AFTER more than a month of intense military operations to clear the Pakistani intrusion across the Line of Control (LoC) in the Kargil area, the battle still continues. The Indian armed forces are working in extremely difficult conditions to dislodge the entrenched Pakistani soldiers and armed intruders in mountainous terrain and icy climatic conditions. Everyday casualties are mounting and the bodies of soldiers are reaching the far corners of the country. By June 22 the official report of casualties was: 163 dead, 323 injured and nine missing. The actual toll is higher. The whole country is anxiously watching the course of the battle in Kargil and there is widespread sympathy and solidarity with the soldiers and the bereaved families who are facing the grim situation bravely.

There is all round support for the immediate task of ensuring that the systematic and well planned violation of the Line of Control by Pakistan is rolled back and the legitimate right of India to defend the LoC is exercised fully. It is this position which has helped India to convince world opinion that the present round of hostilities have been provoked by Pakistan. The diplomatic efforts made towards mobilising international public opinion on this point are a necessary part of the overall drive to foil the Pakistan regime's plan to change the jurisdiction of the Line of Control.

INTERNATIONALISING KASHMIR

The Vajpayee government, however, has not confined itself to diplomatic efforts to mobilise international public opinion. It has gone considerably further in its efforts to enlist the help of the United States to end the present conflict. The Vajpayee government has been hailing the position of the United States as a vindication of its stand on the Kargil issue. Prime minister Vajpayee wrote a letter to Clinton which was handed over to the US national security advisor, Sandy Berger, at Geneva on June 16. Though the contents of the letter have not been published, it is learnt that India has requested the US, prior to the G-8 summit at Cologne, to stop Pakistan from getting loans from the IMF and other multilateral agencies. The government and the BJP spokesman have appealed to the US to follow up its stand that the LoC should not be violated, with concrete steps to make Pakistan withdraw its forces from the intruded areas. These moves by the Vajpayee government have the dangerous potential of internationalising the Kashmir issue.

The government has cited the G-8 communique on the Kashmir issue as a big victory for India. The G-8 statement, while pointing out that the infiltration of armed intruders violating the LoC was the source of the current military confrontation in Kashmir, and criticising any military action to change the status quo, also calls for an immediate cessation of the fighting. Implicit in this stand is that the continuation of hostilities has to be stopped. This can be used against India for continuing operations against the intruders.

Alongside the statement on Kashmir, there is another resolution on the missile and nuclear tests by India and Pakistan reiterating the G-8 position taken one year ago and calling upon both the countries to join non-proliferation measures as set out in the UN Security Council resolution. While it is valid to state that the G-8 has recognised the source of the current provocation as the armed intrusion violating the Line of Control, it is equally important to note that the stance of the G-8 lays the basis for future intervention particularly since the basic question of Kashmir and the issue of nuclearisation of India and Pakistan have been taken together.

As far as the western powers are concerned they see the Indo-Pakistan conflict as centered around Kashmir and in the context of the nuclear weapons on both sides. British prime minister Tony Blair stated on June 17 that while Britain urged both India and Pakistan to resolve their differences, "we know that the source of this difference is Kashmir." If India persists in supporting such a stance, it will be difficult to prevent the entire issue being taken up by the UN Security Council in the coming days.

THE US AGENDA

The US administration has clearly indicated that there is sufficient evidence to establish that armed intruders backed by the Pakistan army have crossed the LoC and entrenched themselves. From this to deduce that the United States will come forward to rein in Pakistan and that the earlier tilt towards Pakistan will change to a tilt towards India is illusory. The United States has its own agenda for Kashmir. In the present world situation, the United States is prepared to support the demand for national self-determination by any ethnic group provided it serves its own interests. This is the new doctrine enunciated by Madeline Albright, the US secretary of state, on behalf of the Clinton administration. This has already been put into practice in the Balkans.

REALITY OF PAKISTANI REGIME

What the Vajpayee government overlooked in the crucial period between September 1998 and February 1999, when it was deeply engaged in strategic talks with the United States, was the reality of what the Pakistan regime is today. In Pakistan, increasingly, Islamic fundamentalist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba have infiltrated the higher echelons of the armed forces including the ISI. Nawaz Sharif's choice of the army chief of staff, after he removed General Karamat, was Pervez Musharaff who, according to Selig Harrison, the American South Asia expert, "has long standing links with several Islamic fundamentalist groups." The rise of Islamic fundamentalist forces and their influence in the Pakistani establishment parallels the US-Pakistan nexus with the Islamic fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan and their joint military support to them. The ISI has an all-pervasive influence in Pakistan society and despite the formal trappings of democracy, Pakistan continues to be a military-dominated set-up with the armed forces increasingly having Islamic fundamentalist linkages. It is such a state of affairs which has been ludicrously depicted by George Fernandes as that of the Pakistani army acting independently of the prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The United States, with its great influence over the Vajpayee government, led it to believe that Nawaz Sharif and his civilian government should be helped to counter the more fundamentalist forces represented by the army. But the years of American nurturing of the military in Pakistan and helping the ISI in Afghanistan have come home to roost. Unlike what the Vajpayee government believes, there is no guarantee that the US can rein in the Pakistan establishment, even if it wishes to do so.

CORRECT APPROACH

Instead of falling into the trap of invoking US intervention and thereby internationalising the Kashmir issue, the only correct approach at present is to push ahead with the military operations designed to clear the area on the Indian side of the LoC, of all Pakistani encroachment. This must be pursued steadfastly by taking the people of the country fully into confidence about the progress of the military operations and allied diplomatic efforts. Any move to widen the conflict, by opening up new fronts for military operations, will only end up helping Pakistan to internationalise the Kashmir issue and inviting immediate western intervention.

The Vajpayee government has to be firmly told that any course of relying on the US and other western powers in the name of getting international support is not helpful to the Indian cause. This warning is required as the record of the Vajpayee government in dealing with the Kargil crisis has already been dismal. The lack of any vigilance in tracking down the large scale intrusion, the failure to realise the enormity of the encroachment and its military threat, the deceptive and contradictory positions taken to cover up this failure have all been widely noted and commented upon. The causes for this debacle and explanation for the Vajpayee government's failure to tackle such a major crisis will definitely be on the agenda after the military operations end. Public opinion will demand that the government be put in the dock to explain.

However, before any examination of the unfolding of events and the bungling by Vajpayee, Fernandes and company, it is essential to understand that Kargil represents the exploding of the BJP-RSS strategic outlook at a more fundamental level. The BJP had earlier decided to make the bomb and the bus trip apart from the budget (the three B's) its major election plank for the forthcoming elections. Out of this, the bomb and the bus trip's achievements are now in tatters. Another B, added by Advani after the fall of the government was the "betrayal" by the opposition in toppling the government. The question now is which "betrayal" will be discussed during the elections -- the fall of the Vajpayee government or the Kargil bungling.

TWO FALLACIES: NUCLEAR STRENGTH & LAHORE TRIP

What is at the root of the complacency and sense of false confidence which prevailed in the ruling establishment, leading to its Kargil fiasco? Last year in May when the BJP led government conducted the Pokhran tests, it adopted a nuclear doctrine which stated that India has now acquired the strength to ensure peace and stability and protect its security interests. Nuclear weaponisation by India and Pakistan was presented as a step for the preservation of peace as it will maintain a "balance of terror" just as during the Cold War. In his statement on March 15, 1999, Vajpayee expounded this new doctrine: "Now both India and Pakistan are in possession of nuclear weapons. There is no alternative but to live in mutual harmony. The nuclear weapon is not an offensive weapon. It is a weapon of self-defence. It is the kind of weapon that helps in preserving the peace. If in the days of the Cold War there was no use of force, it was because of the balance of terror."

As against this, the Left has been arguing that nuclear tests will start an arms race between the two countries leading to a spiral of tension and confrontation. Nuclear weapons will not end armed conflicts but provide the opportunity for low intensity conflicts as it happened during the period of the Cold War. Pakistan could utilise the nuclear shadow to provoke intrusions in Kashmir to facilitate international intervention. The Vajpayee government's linkage of Kashmir to India's nuclear weapons status, through Advani's statement on May 18, 1999, was the first blunder exemplified by this outlook. Now, by deliberately provoking an armed conflict on the Line of Control in Kashmir, Pakistan has pointedly drawn attention to this aspect. Pakistan knows that India cannot utilise all forms of conventional warfare against it, as in 1965 and 1971, without a nuclear confrontation becoming a reality and invoking international intervention.

Imbued with the idea that nuclear deterrence, i e the balance struck by both countries having nuclear weapons will ensure a stable equilibrium, Vajpayee had proclaimed that we have ensured peace through a position of strength (through nuclear weapons). When Pakistan retaliated with its nuclear tests and India found itself isolated internationally, the Vajpayee government began its journey of seeking US recognition and approval as seen in the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott talks. Faced with a difficult situation and under US pressure, Vajpayee readily agreed to visit Lahore and the bus trip followed. The visit to Pakistan and the Lahore declaration was then depicted as a great achievement and a breakthrough in Indo-Pakistan relations. Not only the BJP, but the RSS also, joined in the chorus of praise. The Lahore visit was portrayed to be a logical result of the Pokhran tests. As the editor of the Organiser (the RSS paper) put it in March 7 issue, "Barely eleven months in office, Vajpayee has earned a distinct place in the nation's history. First by conducting the Pokhran tests and now by the bold bus initiative in his own way..... Both the nuclear tests and the Lahore visit has shown that it requires inner strength and political will to act, not mere military might or parliamentary democracy."

It is these two ideas -- that the nuclear tests have made India a great power and that the Lahore visit is a peace dividend from this policy -- which created the mindset in the Vajpayee government to overlook or disregard any possibility of Pakistan behaving in a manner to utilise the new nuclear situation to its advantage on Kashmir. In his well-informed article in June 18, 1999 issue of the Frontline, its correspondent, Praveen Swami, has spelt out the military consequences of this dubious doctrine of the BJP.

RESORT TO CHAUVINISM

The guns blazing in Kargil have demolished this fanciful and artificial outlook. The BJP is now groping for a new posture; it has fallen back on the traditional RSS stand of national chauvinism. Desperate to cover up its monumental failure, the BJP is now resorting to aggressive rhetoric with demands that the military operations should lead to the capture of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). The same editor of the Organiser who lauded "inner strength and political will" over military might, has now declared: "The present government has to complete the task" (of acquiring POK). Senior RSS leader H V Seshadiri has declared: "Dump the language of Panchsheel and speak in the language of Shakti (power)." The old mindset of the RSS was exhibited with his statement that "Only a rejuvenated and powerful Hindu nation could defeat the nasty designs of Pakistan."

With this posture it is only one step further to the insane demand that Pakistan be subjected to a nuclear attack as demanded by Panchajanya, the RSS Hindi paper.

The observation of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee's death anniversary on June 23 as Kashmir Day, at the call of the BJP, was marked by chauvinistic and communal rhetoric. The BJP, it is claimed in advertisements put out in newspapers, is more committed to the cause of Kashmir than any other party. According to the BJP, S P Mukherjee was the first martyr for Kashmir -- a gross distortion of history. The BJP does not consider the hundreds of Kashmiris who laid down their lives fighting the Pakistani intruders in 1948 as martyrs because they were Muslims.

DEFEND LoC: DON’T WIDEN WAR

With this dangerous rhetoric and chauvinism, the BJP will be susceptible to pressure to open new areas for military operations in order to circumvent the difficult task of clearing the intruders from the Drass-Kargil-Batalik sector. Widening the conflict is a danger which can arise from hawks on both sides of the border. This will be a sure recipe for undoing whatever India has achieved in the past six weeks. Defending the Line of Control and a firm determination to clear intruders from the Indian side has stood India in good stead and united the country. War with Pakistan will only mean projecting both countries as threats to world peace, with Kashmir as the central focus. Further, such a war provides no guarantee of a successful conclusion for India, except ruin for peoples of both countries and except facilitating direct imperialist intervention as in the Balkans.

The BJP must remember that the Vajpayee government is a defeated government; it is a caretaker government which has no legitimacy except as an interim arrangement till elections. It should not take any step or policy measure which will be seen as partisan and ideologically motivated.

The government has confined itself to one meeting of opposition leaders with the prime minister after Sartaj Aziz's visit. It has refused to call a session of the Rajya Sabha to discuss the Kargil conflict despite the demand of the entire opposition. This refusal highlights its partisan approach to a vital national question and its anxiety to hide the facts from the people. The BJP needs to be told firmly that any national effort to defend national sovereignty requires from a caretaker government active efforts to involve all national political parties. There has to be a consultative mechanism instituted for this purpose on a regular basis. The president of India has to act in this direction.

PATRIOTISM Vs CHAUVINISM