{"id":293,"date":"2005-04-07T21:25:29","date_gmt":"2005-04-07T15:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/2005\/04\/07\/more-on-the-failure-proof-theory\/"},"modified":"2005-04-07T21:25:29","modified_gmt":"2005-04-07T15:55:29","slug":"more-on-the-failure-proof-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200504\/more-on-the-failure-proof-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"More on the failure-proof theory."},"content":{"rendered":"

Incidentally, I didn’t say that Amit Varma was wrong<\/a>, only that his argument was fallacious. There may be a good case for dealing with Musharraf, but it cannot be “We must<\/i> deal with him because in the slim chance that we succeed, the payoff will be really good.” Any decision to deal with him must look at what realistic chances of success are. <\/p>\n

Amit says that there is no harm in trying. That’s silly. Of course there is. The potential harm is that we will be suckered into making concessions once again, without getting anything in return. He also says that this time its different because Pakistan has agreed to abandon the primacy of Kashmir<\/a>. Huh<\/a>? He has never said<\/a> anything like that. It’s just wishful thinking on the part of the “Shower so much love on the Pakistanis that they get overwhelmed with emotion and agree to become our friends” crowd.
\n
\nSeriously, why do we persist in thinking that all those people-to-people contacts, “confidence building measures”, cultural exchanges and such other junk will do a lot of good? Not that we shouldn’t <\/i> do it, but my question is how much good such things they will do. In the first place, Pakistan is a dictatorship and the its government reflects the views of its military, not its people. (and, to be fair, even the Indian government reflects its citizens views only imperfectly). Is it our plan that once the Pakistani people see the light, they will rise up in revolt, overthrow their government and install a pro-India government? No? Then what exactly is our plan? <\/p>\n

Secondly, isn’t it possible that we understand each other perfectly<\/i> well and yet rationally consider each other antagonists? Confidence building measures do just that – they build confidence. They create an atmosphere where negotiations can be held. They do not substitute for hard-headed negotiations. Pakistan is not a child to be distracted by shiny objects so that it will forget Kashmir. Let’s treat it like an adult. The kind of spectacle our media and Government makes of us (very well described by Gaurav<\/a>) is silly. They haven’t learnt yet. Yesterday I was watching a programme on NDTV where Rajdeep Sardesai was making a determined attempt to make it seem as if Pakistan was no longer sponsoring terrorism and the attack on the tourist centre was caused by renegade groups – so much so that when one of the experts referred to recent seizures of counterfeit currency from the Pakistani Embassy and sarcastically asked if the renegades were situated in the embassy too, Rajdeep simply cut him off. <\/p>\n

A realistic analysis of the situation would recognise that Musharraf comes from Pakistan’s military tradition. He might be looking for a legacy for himself, but it is highly unlikely that securing peace with India is really the legacy he is looking for if the price he has to pay is losing Kashmir. <\/p>\n

From his point of view, gaining Kashmir is a concrete legacy. “Peace” with India is a rather nebulous legacy. It’s not like he can brandish a peace treaty. I mean, he can,<\/i> but unless the treaty decides Kashmir one way or the other, his people are going to ask him “How is this different from the Simla agreement?” – not much of a legacy to live on. If it does<\/i> decide Kashmir and anything less than the whole of Kashmir goes to Pakistan, it will be considered a legacy of failure. <\/p>\n

So honestly, I am pessimistic about this whole “peace through concessions and being cloyingly nice” thing. The only thing we can achieve is an imperfect peace achieved by being diplomatically and economically tough on Pakistan, keeping up the pressure on terrorists in Kashmir, and making Kashmiris happy via economic growth and regular elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Incidentally, I didn’t say that Amit Varma was wrong, only that his argument was fallacious. There may be a good case for dealing with Musharraf, but it cannot be “We must deal with him because in the slim chance that we succeed, the payoff will be really good.” Any decision to deal with him must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}