Monthly Archives: August 2018

—Tribune file photo

New York/Islamabad, April 15

NEW YORK/ISLAMABAD: India is “not forthcoming” in resuming comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan and such an attitude is “impeding” prospects of normalisation of bilateral relations, Pakistan’s envoy to the UN has said, while in Islamabad, the Pakistan foreign office rejected a notion that the peace process was suspended, saying it remained engaged with New Delhi.

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told a group of students and faculty members from the US Army War College last week that despite a positive start following the coming to power of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India suspended talks between the two countries on “flimsy grounds and set unacceptable pre-conditions” for their revival.

According to a press release by the Pakistan Mission at the UN, Lodhi said in spite of Pakistan’s call to resume broad-based, comprehensive dialogue, “India was still not forthcoming”.

In Islamabad, Foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria during a weekly media briefing, said: “We need to look ahead and not think in terms of foreclosing any options. Both sides are in contact with each other.”

The spokesman was referring to media reports quoting Pakistan’s High Commissioner in India Abdul Basit as having said that the peace process was “suspended”, Dawn online reported on Friday.

“Dialogue is the best option. Diplomacy is for interaction and engagement between countries,” Zakaria said.

Last December, the two countries had agreed to restart the peace dialogue, which was named Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue.

It was agreed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise stopover in Lahore on Christmas Day that the foreign secretaries would meet to decide the schedule and other details of the first round of talks.

However, the plan for re-engagement after a hiatus of two years was affected by the Pathankot attack in January and the two countries have not been able to schedule the foreign secretaries’ meeting since. Zakaria said the meeting would take place once the “modalities” have been settled. —IANS/PTI

Nepal’s ruling K.P. Oli-led Left Alliance is intrinsically pro-China but geography, history and culture make it lean towards India. It’s high time that India leveraged its historic ties with Nepal to curb China’s growing clout in the region and erase the bitterness of last year’s ill-advised blockade

The Nepalese Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, after paying tribute at Rajghat, during his recent visit to India. PTI

AFTER a week-long trek in the hills around Pokhara, I reached Kathmandu the very day last month Prime Minister KP Oli returned from his visit to China and his Chief of Army Staff, Gen Rajinder Chhetri flew there, the typical political pilgrimage they had done earlier to India that has become mandatory for Nepal to balance its relations with India and China. But it is still India first. Three centuries ago, Nepal’s founding father, king Prithvinarayan Shah had established the equidistance edict. In Hotel Malla, Gopal Thapa, a staff member, asked: “Mr Oli is back from China. Will India impose a blockade again?” This worry is prevalent among many sections of society. The China card has been used by the Royals to guard Nepal’s sovereign space, strategic autonomy and regime security. Its more visible use was noticed after the Maoists rose to power, openly advocating the need to balance India with China and looking beyond India to reduce the overwhelming dependence on its southern neighbour. The ruling Left Alliance government, consisting mainly of Communists and Maoists, is intrinsically pro-China but geography, history and culture make even it lean towards India. Stung by the blockade, the Nepalese hail the 15-point joint statement containing 10 agreements as a diplomatic victory especially the reference to the constitution as historic progress in the transition of Nepal whereas India merely noted its promulgation. The Chinese Ambassador Wu Chuntai  had to meet Madhesi leaders who had complained about the iniquities of the constitution lauded in the joint statement. The 10 agreements relate to transit and trade, infrastructure, connectivity including the celebrated ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, energy supplies and storage facilities, education, health, tourism — the whole gamut of interactions, exchanges and projects that fill up any joint statement. The transit agreement and feasibility of providing petroleum products are indeed a first but contingent upon connectivity and cost effectiveness. The Lhasa railway has reached Xigatse and is likely to be extended to Gyirong on the Nepal border by 2020. Its further penetration as envisaged in the joint statement to reach Lumbini in Terai is in the realm of the distant future. During a public engagement in Kathmandu on ‘One Belt, One Road’ last year, even as the blockade was in full fury, a young businessman told me that he and his friends were re-routing their business via the North through Hong Kong, instead of the customary southern route. Though long distance, time consuming and costly, the northern transit option is a strategic breakthrough, affording psychological comfort during any future  blockade.From an Indian point of view the outcome of the Oli visit is seen high on symbolism and intent: preparation of detailed project reports and feasibility studies but few firm commitments. China has spread its tentacles across the length and breadth of Nepal over the last two decades, utilising its economic wealth to secure political and strategic influence. In 2012, India slipped from the top position in FDI but regained primacy over China  in 2015. The competition is likely to continue. Chinese companies enjoy near monopoly in telecommunications and infrastructure sectors. That said, China recognises its lack of human and social capital for people-to-people engagement and its red lines in Nepal. Still it is a challenge India has to meet creatively, with its many leverages and strategic assets in Nepal.  The 135-day blockade, which caused unprecedented pain and hardship to ordinary Nepalis, has become  part of folklore featuring in songs and films. Hardly anybody in South Block anticipated the anger, alienation and anti-India sentiment it would generate. Many former diplomats would laugh it away saying a blockade has happened before. The 14-month blockade in 1989-90 is as different from the one last year as chalk from cheese. Only with nose and ear to the ground would the PMO have known the lifestyle changes in and outside the Kathmandu valley in the last two decades. In the past, flippant comments by the likes of Madhuri Dixit, Hrithik Roshan and Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana would create a stir and temporary anti-India sloganeering. So also the Maoists whipping up anti-India hysteria over imagined border encroachments, allegations of India stealing Nepal’s water resources and other engineered indignities  inflicted by Big Brother India.  The Indian side of the border at most transit points, especially at Sunauli-Bhairahawa, is nothing short of  filth and squalor and the road network shoddy for a country with the fastest-growing economy in the world compared to the hugely smart conditions on the Nepali side. That the Birgunj blockade was very successful is partly reflected in the decline in customs revenue there, with corresponding increase in Bhairahawa. Traders fear that Madhesis will restart the protests. The blockade generated a black economy, especially in gas and petrol which has still not normalised completely. Overall, the coercive strategy to secure the constitutional amendments on behalf of the Madhesis and jana jatis was ill thought and has damaged India’s long-term interests in Nepal. Political instability continues to dog Nepal and no post-earthquake reconstruction has begun. New Delhi should help repair the damage done by the blockade by enhancing and fast-tracking its development-assistance programme and imaginatively winning back the hearts and minds of the people, especially the media. The open border and the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, confer upon the Nepalese unique privileges and facilities in India that no national enjoys in another country. Landlocked Nepal is actually India-opened and provided outlets to sea. Beijing knows it cannot replace India and Nepal and therefore, does not give false hopes to Kathmandu. What Nepal really needs now, as championed by the diminished Maoist leader Prachanda, is a National Unity government. While Oli has to keep his promise of addressing the Madhesis’s residual constitutional issues, Prime Minister Modi will need to revisit Pashupatinath. The writer, a retired Major-General from the Gorkha Regiment, has been visiting Nepal since 1959.

United Nations, April 28

Taking a hands-off approach on Kashmir, United Nations Peace Building Commission Chair Macharia Kamau has said that the primacy of politics and the local conditions that drive any negotiations between India and Pakistan have to be “respected”.Answering questions at a news conference, Kamau said that the Kashmir issue “will be resolved in the context of the local domestic political environment between Pakistan and India”. Kamau is also Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the UN.Outlining the Commission’s three-fold approach to the Kashmir issue, he cited “the primacy of politics” and said, “We have to respect the local conditions that drive the negotiations.” Another element was that “we respect the idea they must sustain peace, so the situation cannot be allowed to deteriorate”.And he set the limit to any role in dealing with the dispute, ruling out any direct involvement. “We reach out to as many of the institutions within the subcontinent to support this (peace) process moving forward. That is the ambition we would have for that process on the subcontinent.”“Will it have an overnight fundamental impact that would change everything on the ground?” Kamau asked rhetorically and said, “That is a ‘may be’ precisely because the situations on the ground are driven by different forces other than the ones that we are looking to address ourselves.”Responding to a reporter’s question if that meant a solution to the almost 70-year dispute was not likely, he said, “We never say never in our business. That is not the way.” He added, “The whole idea of building peace is to always seek solutions and look for the historical moment, the historical opportunity that will avail of the opportunity to engage and to bring the instruments that are now available to us in the context of the resolutions to bear on the situation.”At the same time, it has to be done “keeping in mind, as I said, that we have to respect primacy of the political situation on the ground”, he again emphasised. Asked by a Pakistani reporter if it meant a peace process will depend on Indian’s willingness to talk, Kamau said, “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.” And he yet again added the caveat, “What I would say is that the situation on the ground has to be respected. And it isn’t about any one country. It is about all the political players on the ground.”— IANSITBP N-E HQs to be in ItanagarNew Delhi: Amidst concerns over Chinese military activities along the forward areas of Arunachal Pradesh, India has started the process of shifting the North-East headquarters of the ITBP, 500 km from Shillong to state capital Itanagar. pti

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

• First time in more than 15 years that a UN official has made no direct reference to the world body’s role in resolving Kashmir issue, virtually echoing Kofi Annan, who as UN chief in 2001 said the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir were obsolete
• UN official’s remarks come at a time when Pakistan is asking for the resolution of Kashmir issue as per UN resolutions, forgetting that UN had removed Kashmir from the list of disputedterritories in 2010

Foreign Secretaries S Jaishankar and Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry. PTI

Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 26

India and Pakistan Foreign Secretaries here today finally resumed talks, in what was the first interaction between the neighbours after the Pathankot terror attacks in the first week of January.While India showed concern over terrorism as well as the Pathankot attacks, Pakistan harped on Kashmir.Islamabad also took up the arrest of Kulbhushan Yadav who, Pakistan alleges, is a RAW agent, a charge denied by India. Sources said Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar even told his Pakistani counterpart Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry that no spy agency would put their agent in the field with their own passport and without a visa.India also pressed for immediate consular access to Yadav. What raised many eyebrows was the fact that Pakistan released a statement on the talks even while the meeting was in progress.In a meeting that lasted 90 minutes, Jaishankar told Chaudhry, “Terrorist groups based in Pakistan that are targeting India must not be allowed to operate with impunity.” He said Pakistan could not be in denial on the impact of terrorism on the bilateral relations.India also rebutted all allegations of its involvement in Balochistan. India pointed out that Yadav was an abducted naval officer, thus dismissing allegations of his being a spy. India said it needed early and visible progress on both Pathankot and 26/11 attacks.The Pakistan High Commission said that Chaudhry took up the issue of Yadav and expressed serious concern over RAW’s alleged involvement in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi. He also conveyed concern over efforts by Indian authorities for the release of the prime suspects of the Samjhauta Express blasts.

Priya Atwal
A treaty, which the young Sikh royal had no choice but to sign, read, “The gem… shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England.”

In this April 2002 photo, the Kohinoor, set in the Maltese Cross on the crown made for Britain’s late Queen Mother Elizabeth, is seen on her coffin as it is drawn to London’s Westminster Hall. AP/PTI

At a Supreme Court hearing on the Kohinoor issue on Monday, Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar surprisingly stated on behalf of the Culture Ministry that “the diamond was neither stolen nor forcibly taken away”. Instead, Kumar claimed, the stone had been “gifted” to the East India Company by the former rulers of the Punjab. The Supreme Court justices themselves then cautioned Kumar, advising that such a stance would threaten India’s ability to later stage any further claim to the diamond. This appears to have prompted the government to issue a new statement on Tuesday evening, in which it was asserted that their views had “not yet been conveyed” and that the Solicitor-General had merely “informed the honourable court about the history of the diamond”. How could the Solicitor-General come up with his narrative, which is dramatically at odds with the records of Punjabi history.One document in particular sealed the fate of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the Sikh Empire and the Kohinoor diamond in one fell swoop: the 1849 Treaty of Lahore. This treaty was presented to the Maharaja to sign after the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1848-9, at a moment when an anti-British rebellion by Punjabi soldiers and ‘sardars’ had been clinically suppressed by the Company. This was a rebellion in which the boy king had himself played no part, but for which he was made to suffer the consequences, as the then Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, had decided that he would no longer allow the troublesome nature of Punjabi independence to thwart British imperial ambitions in India. Dalhousie’s Secretary, Sir Henry Elliott, was duly dispatched to Lahore at the end of the war, and he told Duleep Singh and his courtiers that they were to sign away the kingdom without hesitation, or face much harsher consequences.The treaty presented by Elliott to the boy Maharajah included clauses for the takeover of the Punjab and all its state property by the Company, as well making provisions for a life pension for Duleep Singh and his family. It also featured a distinct clause about the Kohinoor, which read thus: “The gem called the Koh-i-Noor, which was taken from Shah Sooja-ool-moolk by Maharajah Runjeet Singh, shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England.”If the Kohinoor was intended as a gift by the Maharajah to Queen Victoria, the use of the term “surrender” in this document would certainly suggest that it was given unwillingly, to say the least. It would even seem that the British Queen herself was aware of Duleep Singh’s sensitivity on the issue – as can be seen from an account written by Lady Lena Login (wife of the Maharajah’s guardian, Sir John Spencer Login), who was present when Duleep was briefly reunited with his lost gem at Buckingham Palace, in the summer of 1854.Lena Login wrote in her memoirs that the subject of the Kohinoor was deliberately not mentioned in Duleep Singh’s presence, since it was a painful reminder of the loss of his dynasty’s imperial sovereignty. However, the matter was brought up by the Queen soon after her first meeting with Duleep Singh, when she privately asked Lady Login whether “the Maharajah ever spoke of the Kohinoor, and if so, did he seem to regret it?” The Queen offered to show him the diamond once again, thinking that it might please her new Indian friend, but only after it had been ascertained by the Logins that it would not provoke an awkward or angry reaction from him.A few days later, Lady Login stood spectator with great trepidation when the Queen surprised the Maharajah during his portrait sitting at the palace, bustling into the room with the diamond and several Beefeaters in tow. In a tale that is now famous, Duleep Singh reportedly trembled as he took the precious stone in his hand, gazing at it intensely and noting how it sparkled much more than before, but was also much smaller to hold since Prince Albert had ordered its re-shaping. Lady Login recorded her fear that he would hurl the jewel out of the window in a fit of rage, but this quickly melted into relief when, instead, the Maharajah turned and bowed low before the Queen, “expressing in a few gracious words the pleasure it afforded him to have this opportunity of himself placing it in Her hands.”Perhaps this is what the Solicitor General is referring to as the “gifting” of the Kohinoor. However, the existence of a treaty and the presence of royal guards surrounding the Maharajah surely make it clear that this was far from a free-willed act, despite his dignified and magnanimous approach. What other choice did he really have?One wonders what good a relatively narrow debate over a wretched stone could provide for healing the long-lasting wounds inflicted by British imperialism on South Asia; but if we are going to have one, let our legal authorities at least do their history homework before getting on with it.The writer is reading for a DPhil in History on nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian royal relations, at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

Beijing, April 19

China today maintained that its decision to block the bid to get JeM chief Masood Azhar banned by the UN was in accordance with “facts and relevant resolutions”, a statement that came a day after two senior Indian ministers raked up the issue with their Chinese counterparts.China was in “sound communication” with all relevant parties, including the Indian side over the Azhar issue, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said ahead of the crucial boundary talks tomorrow between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi. Doval arrived in Beijing this evening.As both External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar raised the Azhar issue strongly yesterday in their talks with their counterparts asking China to review its stand, Hua once again reiterated that Beijing’s decision was in accordance with “facts” and “relevant” UN resolutions.“As for the listing matter, China has already expressed its position. We support the UN central coordinating role in the world campaign against terrorism and China has taken active part in the world cooperation against terrorism,” Hua said.“We oppose double standards in counter-terrorism campaign. We have been dealing with the listing matter in accordance with the facts and relevant resolutions. We are also in sound communication with all relevant parties including the Indian side,” she said. China’s assertion came in the backdrop of Swaraj’s remarks at the Russia-India-China (RIC) foreign ministers meet in Moscow where she warned the international community of “serious consequences” if it continues to adopt “double standards” in dealing with terrorism.China’s “hidden veto” in blocking India’s bid to get Azhar banned by the UN has cast a shadow on the Sino- India boundary talks beginning here tomorrow. While Swaraj raised the Azhar issue with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow, Parrikar said he took up the matter with top defence officials yesterday. — PTI