American President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to India has evoked tremendous amount of interest among different groups of people for a variety of reasons. But will President Obama touch upon the Kashmir issue while he is here? It may be recalled as ‘President elect’ he declared Kashmir as one of his main concerns in South Asia.
He even toyed with the idea of naming Bill Clinton as a special envoy on Kashmir, although he subsequently backpedalled. It is not without significance that Richard Holbrooke was identified to carry out ‘Af-Pak’ mission. Officially Kashmir was kept out of Holbrooke’s mission. While India is not on Holbrooke’s agenda, he still prefers to visit Delhi and meet the leaders for ‘consultation’. According to Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars Holbrooke soon after his appointment told Pakistan ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani, “I will deal with India by not pretending to deal with India.”
While announcing the objective of Richard Holbrooke’s trip to south Asia, spokesman of the State Department Robert Wood, clarified that “problems in the Kashmir region will be discussed and are not part of his diplomatic portfolio.” However he added since Holbrooke’s trip is for regional security it would like to hear from the Indian government about peace and stability in Afghanistan.
The US believes it cannot defeat the Taliban without help from Pakistan which continues to shelter and perhaps support the Afghan insurgents. If Pakistan pulls its troops from its eastern border the force will be available for US to monitor and fortify the Af-Pak border. Thus the United States wants to make a hard push that could make the difference.
US espionage in Kashmir
The US has taken a keen interest in Kashmir since the end of World War II. The American design for partition of Kashmir could be seen as early as 1948. When the Kashmir issue was brought to the United Nations in 1948, the Truman administration joined to the British government as a prime mover in the Security Council’s passage of resolution establishing a United Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP). Truman’s support of formula spelt out in the UNCIP resolution has been the basis for a Kashmir settlement. Early 1950 saw a number of failed attempts to accomplish reconciliation. The Anglo-American block of the UN pressed for appointment of Australian jurist Sir Owen Dixon as a mediator who in his plan suggested the partition of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, with the strategically important Northern Areas including Gilgit to be placed under the control of the UNO. The resolution was adopted by the UNSC on January 17, 1948. This resolution was destined to fail but set the trend for the nature of UN involvement in Kashmir in the years to come. The US influence was evident in the appointment of American admiral Chester Nimitz, a former commander of US naval forces in the Pacific during World War II, as a plebiscite administrator. Another distinguished former US senator Frank Graham conducted prolonged negotiations to bring about the demilitarisation of Kashmir, and exploring plebiscite. President Eisenhower’s emissary Paul Hoffman also could find only a dim prospect towards any resolution.
Earlier in October 1947, two Americans, Major Loren Tutell and Nichol Smith had widely travelled in Kashmir and western Tibet and salvaged 18,000 feet of film there. Tutell had served as commander of fifth combat camera unit in the Pacific during World War II, and Nichol Smith was a trained Intelligence agent who worked for the office of strategic services in France, Siam, India, Ceylon and China. What were these Americans doing in Kashmir? And on whose orders? Obviously they were collecting relevant information from these sensitive areas.
Wells of Power
The American Press reported in February 1948 that US citizen Russell K Height had served for some months in Azad Kashmir force as a brigadier-general and he had boasted of killing many Hindus with his own hands. Height told Robert Trumbell, correspondent of the New York Times, in a secret interview in Lahore on January 16, 1948. He also made known Pakistan’s involvement in Kashmir 1947-48.
Historically, roots of the American interest could be traced at the time of British liquidation from the subcontinent when the British planners imbued with a sense of realism were aware of the debilitating effects of collapse of their empire and so they appealed to Washington to take over their mantle. To translate this idea Sir Olaf Caroe dashed to Washington to beseech the US government to look after the region making Pakistan, as its main base. Sir Olaf Caroe’s Wells of Power thesis found ready acceptance in Washington. Washington, initially influenced by British thinking, saw Pakistan as the ‘fulcrum of Asia’. The US stance on Kashmir was influenced more by the tension with the Soviet Union than the merits of Kashmir dispute itself.
On September 29, 1950 Loy Handerson, US Ambassador in New Delhi, informed the state department in a dispatch about his secret diplomacy and talks with Sheikh Abdullah in Srinagar, the main agenda was ‘independence’ of Kashmir and the US investments. Initially, Abdullah denied any such talk, but later when the Handerson’s papers were released, he tried to wriggle out by saying that the ambassador was projecting his country’s viewpoint. On April 10, 1958, John Foster Dulles, the US secretary of state, forwarded to President Eisenhower the partition plan for Kashmir. He informed, “You will be pleased to hear that the British have wholeheartedly endorsed our proposal looking forward to lessening tension between India and Pakistan.”
Subsequent statements made by US officials led Nehru to demand the exclusion of American personnel from the UN intentions with respect to the Himalayan region. On August 15, 1949, Nehru called in ambassador Handerson to complain that he was ‘tired of receiving moral advice from the United States. So far as Kashmir was concerned he would not give an inch. He would hold his ground even if Kashmir, India and the whole world went to pieces’. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was convinced that one of Washington’s motives in enlisting Pakistan into its evolving alliance system was to ‘check India’s power within the region’. In December 1949, UNSC president General McNaughton had submitted a proposal to break the impasse on Kashmir. Despite Nehru’s well-known negative reaction, the US continued to press for acceptance of McNaughton’s proposal. Nehru thought all this would result in “an extreme dislike of the United States of India”.
Kennedy’s arm-twisting
In October 1962, Northeastern borders were punctured by the Chinese. At a time, when Indian leadership was shivering politically and psychologically, Nehru sent appeal for help and President Kennedy responded. The US response to Nehru’s request was almost immediate and took moral and material form. “Our sympathy in the situation is wholeheartedly with you”, Kennedy told Nehru in a message. Kennedy also had agreed to supply defensive military equipment. Nehru acknowledged the help and solicited US cooperation. But US diplomacy sensed the timing as an appropriate one and renewed its efforts of pressure tactics on Kashmir.
After the ceasefire, Kennedy sent a mission led by Averell Harriman, assistant secretary of state, and Duncan Sandys, secretary for commonwealth relations, to assess India’s defence needs and military aid requirements. Harriman and Sandys arrived in India on November 22, 1962. In an obvious gesture to Pakistan, they pressed for a settlement of Kashmir before engaging in any agreement on military aid. Nehru, however, could not politically afford to negotiate the issue of Kashmir and was visibly annoyed. Both USA and UK pressurised a vulnerable Nehru to settle Kashmir on terms rather favourable to Pakistan. It was the most vulgar display of international diplomacy and arm-twisting.
Continuing the pressure
Chester Bowles succeeded Kenneth Galbraith in spring 1963 in persuading Nehru to hold talks with Pakistan on Kashmir issue, which resulted in six different sittings between December 22, 1962 and May 16, 1963; the question of plebiscite in Kashmir was the main irritant. In 1963, Dean Rusk, the US secretary of state visited India and expressed a gloomy assessment on the prospects of any early settlement. The US sought to utilise its status of donor by pressuring India for settling Kashmir dispute.
During the 1970s there was no significant political activity over Kashmir by the USA. It titled towards Pakistan during the Bangladesh crisis. In 1971, a few episodes that followed during the period totally exposed President Nixon’s bias in decision-making and Henry Kissinger’s crude diplomacy against India. Kashmir was mentioned in the joint communiqué issued by the US and China during President Nixon’s Visit to Beijing in 1972. India moved to formalise the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty. There were reports of secret missions in Kashmir, especially after, the Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord in 1975. Nelson Rockefeller visited Kashmir in April 1978. He led a nine-member delegation and met with sheikh sahib for 90 minutes. President Ronald Regan’s high profile emissary, Chariton Heston, visited Srinagar in 1980. Later, US ambassador William Saxbe landed in Srinagar in 1982, and no less important was the visit of Philip Talbot, the roving US ambassador. Obliviously, these visits and meetings with Sheikh Abdullah were not entirely without any design. During 1978-79, US policy on Kashmir was largely triggered by Soviet’s intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan exploited the situation for military and economic support.
Since the mid-80s, the US administration has been consistent in promoting the Indo-Pak dialogue to reduce tension in the region exerting behind-the-scenes pressure on New Delhi and Islamabad to discuss their misunderstanding over India’s military exercise, ‘Brasstacks’ and to find a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem.
In the ’90s, there had been a visible change in the US attitude towards India, and the media in both the countries perceived it as an ‘upward swing’ in Indo-US relations. The year 1989-90 also saw the border tension between India and Pakistan leading to ‘eyeball’ confrontation between the two armies. The US diplomatic channels in Islamabad and New Delhi were actively involved in averting a possible conflict. In May 1990, President George Bush in an obvious attempt to defuse the tension sent Robert Gates, deputy national security adviser, to New Delhi and Islamabad bring peace in sub-continent.
Since the early 1990s a clear shift was discernible in the US approach on Kashmir. In the place of plebiscite, US preferred bilateral negotiations within the framework of Simla Agreement. John H Kelly, the assistant secretary of state, testified before the sub-committee of the House of Representatives and the international relations on March 6, 1990 that “United State considers Jammu and Kashmir a disputed territory’’. He urged both the countries to settle it according to the Simla Agreement. Yet, in contrast, US ambassador to Pakistan Robert Oakley asked both the countries to “take into account the needs of the people of Kashmir”.
Boosting the Hurriyat
After Bill Clinton entered the White House, he fired the first salvo himself when he declared that ‘Kashmir was the most dangerous place in the world’ and mentioned Kashmir in his speech at the UN General Assembly in September 1993. Later on October 29, 1993, Robin Raphael, assistant secretary of state for South Asia, questioned the legal validity of Kashmir’s accession to India. She claimed that “we do not recognise the instrument of accession as meaning that Kashmir is forever an integral part of India… the people of Kashmir have got to be consulted in any kind of final settlement of the Kashmir dispute”. This provoked a hysterical outburst in India. Raphael had worked in US embassy, New Delhi, during 1991-93. During her tenure she actively interacted with anti-India groups in Jammu and Kashmir, it seems it was on her advice that the Hurriyat, as an umbrella organisation of these groups became very active.
Robin Raphael’s senior, Peter Turnoff, under-secretary of state tried to smoothen India’s ruffled feathers but failed to convince. Earlier in May 1993, a diplomatic offensive was launched by John Mallot, the principal deputy secretary of state of South Asia affairs when he visited New Delhi.
John Mallot maintained that the US had not taken a policy decision on the concept of independence of the people of Kashmir on both the sides of Line of Actual Control and dispute to be settled by India and Pakistan. John Mallot also indicated that the ‘US concern goes beyond Kashmir’. Finally, it was President Clinton who ‘sprayed salt to the injury’ by writing a letter to Ghulam Nabi Fai, Washington-based head of a Pakistan-sponsored separatist-terrorist Kashmir-American Council. Bill Clinton’s extraordinary communication merits attention as it came from the head of state of a mighty superpower, which is opposed to terrorism, and anti-terrorism is on the top of its foreign policy agenda. Clinton’s gesture concluded with “looking forward to co-operate with Fai, to help bring peace in Kashmir”. This was shocking to all those who champion the cause of anti-terrorism. Similar remarks were in a letter written by Robert Oakley, the then US ambassador in Islamabad, to the chairman of Kashmir-American Council in 1991.
Equally surprising now was the strong doubt over the efficacy of the Simla Agreement as an instrument for resolving Kashmir dispute. Significantly, US also projected itself as a potential mediator ‘if all the parties to the dispute want it’. All this is to be seen as part of a build-up for a coercive diplomacy. The precise shape is not very clear as of now.
The Pentagon did not lag behind. In 1993, General Joseph P Hoar, the then commander-in chief of US Central Command, had written, “the most important relationship in the sub-region is between India and Pakistan. It revolves around the unsettled status of Kashmir, an issue that has been a catalyst for two wars since India annexed most of their territory in 1947”. This not only reflected the general’s bias against India but also his ignorance about the historical facts.
Crisis management
During the last year of Clinton’s presidency, US administration recognised the bedrock reality of Indian position on Kashmir. Clinton avoided mention of Kashmir in his well-received address to the Indian Parliament in 2000. However, in a televised interview he warned against “Indian efforts to use force to suppress Kashmiris who deserve to have their legitimate grievances addressed on merit.”
President George W Bush and his new national security team pursued the regional policy, particularly on Kashmir, inherited from the previous regime. During 2001-2003, US played a ‘crisis management role’ on Kashmir when war clouds were threatening the subcontinent. Washington embarked on a frenzy of high profile diplomatic activities. The crisis management team consisted of secretary of state, Collin Powell, secretary of defence, Ronald Rumsfeld, deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage and assistant secretary Christina Rocca. While their periodic visits succeeded in preventing conflict escalation, they also managed to please their hosts at New Delhi and Islamabad with a tailor-made statement maintaining the centrality of Kashmir and Kashmiris as a core issue in the bilateral dispute.
(The writer is professor and head, Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, University of Madras. Largely the inputs are from American Center library, Chennai)