Round The World

New Delhi, 26 July 2019

Mediation in Kashmir

TRUMP MUDDIES MODI

By Dr. D K. Giri

(Prof. International Politics, JMI)

An unexpected diplomatic storm has been created by American President Donald Trump’s revelation to visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi requested him to mediate in Kashmir. Pakistanis are elated, Indians are upset, and the Americans are embarrassed. Politically, the Opposition in India jumped on their feet that Modi has been, even inadvertently, rubbed on the wrong side by Trump. The Ruling party fumbled in its reaction; it was in a fix, a catch-22 situation, as Modi is likely to visit the US in near future.

The government made, through its new bureaucrat-turned Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, a categorical denial that such a request was made. Sensibly, the Prime Minister, despite Opposition’s unwise demand, did not state in the floor of Parliament that Trump was lying. Perhaps, he sagaciously supposed that our national interest is greater than one person’s diplomatic gaffe, be it the President of USA. But did he? This exactly is the burden of my argument in this piece.

Let us track back a bit. How did Trump put it to Imran Khan? He said “do you want me to mediate in Kashmir? You have smart leadership in both the countries; you could resolve the problem going on for so long. How long has it been?” Imran Khan said 70 years. Trump then said, “Modi asked me, do you want to mediate? I (Trump) asked him, where? Modi said, Kashmir.” Trump said “I would love to if you want me to”. Imran said “we would like you to mediate. A billion of people will have their prayers for you if you were to mediate to resolve the Kashmir problem.” One wonders where he got this number of billion, when his country has 200 million odd people. A few separatists in Kashmir propped up by Pakistan may join in the prayer. Not 1.3 billion of people of India.

From the above narration, any thinking person who is part of a dialogue process at any level, let alone on such a sensitive issue like Kashmir, will decipher that Trump made it up to legitimise his offer of mediation by taking Modi’s name. Because, Modi or any leader will not say, “do you want to mediate” without a discussion on the issue. And there was no discussion on Kashmir in Modi’s recent meeting with Trump. The American State Department has denied it, did not mention Kashmir in their communiqué of meeting between Imran and Trump. So, Trump bringing up Kashmir and Modi is his own thinking or inducement to Imran in lieu of his help in Afghanistan, which is largely speculated to be the case by observers.

Let us look at the reactions to examine if they help our national interest or contribute merely to political posturing. The Opposition did not believe what Trump says, but they would want the Prime Minister to come up and say so. Was it necessary to have Trump condemned by the Prime Minister when he is likely to meet him soon? We know Trump is unstable in his demeanours and inconsistent in his diplomatic conduct. In order to solve the Korean tangle, he began to praise Kim Jong Un of North Korea, he once said, Nepal and Bhutan are parts of India, he confused the Parliament building in Kabul with a Library.

His gaffes or even faux pas are plenty, which are even said to be litany of lies. One perceptive American observer said, Trump does not prepare for such meetings, does not use correct diplomatically and politically correct language, does not check on facts and so on, and lands Americans into embarrassment. With such a personality, shall we not be careful.  

I will come to the government reaction a bit later. We have to evaluate their reaction in regard to their sense of judgement on Donald Trump, the individual even though he is the president, and the US as a country. Yes, in America, it is presidential form of governance; the president is the executive head. But he could not be a despot, as the other institutions of democracy are fairly strong; the Congress, the Judiciary, the federating states, the media, and the people. Do we have similar institutions here? Just one sector illustrates the stark differences, the entire media in the US is critical of Trump, and in our country, media easily falls for the ruling party. Is it not the case now barring a very few?

Without doubt, Trump has so far been the best friend of India. I have said so in a full article in this column. He called a spade a spade on Pakistan’s double standards. He called off the material support given by USA to Pakistan to fight the Taliban. He held Pakistan guilty of harbouring terrorists including Osama Bin Laden. He helped in declaring Hafiz Saeed a global terrorist and so on. More important, he de-hyphenated India and Pakistan in their strategy on South Asia.

Apparently, the US wants to build India as a countervailing force to China. But is India reciprocating? Is India not running with the hare and hunting with the hound it its policy towards USA and China-Russia? I would not include Pakistan here as it does not have any autonomous policy either internally or externally. The Military subverts and manipulates the policies internally, and Pakistan becomes a satellite to a foreign country in its external relations, it was USA before, now it is China.

Trump, perhaps in his exasperation with New Delhi, is seeking to accommodate Pakistan a bit. It could be also that, he is trying to wean Pakistan away from China; another reason could be that Trump is partly placating Pakistan to get the latter’s help in pulling out of Afghanistan before he goes to seek the second term. Transactional man as Trump is, he finds the American engagement in Afghanistan is not fetching commensurate returns for his country.

Whatever may be the driver, America reviving its past relations with Pakistan is not good news for New Delhi. America continues to retain Pakistan as a non-NATO ally, India is still not one. Trump is helping out Pakistan in securing a bail-out package of $6 billion from IMF. It could veto the deal, but the US is not. India was left out of the latest meeting on resolution of Afghanistan conflict. New Delhi said it was ditched by USA. Did New Delhi analyse the factors that led the US to leave India out of the group that met. Did Russia try to include India into it?

Instead of over-reacting to the gaffe made by Trump, we should focus on our national interest and our equation with the US as compared to China and Russia. The government could have said, like Shashi Tharoor initially did, that there could have been a misunderstanding, misremembering or misinterpretation of things while talking about terrorism etc. However, more important than that, is India not missing out on its national interest and aspirations? For instance, shall we be obstinate in buying S-400s from Russia? That, I think, sums up my argument. At any rate, Trump has, in his inimitable way, given us a pause to rethink our international politics of alliance-building. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)