Decisive shift in thinking, but also stresses there’s an onus to talk it through.
Buoyed by India’s willingness to push through a number of business and defence deals with US enterprises that would help revive its flagging economy, US President Barack Obama handed India the greatest gift of all: It was up to India and Pakistan to solve the Kashmir issue and the US could not “impose a solution” on these parties.
As a frisson of excitement ran through the enormous tent in Hyderabad House where Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were addressing a joint press conference after the conclusion of their talks this morning, Obama broke decisively from his Democratic party’s long-standing position on Kashmir in which the “wishes of the Kashmiri people” were central to the resolution of the dispute, by essentially accepting the Indian position – and rejecting the Pakistani standpoint – that Kashmir was a bilateral dispute.
More vindication was to follow in Parliament House later, when Obama stated it was necessary for Pakistan to bring the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks to justice. This is the first time the US President has so clearly castigated Pakistan on this issue.
Clearly, India’s gamble of using economic leverage to pursue its strategic interests – taking a page out of China’s book – was paying off. At the press conference in Hyderabad House, the Prime Minister went a step further and told him that India remained committed to talking to Pakistan on all outstanding issues, including Kashmir.
“We are not afraid of the word K,” Singh said, referring to the dispute that has hung like a sword over the subcontinent since 1947 and often threatens to make or mar Delhi’s relationship with the US.
Then delivering a boxer’s punch in his mild-mannered fashion, Singh added : “But I have a request… You cannot simultaneously talk to Pakistan, while the terror machine remains active. Once Pakistan moves away from terror-induced coercion, we will be able to engage them on all issues.”
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Manmohan’s message
Singh’s clear-cut condition, framing the return to dialogue with Pakistan in return for an end to terrorism, also seemed like a direct message to the US President standing next to him: The US should persuade its strategic ally in the Afghan war, Pakistan, to end the selective use of terror against India and, in return, Delhi would do everything in its power to nurture peace with Pakistan.
Obama sought to re-introduce the US into the Kashmir equation by saying it was happy to “play any role which the parties think we can play, in the interest of the region, the two countries, as well as the US”, noting the PM had personally staked his public reputation on this matter.
Analysts stressed that Obama had personally come a long way on Kashmir, from believing, as he had done during his presidential campaign, that a “special envoy on Kashmir” could mediate between India and Pakistan. Once he became President and the Afghan war became a top priority, the US State Department appointed Richard Holbrooke as its special envoy on the Af-Pak imbroglio – but it was only after a severe diplomatic reprimand from Delhi that Washington dropped the idea of adding India to Holbrooke’s mandate.
Obama’s position on Kashmir today has also effectively sent his own party’s position on the issue into the dustbin of history. In the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union in end-1991, then US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Robin Raphel, had even questioned the erstwhile Kashmir maharaja’s Instrument of Accession to the Indian republic, implying that Kashmir’s integration into India was a shaky matter.
But as he laid the matter to rest, Obama seemed to place greater onus on Manmohan Singh’s shoulders to resolve the dispute, stating the PM’s “sincere and relentless desire” to reduce tension in the region had convinced him that a ‘conversation” could definitely take place on this issue.