan advanced the cause of `trilateral talks' or `international mediation'; if anything, the visit demonstrated these leaders' desperate need for reality testing. They did, in fact, carry Indian passports that the Pakistani authorities chose not to stamp, a meaningless gesture of make-believe. Mr. Vajpayee would do well to study the thoughtful and forward-looking speech made by Mr. Advani to the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations, Economic Affairs and Law on June 5. There, even as the Hurriyat were in Islamabad, the BJP president declared: "Fiza zaroor badli hui hai, bahut badli hui hai" ("the atmosphere has definitely changed, it has changed a lot") in India-Pakistan relations. A few days before this, Mr. Advani said in Pakistan's capital: "I don't see harm in the Hurriyat leaders coming here for talks and they have a right to it." The Government must remain vigilant about the threat of terrorism but there is decidedly no case for any "course correction." Just as the people of India and Pakistan benefited when Prime Minister Vajpayee was allowed a free hand in pursuing détente against the odds, the process must be taken forward with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh being allowed the political space to follow his policy inclination as well as instincts, which are eminently sound on the question of India-Pakistan relations.

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