[antiwar-van] CPI [ml] editorial on current situation

[Macdonald Stainsby]

ML Update
[excerpted from] A CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine
Vol.-5; No.-24; 12-18 June 2002

Editorial:

CAN ARMS TRADERS BE PEACE BROKERS?

Following Richard Armitage's visit to Islamabad and New Delhi, it is now
being claimed that the tension between India and Pakistan has now eased 
a bit and the danger of a war has been minimised. Washington has 
informed Islamabad that New Delhi is agreed on a partial restoration of 
diplomatic ties as well as a certain reduction in the level of 
deployment of armed forces along the LoC. If implemented, these 
measures would indeed be welcomed by the overwhelming majority of 
Indians and Pakistanis and the subcontinental diaspora spread across 
the world.

But this is indeed a big 'if'. Defeated in the February and March
elections and thoroughly isolated over the genocide in Gujarat, the BJP 
has managed to regain some political initiative in the current climate 
of war hysteria. Gujarat has been relegated to the inside pages of 
newspapers. The party has managed to retain Goa with a marginal edge. 
And now in Maharashtra, the Sena-BJP combine is making a desperate bid 
to topple the Congress-NCP government. The BJP would therefore try its 
level best to sustain the present state of hysteria. Indeed, peace and 
friendship with Pakistan is antithetical to the BJP's essential 
political design.

While welcoming any reduction in Indo-Pak tension, we cannot ignore the
growing danger of imperialist involvement in the region. It is indeed
ironical that the Bush and Blair administrations, two of the biggest
suppliers of weapons to the region, are being lauded as brokers for 
peace. Even some critics of Washington have joined the pro-US chorus 
describing the US intervention in the present crisis as a 'benign' move 
on the part of the world's sole superpower. They naturally see no harm 
in 'welcoming' the growing US role in the subcontinent. How easily do 
they forget the history of American imperialism in which the US has 
almost always used such benign covers to strengthen its strategic 
stranglehold over various regions.

In the midst of this war-hysteria, some interesting findings emerged 
from an opinion poll conducted in Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian 
affiliate of the renowned British opinion poll agency MORI. It is not 
known who commissioned the poll, but it was done with the express 
permission of the Union Home Ministry. The opinion poll shows that only 
6% respondents would prefer to join Pakistan. The poll also showed that 
76% people remained opposed to another Indo-Pak war over Kashmir; 86% 
see free and fair elections as a step towards solution of the Kashmir 
problem; 87% want direct talks between the Indian government and the 
people of Kashmir; and 92% oppose any further fragmentation of the 
state on religious lines. 

To the NDA government, which has never been confident of Kashmir's
commitment to India, the poll outcome must come as music to its
chauvinistic ears. But the real message of the poll is that Kashmir 
does not want war, and that Kashmir wants a peaceful and secular 
political solution through dialogue and fair democratic elections. The 
poll has also exposed the utter incongruity of New Delhi's obsession 
with the Pakistan factor. While the Indian government habitually 
reduces the Kashmir question to one of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, 
only 6% people in the state really have Pakistan on their mind!

Rest of India should echo this voice of peace, sanity and democracy
emanating from the trouble-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir. The 
Government of India must be pressured to adopt concrete measures like 
demobilization of troops and resumption of dialogue with Pakistan. And 
to set the stage for free and fair elections in Jammu and Kashmir, 
state repression must be brought to an end and general amnesty granted 
to all political activists who are currently languishing in Indian 
jails.

-- 
Macdonald Stainsby,
External Relations Co-ordinator, Douglas College Students Union.
**
In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht.
***
"`Order rules in Berlin.' You stupid lackeys! Your 
`order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will rear 
ahead once more and announce to your horror amid the brass 
of trumpets: `I was, I am, I always will be!'" 

-Rosa Luxemburg, 1918.