Reversing the tide of some two decades of bilateral relations, Pakistan on Sunday went to the United Nations against India on the Kashmir question, indicating its present mood of reviving the spirit of hostility that earlier prevailed despite the Shimla Agreement the two countries had signed in 1972.
There has been some speculation that by seeking to re-internationalise the Kashmir issue, Islamabad is hoping to capitalise on last month’s catastrophic floods in Kashmir, where the sloppy government effort turned the public stance against the state and raised the demand among separatists for international aid. This factor should not be brushed aside. Until J&K’s next Assembly polls, which is due in January 2015 but could be deferred if the BJP develops an interest in governor’s rule, the effort to keep Kashmir in the international glare may be kept up by secessionists and simultaneously by Islamabad.
But it should be remembered that Pakistan’s well-advertised interest in speaking of Kashmir only in relation to possible UN intervention predates the Kashmir floods. New Delhi seems to have either missed seeing this or attached surprisingly little significance to it. While India’s leaders were practising linguistic bombast in the context of Pakistan, Islamabad was busy scheming along lines that have remained quiescent for long. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and her top officials appear to have missed the trick.
There is some irony in the fact that it is Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif who had re-emphasised the Shimla spirit of bilateral resolution of the Kashmir issue when he had signed the Lahore Accord with Vajpayee. Under the thumb of his armed forces, Mr Sharif has now been obliged to renege on that. His security and foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz has urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to circulate his October 12 complaint against India as a document of the UN Security Council.
Pakistan does have powerful friends in the UN Security Council, like the US and China and Islamabad can hope this might work as a counterweight against India. But it is clear as day that UNSC resolutions on a plebiscite in Kashmir have long ceased to have any validity. For those familiar with the subject, Islamabad’s dogged refusal to comply with the pre-requisite of demilitarisation for a plebiscite to be held totally vitiated the atmosphere. Matters were made worse in later decades with Islamabad fomenting terrorism against India, and then in the region, while professing peaceful intentions.
