Kashmir Will Be Key Factor in America’s South Asian Policy

Our US Fixation

By

Z. G. Muhammad

It is the confidence of the real stakeholders, the common people that have not allowed the people’s movements to die. It is not of much a consequences whether you call it the resistance movement or the political struggle for past sixty-seven years it has survived all the aggressive and threatening situations because of the resolve of the common people.  For not allowing the fatigue to overtake them during the adverse situations, despite some leaders’ betrayals, the common people have time and again risen like a phoenix to be the protagonists the movement.

As against the common people, we the white collar people cannot endure the long drawn political battles we turn cynical about it immediately. In our case, this cynicism graduates faster than expected into skepticism and nihilism. That ultimately blurs ours- the white collar people’s vision of the goal that the general masses continue to cherish till they achieve their goal. That is history from Spartacus to Nelson Mandela.  This, I realized a couple of days back, when Donald Trump’s election as President of America, and as the first reaction to it on the social network I had posted an innocuous sentence but well grounded in the history. Let me quote:

‘My Hindsight says Donald Trump will be a bit better to us than Hillary Clinton.  She as Secretary of State damaged Kashmir Cause and subverted Obama’s intentions about Kashmir that he expressed during 2008 election campaign and as President-elect.’

I don’t mind the venomous and critical comments by the trolls and those doing the job on my posts, but it was the observations of some white collar friends that made me focus on the variability of perceptions about political struggles between them and common people. Most of their comments smacked of cynicism and fatigue, and largely were not in sync with the historicity of the dispute that continues to hold the key to its resolution.  Let me dwell a bit on my post on the social network, why I continue to see the USA as one of the important players for the resolution of the Kashmir Dispute, whether a Democrats or Republican makes it to the White House.

There can be no denying that for his  “outpouring of racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic insults” Donald Trump in media across the globe is seen as evil incarnate. Nevertheless, it may be a bitter pill to swallow, but it is a shocking fact that he became the 47th President of the United States. He is there for next four years to play a role in the global politics- of course, India- Pakistan relations, and Afghanistan will be on his table. True,  the ‘K-word that every citizen of South Asia instantly knows by shorthand: Kashmir, as rightly pointed on September 22, 2016, issue of Foreign Affairs by Seeram Sunder Chaula did not figure in grueling U.S. presidential campaign.  Concerned over  this he wrote,   “In all likelihood, Americans will soon recognize this as a costly omission.”

Chaula may have a different reason to regret the absence of the K-word from the Presidential campaign. Nevertheless, the historical reality is that Kashmir has been the cause of concern for the White House from the times of Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to that of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush periods. It also did engage the attention of the Obama Administration, sometimes intensely and on occasion not that intensely after the US  de-hyphenated’  relations with India and with Pakistan. (Interestingly in early 2016 there were lot of stories about reversing of the de-hyphenation policy)  And despite de-hyphenating the relation with two South-Asian nuclear power Washington continued to recognize Kashmir as a gateway to peace in Afghanistan. Concerned about Afghanistan in 2011, Admiral Mullen who served as the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007, to 2011 said, “I think unlocking Kashmir, which is a very difficult issue on the Pak-Indian border, is one that opens it all up.”

Despite, New Delhi after 1972, Simla Agreement describing Kashmir Dispute as a bilateral problem between India and Pakistan and ruling out the third party mediation the United States successively continues to be at the center of the Dispute as it was in 1948. In that year, after India brought Kashmir to the UNSC,  the US co-sponsored with Britain a series of resolutions beginning with establishing of UNCIP ‘to develop a basis for a settlement.’ From 1948 to 1972, we see the US pro-actively present in the Kashmir Dispute. It remained ‘off the US radar scope,’ for seventeen years after India and Pakistan in 1972 Agreed under Article six of Shimla Agreement to resolve the Kashmir Problem. Nonetheless, the US continued to see Kashmir as a dispute; US Ambassador to India John Gunther Dean (1985-1988) reiterated it in 1987 at Srinagar. From 1989 onwards we see Washington prominently present in the India and Pakistan disputes negotiating peace between the two countries and offering to mediate on Kashmir.

New Delhi with all its all-time high relation with the Washington have been receiving saner advice from its supporters and well-wishers like Ambassador Howard Schaffer for achieving  its ambition of playing role on international stage and gaining a place at the international table a more achievable goal by saying  ‘it may see Kashmir as an obstacle to the recognition it seeks and be more prepared to rid itself of this albatross.’True it will be too early to say about Trump’s policy  toward its India and Pakistan. But,  drawing a cue from his offer of mediation between the two countries it seems Kashmir will not be off the radar for his government.  Notwithstanding, he being a novice but as indicated by the New York Times, he ‘will appoint as secretary of state an experienced Republican like Richard Haass, with Stephen Hadley as secretary of defense, thus signalling that adults are in charge of foreign policy.’

Published in Greater Kashmir on 14 -11-16