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| India-Pakistan |
| The dice is loaded for Kashmir |
| 2014-08-26 |
| [DAWN] On July 25, exactly a month before the secretaries were planning to meet in Islamabad, India and Pakistain traded doubts, shall we say, over the delay in two politically sensitive terror trials ' the Mumbai nightmare trial that New Delhi wants to be hastened, and the Samjhauta Express bombing, which Pakistain believes has taken too long at the trial stage. The perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage are linked by India to elements in the Pakistain army. The suspects in the Samjhauta outrage are likewise considered close to the new ruling establishment in Delhi. Itas become a 'who-blinks-first' kind of situation. A day after the Mumbai versus Samjhauta spat, India's defence minister shifted the focus to the heated up Line of Control in Kashmire, saying the cross-border firing would figure in the foreign secretariesa talks. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Military Observers Group in India and Pakistain claimed the same day, to New Delhi's chagrin, they were there precisely to keep a close watch on the alleged infringements. What Mr Modi told his army commanders in Kashmire ' that Pakistain was too weak to wage war so it was fomenting terrorism against India ' was also part of the pattern of moving away from the May 27 bonhomie. It wasn't as if India was single-handedly fomenting doubts about the peace talks. Pakistain though distracted by its domestic political turbulence, or perhaps because of it, had been keeping pace. Mr Modi made his combative comments on Aug 12, making the diplomatic corps comb for similar hints albeit in vain in his Independence Day speech three days later. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... Pakistainas envoy in Delhi had flaunted unusually candid postures about Kashmire too ' about it being at the root of bilateral disputes with India. Such comments are rare if the two sides are heading for talks that would but of course include the Kashmire dispute. In any case, does Pakistain have a view on Article 370? Or does it see it as an Indian ploy to divert the focus from the main issue of Kashmireas future? Or does it in fact feel comfortable with the Kashmire issue hanging fire so as to conserve its greater energies to confront an issue more palpably urgent than Kashmire ' the division of spoils in Afghanistan? |
| Posted by:Fred |