The readiness with which India’s external affairs minister S M Krishna agreed to continue discussions on Kashmir with Pakistan’s foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, shows how India’s foreign policy mandarins have been rendered colour blind. This is a clear departure from India’s policy on Kashmir dispute since India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said that India was not going to accept any change in regard to Kashmir and amounts to an abject capitulation. That India conceded ground on such vital issue after Khar had soured up the atmosphere by holding a conclave with Kashmir separatists without even a murmur of protest is proof of the UPA government’s obsessive desire to build bridges with Pakistan even at the cost of India’s strategic interests and the sovereignty. Khar’s meeting with delegations led by separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq at the Pakistan High Commission was not only a breach of protocol but a blatant act of provocation.
Ever since the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in 2005 when New Delhi bent over backwards to accommodate Islamabad’s allegations about Indian involvement in Balochistan, the Manmohan Singh government has followed a weak-kneed policy towards its hostile neighbour. On Khar interacting with the Kashmiri separatists, India should have registered a strong protest that the new minister was beginning her tenure on the wrong foot.
In the wake of recent exposures about Pakistan ISI’s direct involvement in terror attack against India and open patronage to Kashmir separatists, India should have insisted that no confidence building measure can help improve relations between the two countries unless Pakistan’s ruling establishment desisted from anti-India activities and dismantled terrorist camps within its territory from where attacks against India were being planned, funded and executed. The unwarranted concession by discussing the Kashmir dispute “in a positive and forward looking manner”, will make Pakistan more brazen. It is imperative for India to preface any talks by drawing several red lines which Pakistan must not cross.