The Agra syndrome

By V. R. Krishna Iyer

VAJPAYEEJI, I salute the statesman in you for the factum of the summit meet but feel frustrated at your team's infantile ineptitude for the dire denouement! Every time a flicker of rapprochement is in sight, tragic irony extinguishes the flame of hope, some Pakistani dictator indulging in brash bravado to bury happy comity. But history also gets tired of jingoist jargon and which longing for peace hungers for a chance. Why does peace prospect perish despite Pakistan's defeat in wars and economy of both nations a shambles? Why do both go nuclear when their coffers are empty, corruption escalates and harrowing tales of people crying for basic needs are haunting and the two nations face internal struggles and political instability? The answer is Kashmir - innocent loveliness, unhappy privations and political destiny in despair. Battles have been fought, lives have been lost, development has been dashed, hatred has no ceasefire and Kashmir Valley, God's glorious, geographical gift to humanity, burns with green woods turned into graveyards, humble villages strewn with landmines, bombshells, terrorist operations and starvation aggravating for two generations. What price do India and Pakistan pay, regardless of the merits of rival claims?

Billions of dollars, brave soldiers, pathological tension and now, nuclear missiles, with no solution save macabre madness and belligerent exchanges poisoning politics and catalysing blood- thirsty religious passions! Obdurate obscurantism, whatever the faith, is insanity writ large! When statesmanship, with a higher vision, seeks to humanise and rationalise, blind fury of bigoted godism eclipses reason and judgment, and, in a gory mood, gets ready to kill and die fuelled by pseudo-jehad. Suicide squads and human bombs are bred by fanatics capable of self-sacrifice. Bernard Shaw once remarked that he who is willing to sacrifice himself is dangerous for he will not hesitate to sacrifice others.

Hubris and humiliation have been the Agra finale after the nation had been led to believe, by escalating media build-up, that the top echelons of the two nations, forgetting and forgiving the bitter frost of bellicose relations and baulked, broken accords, would hold friendly discussions on all issues, including Kashmir, which now sorely keep the people apart.

The media published hopeful news and everyone in both countries gullibly looked for a miracle to happen. Could it? Did it? A confidence-building process, perfunctorily performed, worked for a while, expectations escalated under an illusion for a summit joint statement producing a positive formula inaugurating a new chapter in Asian history. But truth cannot be hidden by hazy hopes. One-to-one cannot change the course of history.

Where was the common Indian or parliamentarian informed, educated on issues and asked to speak in his democratic right? Gen. Musharraf may be an adventurist military hero but where is the compromise minus people and democratic process? A Prime Minister, a Cabinet, a party cannot make or mar the course of events unless it involves the billion Indians and mobilises them into reconciliatory, radical locomotion especially when the cause calls for reversal of the dark happenings of the past. This processual part of the pilgrimage to peace was missed by both and so Agra boomeranged with a mere visit of the Pakistan dictator to the Taj Mahal, abandoning, in frustration, his pious pilgrimage to Ajmer and making a stultification. The broken anatomy of the Agra summit is the result of the unscientific handling of the socio-political odyssey, substituting it with short shrift shortcuts. No cover-up by painting the piteous collapse as a mere inconclusive gap - not a failure - will win credibility unless leaders of parties, cadres and sociologists and people generally discuss the Kashmir imbroglio and arrive at open proposals and alternatives which restore the democracy of decisions by the people.

The lesson of Agra, therefore, should be that on both sides people must exchange views and prepare a fertile ground for deeper level friendship and faith, creative credibility measures and a nation's vocal manifesto of willingness to re-establish fraternal feeling and the alternatives in Kashmir to be proffered. Absent this dynamic, democratic methodology, process one-to-one may be one-minus-one cipher.

In the Agra summit, democracy had a holiday and TV did business. The necessary sequel was that Gen. Musharraf walked with his hidden agenda, partly fulfilled and leaving us, not with a serendipity of victory but with a stultification of flop. ``Inconclusive, not a failure'' means a face- saving newspeak. Before the next `summit' proves a skulduggery, let the Prime Minister (our President too importantly matters) keep faith with the people, take them into confidence. In Agra, Mr. Vajpayee was not one but one billion people but Gen. Musharraf was one, only one, a military chief with a gun.

The Agra syndrome should not be repeated. Of course, there is some spiritual wonder in a Pakistani dictator sprinkling flowers at Rajghat as it is symbolic of people's solidarity and homage to a great soul who went on fast to compel India to pay Rs. 50 crores to Pakistan and won his cause. From that memorable event, let us re-start. I am still hopeful of many other problems being sorted out in good faith. Dealing with Gen. Musharraf has many implications. First, his credentials are military authority and governance by the gun. If he could tell his country that the Constitution hardly counts and he was the one who could rule the people how can we put trust in his word since his authority is not based on the Constitution but on a tour de force. The one-to- one deal, therefore, means one billion Indians through their surrogate, Mr. Vajpayee, and one military President indifferent to the democracy of his country, being in office ultra vires. Fundamentals are fundamental and amnesia on the difference between democracy and dictatorship is a poor alibi.

Let us, for a moment, give pragmatic realism priority over principled constitutionalism and accept the Agra episode as a measure rooted in realism. I may concede that Mr. Vajpayee, the statesman, rightly desiderated peace with Pakistan even if it meant silencing one's constitutional soul. Whatever happens or happened would not be necessarily constitutional and may not bind. These legal thoughts apart, speaking sentimentally, I was impressed with Gen. Musharraf. His candour, pleasant manners and willingness to make a pilgrimage to Rajghat. At a personal level, he excelled in charming behaviour and outspoken expression; but, weighed in the scales of political principle, I wonder how far we can travel together on the perilous Indo-Pakistan path. What I emphasise is that reliability springs from people-to-people relations. Their cordiality will lend strength to any decisions taken by the rulers of both countries. My humble suggestion, therefore, is to make a people-to-people agenda rather than one- to-one closed door dialogue. Political secrecy may be dubious diplomacy but democratic traditions demand a transparent diction. For a while, we keep in abeyance, our criticism of the jettison of democracy in our neighbourhood. Once people come together there is a basic structure on which the edifice of Indo-Pakistan friendship can be built.

A word about the Kashmiris. One Kashmiri leader, on the other side of the LoC, told a public meeting in Canada, where I too was a speaker, that it was unjust for the Indian leaders to ignore the Kashmiri people even on the PoK side. They are not commodities but humans with their own views. We cannot dismiss J&K and PoK as goods of trade to be negotiated at prices determined by the two leaders. We may have differences with Pakistan. Therefore let us consult the people from both sides of the LoC. That will be a decisive step in democratic diplomacy.

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