Stray Thoughts On The Agra Summit

23 Jul, 2001    ·   528

P.R. Chari argues summit’s failure was predictable in the absence of an agreed agenda on which discussions could have focused

PR Chari
PR Chari
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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