India’s Potential Lose-Lose-Lose Scenario

Boy, this Kalam guy is running rings around these bevakoof indian politicians. And they had the cheek to comment that he did not have the experience to be president! Hah ! Hah ! Maybe they meant that he did not have the experience in hatred, corruption and one-upmanship.

http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=228087

Kalam tells children to aim high, dream big

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Fawad

Your analysis is missing a point and that point is that US and EU themselves agree that captive Kashmir is a dispute and that they do not buy the position that it is only due to Pakistan that freedom struggle continues, after all why would Powell and Eu want international observers and international media to monitor these ``elections`` if not for the charge that they had been rigged before? - further Indians , Europeans and Americans have pointed to it a weakness in the case of Hurriyet. For Hurriyet to be recognized as the representative of the captive kashmiri, they ask for proof - that is to say, a election - Hurriyet responds by saying that if it did participate in such an election, it would be in essence recognizing the sovergnty of India over captive kashmir - a valid but legalistic position - they point out that if they participate in such an election, what gaurantee is there that these election will be fair - recall that almost all Hurriyet leaders are in this movement because of the indian rigging in the 80`s - It is for this reason that US and EU have said to India that they must allow international observers and International media. But India has rejected this position - I`m not exactly sure I understand why such a request was rejected - in any case the rejection serves to enhance the suspicions that a ``fix, so to speak, is on.

The question then is how to get past this particular issue - because such an election and hurriyet`s participation is actually in the interests of Pakistan - and it was this position that Director general of Directorate ISI had told Hurriyet in Dubai. Why is it Pakistan`s interests? because it will legitimize the parties to the struggle and it will enable the changing of nature of the struggle; from full fledged armed conflict, but low intensity conflict and then to a process of negotiated settlement.

The assasination of Mr. Lone while under indian protection will remain enigmatic to those who see to find evidence or clues as to who may be responsible for this murder, in far away places. It is indeed curious that if it is really so easy to penetrate indian security, why it is that no senior indian occupation official has been similarly targetted.

Should private or discreet gaurantees of fair play not be forth coming, and especially if the election process in Gujjrat is seen as having been fixed, the international community will have little option but to be open to the claim that the election in captive Kashmir are rigged in favor of Hindu fanatics. I will gaurantee you that in the forth coming election in captive kashmir, more hindu fanatics will be ``elected`` than ever in the history of such election in captive kashmir - what`s more they will want to cut a deal in which jammu and ladakh will be separated from the valley. Even if ``autonomy`` is thrown at captive Kashmir, the problem will remain and what`s more other indian ``minorities`` and states will sue for the same - Hindu fanatics will claim ``blackmail`` and blood shed will mark the indian consciouness in such a way as to recall the events of partition.

Ylh,

False alarm. Just got an email informing me of my invitation. Looking forward to it. Thanks again.

Aamir

The saddest part of this ``autonomy`` tamasha for which thousands of indians, but especially kashmiris have been killed, is that autonomy is being negotiated and obtained within the indian federal system.

What do you think Chandrababu Naidu and C. M. Krishna are doing? As their states rise economically they are achieving larger and larger measures of autonomy and self-control. At the same time the indian federal system is expanding to give a clearer separation of federal from state powers.

But in Kashmir autonomy means something else. For its backers it does NOT mean a deeper Kashmiri identity, the right to study Kashmiri language and culture, the right to worship in their traditional ways. Because all of these rights are available in J&K (and not anywhere in Pakistan

or Pakistani Kashmir).

Instead, following their backers in Pakistan, autonomy or azadi means ``Not India``. Not surprisingly the movement began not with an assertion of cultural or social identity but with the expulsion of a particular religous minority. Because that is the first step towards a proper ``Not India`` identity..

romair shankar has a point ...............

honestly pakistan cant win on kashmir its time to cut your losses the most pakistan can hope for is azad kashmir being a part of pakistan and a lot of autonomy for indian kashmir within the framework of the indian constitution . honestly isnt pakistan at the point jordan was in the 60s you remember the jordanian option for palestine ...what did hussein he cut the palis off and told them : you want independance you fight for it .........pakistan is wholly driving the kashmir insurgency i dont see any indigenous kashmiri resistance at all...........is risking the future of pakistan worth one province??????????

Compare what India is doing in Afghanistan now to Pakistan` export of murder and mayhem for the last twenty years.

India bolsters Afghan ties

India has been reviving traditionally warm Afghan ties

By Satish Jacob

BBC correspondent in Delhi





India`s Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha`s visit to Kabul represents another round in India`s quiet campaign of diplomacy with the new Afghan government.

Aside from a aviation deal to supply three Airbus passenger craft to Afghanistan`s Ariana airline, Delhi is helping rebuild civil society by training diplomats, doctors, teachers, computer operators, policemen and accountants.

A group of 20 Afghan diplomats recently arrived in Delhi for training following an earlier course in diplomacy in March this year.



India has been training Afghan police



More than 250 Afghan policemen are currently travelling around India, receiving instruction in basic police procedures such as collecting evidence, record-keeping, fingerprinting, and computerising records.

The Afghan Government is starting from scratch to restore civil structures destroyed by decades of war.

Germany, which is leading the international group rebuilding Afghanistan`s police force, has organised 15 training courses, 11 of which are being run by India.

Delhi is also running an English training course for diplomats.

``With the last batch, we found that they were struggling to understand lectures on international diplomacy because their English was poor,`` said an official in India`s Ministry of External Affairs.

``So this time, they will improve these skills for a month before starting a two-month course on international diplomacy,`` he added.

According to the official, the first lesson for the Afghan diplomats is how to communicate with each other by e-mail.

Language skills

A spokesman for the Afghan embassy in Delhi, Noor Akbari, explained why the English language training was essential.

``The Taleban rejected English as a subject in schools. Our people, including our diplomats, have the necessary skills for all jobs but they lack the ability to communicate,`` he said.

Indian diplomats say that by expediting aid, Delhi is returning to its former role in Afghanistan during the 1950s and 1960s.

Thousands of Indian doctors, nurses and engineers worked in the country.

``We always had a good rapport with the Afghans because it was understood that in return for our help, we didn`t expect a quid pro quo,`` said international affairs expert Kanti Bajpai.

``India didn`t demand loyalty, nor expect Kabul to keep a distance from Pakistan,`` he added.

`Low-key` diplomacy

After the fall of the Taleban, India was among the first countries to send a special envoy.

Our people, including our diplomats, have the necessary skills for all jobs but they lack the ability to communicate



It also despatched a team to fit artificial limbs on hundreds of Afghan amputees.

Aside from the $100m pledged to the national airline, India is also giving money to pay teachers and civil servants, and it has sent computer experts to give IT training and set up a computer centre in Kabul.

It is also sending $100 million worth of wheat.

``This is a classic Asian model of diplomacy,`` said analyst Sreedhar Rao.

``It`s very low-key, unlike American diplomacy where everything is done loudly in front of television cameras. Our style is discreet and low profile.``

Democracy role

Mr Rao said India is also expected to play an important role in helping Afghanistan evolve a democratic form of government.

Sinha will deliver the first of three planes from India



``The political models offered by Afghanistan¿s neighbours - Iran, Pakistan, China and the Central Asian Republics - are hardly inspiring,`` he said.

``India represents a secular and democratic model more suited to its aspirations.``

India`s last special envoy to Kabul, Satinder Lambah, couldn`t agree more.

He believes that democracy and prosperity are the best way to keep Afghanistan stable.

``Better government and reconstruction are the only guarantee that the country will not again become a haven for organisations like al-Qaeda,`` said Mr Lambah.

If I were a Pakistani, I would be more worried about the situation in Pakistan than in India.

It is obvious that the scheduled elections are going to leave Pakistan in a more unstable state than before. Musharaff is trying to creat two kings: one representing the army (himself) and one representing the people with the second subservient to the first. As they say, you can`t have two kings in a kingdom. It will be interesting to see how this tug of war will be played out. Will we see Pakistan break up along it`s federal lines? Frankly, I think that is the only solution given that it`s Constitution is about as valuable as toilet paper, unless changes are made.

Also, my view of Indian sabre rattling is that India is willing to wait out Pakistan on Kashmir (knowing that it`s a bone stuck in Pakistan`s throat that is ultimately going to kill it) as long as the Pakistanis keep everything in Kashmir and at a simmering, not boiling, point. They over-reached with the attacks on the Indian Parliament and massacres in Kashmir and the build-up and threat of attack was a warning of this threshold. India will attack if there is knowledge of Pakistan`s complicity in any such brazen attacks in the future; the Pakistanis know it which is why they have ratcheted down their support for the jihadi loose canons.

In the long run, Pakistan simply cannot continue defining it`s nationalism on the basis of ``NOT INDIA``. All it takes is a change in mindset and believe me, it is going to be far more beneficial for Pakistan than India. However, who`s going to bell this cat?

Ylh,

Thanks for the tip-off. I wrote to the address but no reply yet. Would you mind confirming them again? At the risk of compromising your sources, where d`you hear about this from?

Aamir

Mr. Raja, Chowkies

As Pakistan, India and the captive Kashmir each play out a scenario where they can each claim a victory, it is in reality the ambitions of the United States that have and MUST enable. A most excellent piece from ``The Hindu`` dtd today:

``Powell`s visit

By Achin Vanaik

COLIN POWELL has come and gone. Those with higher expectations will feel disappointed that he chose to give gratuitous advice on Kashmir and interfered in internal matters: witness his comments about releasing ``political prisoners``. But they will console themselves at India`s defiant insistence against internationalising the Kashmir issue. And wasn`t Mr. Powell told in no uncertain terms that Pakistan`s support for terrorism was the key problem? In the larger scheme of things, however, these minor political frescoes are of little consequence. The basic contours of the India-Pakistan-United States triangle have already been set.

Pokhran-II permanently internationalised the Kashmir issue, eliminating the diplomatic advantage India had secured after 1964 (reinforced by the1971 Shimla Accord) when for the next 34 years, the world was quite happy to let Kashmir fester as a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. After Pokhran-II, the Kashmir imbroglio had to be internationalised because the prospect of a war over Kashmir leading to a possible nuclear exchange could never be considered a purely bilateral matter. The advocates of Pokhran-II did not at the time even realise that this was bound to happen, just as they proclaimed that the nuclearisation of South Asia was actually a good thing which would lead to much greater regional stability and peace. A more inept judgement or prediction it would be difficult to find! Between May 11, 1998, and September 11, 2001, views had begun to change. For an ever-widening circle of ``strategic thinkers``, it became increasingly obvious that nuclearisation meant some degree of unavoidable internationalisation since Kashmir was the key point of friction between India and Pakistan. Rather than pursue the old line of insisting on pure bilateralism, it would be wiser to recognise the inevitable and begin operating to turn this `internationalisation` in one`s favour. This would now be possible because of the wonderful new turn in Indo-U.S. relations towards a new strategic partnership. Such was the growing weight and importance of India in regional and world affairs that Pakistan had to pale into insignificance besides it.

Such was the `new thinking` mirrored in many an editorial and article. The aftermath of September 11 brought good and bad news. The good news was that it afforded a new opportunity for India to rope in the U.S. to put more pressure on Pakistan in the name of its ``global war on terrorism``. The bad news was that, in some ways, Pakistan`s importance would be reinforced. However, the dominant view within India`s ``strategic community`` was that the good news would ultimately outweigh the bad. Even today, this judgment is not being seriously questioned, for that would amount to having grave doubts about the whole thrust of India`s foreign policy behaviour vis-a-vis the U.S., namely the search for a new `partnership` based on the assumption of a `basic convergence of interests` between the two states. Explanations about the limited outcome of Mr. Powell`s visit have been of two types. One is to claim that the basic foreign policy orientation of India is fine, only New Delhi may have been somewhat too obsequious or reliant on Washington and therefore had expectations it should not have had. So, learn the lessons from this and don`t depend too much on the U.S. to pull our chestnuts out of the fire. The U.S. will not be a problem for us unless we make it one. All we need is firmness in our foreign policy and more realistic and lower expectations from Washington. The other assessment is more generous to the U.S. There was nothing really out-of-the-ordinary in what Mr. Powell said. Everybody wants proper and fair elections to be successfully held in Kashmir, and this would in fact strengthen the Indian position. We do need to involve the U.S. in Kashmir but as ``facilitator`` not ``mediator`` and, contrary to the cynics, this is a subtle but important distinction that the Government fully understood when it officially stated it. At most, Mr. Powell`s visit was a slight hiccup in the otherwise smooth and deepening process of strategic collaboration between the U.S. and India which Pakistan has every reason to be worried about in the longer run.

Perhaps, it is a matter of ingrained habit. But Indian strategists in the name of realism are always concerned about how India should fit the U.S. into its foreign policy perspectives, therefore the need to shed older reflexes of `anti-Americanism`. But such is the enormous extent of asymmetry of power between the U.S. and India that despite all the rhetoric about `partnership` and `convergence of national interests`, the proper prism for trying to assess the future geo-politics of this region must start from the opposite premise. We have to look, above all, at how India and Pakistan fit into U.S. foreign policy perspectives! To assess this properly we must shed completely the assumption that US intervention in this part of the world is primarily motivated by the need to fight against terrorism in general, or Al-Qaeda, in particular.

This is only a minor though necessary part of the whole story. First, September 11 gave the U.S. the opportunity it had long been looking for — to establish a new kind of international legitimacy for a new kind of specifically military flexibility. In the name of fighting global terrorism it is now much freer than ever before to carry out, and get away with carrying out, military attacks on whomsoever it decides, whenever and wherever it decides, in whatever way it wants, and for as long as it deems necessary. Second, it has politically-militarily implanted itself as never before in its history into the Central Asian and the Caspian Sea region, which is not only important from the perspective of oil and gas but abuts the territories of three of its most important potential rivals over the next decade or two — Iran, Russia and China.

Geo-politically, both India and Pakistan have an added relevance. For India, U.S. ambitions are southwards and eastwards. India is to be incorporated as a junior and obedient ally for domination of the Indian Ocean region. India is also one of the `ten big emerging markets` that American capital (in alliance with European capital) has its eyes on for `takeover` with the help of junior, more rentier-oriented allies amongst Indian capital.

But Pakistan remains important northwards and westwards. Its connection with Saudi Arabia (one leg of the tripod — Egypt and Israel are the others — on which U.S. dominance of West Asia is based) remains useful to the U.S. Moreover, Pakistan`s importance as a crucial staging-post for U.S. actions in Central Asia has only been enhanced after September 11.

Both countries should know their place and follow the script. Washington needs stable client regimes in India and Pakistan (India wants to call it `partnership`, so be it) and therefore cannot afford to destroy the domestic credibility of either `ally` by taking sides over Kashmir. Besides, it must now get down to the hard task of working out its own range of preferred policy perspectives, options and outcomes in Kashmir that would best suit its own wider regional and geo-political perspectives.

We are going to see more `interference` by the U.S. We are going to hear more reassurances from both Islamabad and New Delhi about things being under control. Sometimes, the signs of growing uneasiness might even surface. For all the posturing by India and Pakistan, it is the U.S. that will most successfully manipulate the other two in the triangle that joins all of them.``

Your sectarian interest and open lying would be funny if its consequences were not so sad for indians in J&K. Your remarks betray the usual mixture of nonsensical fantasy and untruth that characterizes folks like yourself.

You say:

[quote]

The actual representatives of the Kashmiris, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (perhaps the most sophisticated and balanced group of leaders in South Asia), h

[end=quote]

Indeed. What can we say about self-appointed ``actual representatives`` who are too scared to stand for an election? What can we say about ``actual representatives`` who receive monthly payments from a foreigh power?

And the individuals in Hurriyat? Lets start with Syed Ali Shah Gilani, ex-chair. Mr. Gilani is well-known to indians for the following remarks: (1) he is a proud pakistani (2) the struggle in Kashmir is a religous and islamic struggle and an islamic people are struggling to be freed of Kafirs. He is an open islamist and hate monger.

Why am I not surprised that you find him reasonable and balanced?

[quote]

only supports attacks against occupying Indian soldiers in Kashmir (these actions are recognized as freedom struggles by Amnesty International). It greatly abhors terrorist attacks against civilians.

[end-quote]

Of course, if fact, Amnesty International is personally supervising attacks on the Indian Army !! I guess you must be seriously delusional to think that reasonable people anywhere would believe nonsense like this.

Anyway, I hear that a wonderful freedom struggle has also begun in Pakistan. Congratulations !Recent attacks in Murree and Karachi must make you feel very proud. With a bit of luck, someone you personally know, will be ``liberated`` with an explosive weapon any day now.

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Interesting Developmentsin Captive Kashmir and India - Suggest that we may all keep our powder dry

From Hindustan Times - Dtd today

``Kashmir’s biggest challenge

The advice of the Union home minister to the Kashmir Committee to engage the secessionists in the run-up to the assembly election is a welcome sign.

It suggests flexibility and pragmatism. Discussions can always throw up practical ideas that might show the way forward to secure a reasonably wide participation in the election, especially when voters appear eager to express themselves. The Hurriyat Conference is not a monolith. Besides, as the Srinagar media have reported, prominent elements in PoK have tried to nudge it towards dropping its poll-related reservations if the exercise can pave the way for a subsequent broad interaction to resolve the principal issues concerning Kashmir.

The Kashmir Committee then has some delicate work to do. It does appear that the government quietly approves the spadework sought to be done by this body. The experience of the K.C. Pant initiative showed that the time is perhaps not ripe for the government to be up-front officially. The Arun Jaitley channel clearly has a narrower focus. But even if a medley of interlocutors might be engaged in Kashmir, it is a primary government responsibility to ensure a clean election with wide participation. In the end, this alone can serve India in forums interested in Kashmir.

The Election Commission has a high standing and may be expected to make appropriate security arrangements and ensure that the voters’ roll is updated. There is a view that polling under governor’s rule — possible at this stage only if the state assembly recommends it — will enthuse the voters in the Valley. The chief minister appears to be open to the idea when he says he is game if the Hurriyat agrees to be in the election. It needs to be understood, of course, that polls under governor’s rule cannot be allowed to become a precedent. In the ultimate analysis, it is the fairness of the election which is of paramount importance.``

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