In his perceptive book “Evolution of the Diplomatic Method” Sir Harold Nicholson offers some useful vignettes on diplomacy in the Greek City States. Ambassadors were chosen for their “known respectability and reputed wisdom”; “ they were given credentials by the Assembly”; “accorded very meagre travelling allowances and were not supposed to accept presents”. Further, “ If their negotiations were successful, they were rewarded by a garland of wild olive, a free meal in the town hall, and sometimes a commemorative tablet. If unsuccessful, all manner of penalties might be imposed”. They could also be indicted for “incompetent diplomacy”. These directives would be instructive when translated to the Indo-Pak situation and the Agra Summit. Less attention was paid, it seems, to working out the
Summit
agenda than to planning the menu. Obviously, no condign punishment would be visited on the negotiators for “ incompetent diplomacy”; instead, the same teams might be readying themselves for the next round of Summiteering.
The
Summit
’s failure was predictable in the absence of an agreed agenda on which discussions could have focused.
Pakistan
’s obduracy in resisting any agenda being finalised before the
Summit
clearly indicated that it had a one-point agenda, embodying its obsession with
Kashmir
.
India
should have made clear at the pre-Summit stage itself that it was anxious to discuss the
Kashmir
issue, but in its holistic diversity. Indeed, a common misconception arises from
Pakistan
’s constant use of the word ‘
Kashmir
’, which ignores the reality of the
Indian
State
named “
Jammu and Kashmir
” that includes
Jammu
and Ladakh, besides the
Kashmir
Valley
. If the word
Kashmir
is used to designate the erstwhile princely state that existed before 1947, then it should also include the
Northern Territories
, Baltistan, and other areas in what
Pakistan
calls “Azad”
Kashmir
. The ethnic diversity of Kashmir also needs consideration, which includes Baltis, Punjabi Rajputs, Punjabi migrants on the Pakistani side, and Kashmiri Muslims, Pandits, Ladakhi Muslims and Ladakhi Buddhists on the Indian side of the LoC. India could then have stressed that all these regions and ethnic communities in Kashmir would need to be discussed from the perspective of according them the right of “self-determination”.
It is arguable that enlarging the discussions on
Kashmir
to its fuller dimensions might have dissuaded
Pakistan
from coming to
Agra
for the
Summit
. But, it could be counter-argued that going to a
Summit
without a substantive agenda or a one-point agenda unacceptable to
India
was bound to result in an impasse. Again, if the
Summit
’s purpose was to develop a “personal chemistry” between the two leaders viz. Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf, what was the need at all to discuss substantive issues? And, especially, a contentious issue like
Kashmir
that has bedeviled Indo-Pak relations for over half a century. In the event, Pakistan’s attempt to accord centrality to the Kashmir issue and smuggle in the plebiscite concept by urging the need to ascertain the will of the people, and India’s efforts to incorporate the need for moderating cross-border terrorism ensured the Summit’s failure to produce a joint statement. These basic differences in perceptions required to be resolved by patient diplomacy, away from the arc-lights of media publicity, before the
Summit
Pakistan
’s obsessive concern with
Kashmir
is truly astonishing. Competent analyses hold that
Kashmir
is the glue binding
Pakistan
together and ensuring the pivotal position of its armed forces in its national affairs. But this obsessive concern with Kashmir and the use of cross-border terrorism to promote its Kashmir policy has only led to Pakistan’s increasing isolation within the international system, beggaring of its official economy, and heightened its dependence on the international financial institutions. The Pakistani ruling elite seems unable now to harness the jihadists it has unleashed to implement its cross-border terrorism policy in
Kashmir
and to achieve martyrdom in Kargil. Conceivably, the jihadists are being used by
Pakistan
to justify its increasingly bankrupt
Kashmir
policy in the hope that the international community will feel concerned enough to intercede?
Nations, like individuals, are prone to folly. Barbara Tuchmann notes in her classic work, The March of Folly: From Troy to
Vietnam
, that “ the ultimate outcome of a policy is not what determines its qualification as folly. All mis-governance is contrary to self-interest in the long run, but may actually strengthen a regime. It qualifies as folly when it is perverse persistence in a policy demonstrably unworkable or counter-productive”. Wise words, and they are also applicable to the follies of
India
’s
Kashmir
policy over the last half-century.
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