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The Rediff Special/ Kushanava Choudhury
Days after the Lahore summit, in a modest hotel room in Delhi, unbeknownst to anyone but their respective prime ministers, Niaz Naik and R K Mishra conducted the most meaningful dialogue on the Kashmir problem in Indo-Pakistani history.
Niaz Naik finally breaks his silence on the Kashmir Initiative.
Exclusive to rediff.com
The manager at the modest Delhi hotel must have thought Niaz A Naik a very
odd tourist. On March 27, 1999, the veteran Pakistani diplomat arrived in
the city where he had once been Pakistan's high commissioner and took a room
in an ordinary tourist hotel. He never left the hotel. He took all his meals
in his room. He had only one repeated visitor: R K Mishra.
Once, he went to the lobby and bought a map. On April 1, he was gone. In those four days, in
that hotel room, unbeknownst to anyone but their respective prime ministers,
Naik and Mishra conducted the most meaningful bilateral dialogue on the
Kashmir problem in Indo-Pakistani history.
Ten months later, a subdued, wintry chill had enveloped Islamabad when Naik
told me this story. In the intervening period that witnessed a war, a coup
and a hijacking, a political eon had passed. Naik, who had been Nawaz Sharif's
point man on covert diplomatic efforts with India the architect of the
back channel had become the new regime's persona non grata. A BBC
journalist confided that in recent times, Naik had become depressed,
reclusive, an old man past his time in the limelight.
For a man apparently flung into the dustbin of history, Naik seemed
surprisingly dapper when we met in the library of the Foreign Services
Academy that January afternoon. A few inches over five feet tall,
bespectacled, dressed in a buttoned dark suit, handkerchief in breast pocket
like many Pakistanis of his generation and class, he carried himself with
the aristocratic elegance of an aging Anglophile. This, I thought, is what
Nirad C Chaudhuri must have looked like.
"Are you from Bangladesh?" he asked me, immediately after I had introduced
myself as a student at an American university, researching the role of
democracy in the Kargil conflict. It seemed out of the blue. No, I admitted,
I am originally from Calcutta. "Ah!" he smiled, nearly triumphant, "You have
an air of Bengal about you." I was astonished.
Of the countless bureaucrats,
journalists, taxiwallahs and others I had met in my prior two weeks in
Pakistan, none had guessed, unless I told them so, that I was Bengali.
Though his voice was calm, polite, even sedate, his gleaming eyes gave away
his pacing mind constantly probing, seeking, finding.
A Punjabi refugee during Partition, Naik had devoted much of his career
probing for inroads toward better relations with India. "In spite of all the
tensions," he said, "there has always been another channel of co-operation."
In Zia ul Haq's government, as foreign secretary, and then high commissioner
in India, Naik had been a key player in striking agreements with the Gandhis
(Indira, and then Rajiv) on trade, visas, defence, etc. Despite all the
tensions simmering below the surface, "there was wonderful understanding
between Zia and Indira Gandhi. The chemistry worked," he said.
In the decade after Zia's mysterious death, the revolving door of unstable
democratic governments had stopped all progress on the bilateral front. Naik
meanwhile had become active in non-governmental or Track II efforts, most
specifically the Neemrana Initiative featuring eminent persons from both
sides of the border. Then, in 1997, Nawaz Sharif was overwhelmingly elected
prime minister on a platform that included a proposal to improve
relations with India.
A businessman famed for his Reaganesque intellect,
superficially Sharif had little in common with the cultivated Naik. Yet,
both men shared an interest in improving ties with India. "Sharif was
basically not a politician but a businessman," according to Naik, "He could
see the benefits of Indo-Pakistani co-operation in the economic and social
sectors. He was really, genuinely interested in making progress."
One thing led to another, and suddenly, in February 1998, a dhoti-clad Atal
Bihari Vajpayee was reciting peacenik verses at a gathering in Lahore.
Critics clucked at the feel-good Lahore summit between the two prime
ministers for producing little of substance. Yet behind closed doors,
without the knowledge of their advisors or Foreign Offices, Vajpayee and
Sharif were ironing out a daring initiative to tackle the thorniest issue of
all: Kashmir.
The two leaders agreed on three points: first, the status quo
was inadequate and the Kashmir issue must be resolved; second, both sides
must try to solve the problem by the end of the century (ie by 2000); and
third, given the publicity glare of the press, especially considering the
emotive nature of the Kashmir dispute, any preliminary negotiation must
operate discreetly through quiet 'back-channel' diplomacy.
Based on the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo model of negotiations, the two prime ministers
agreed to select one personal emissary each to meet on a one-on-one basis to
solely negotiate on Kashmir.
In early March, Vajpayee telephoned Sharif with his choice: R K Mishra,
editorial board chairman of the Mumbai-based Observer group of newspapers.
When Sharif's first appointee his principal secretary passed away, the
PM called upon a former diplomat outside his trusted circle: Niaz A Naik.
Naik was well known as a veteran diplomat and a leading player in various
Track II initiatives. In mid-March, Mishra arrived in Islamabad for an
initial meeting with Sharif and Naik. Naik and Mishra agreed to meet in New
Delhi for their first discussion on Kashmir.
On March 27, 1999, Naik traveled to Delhi as a private citizen and checked
into a tourist hotel. There, he and Mishra met daily for several consecutive
days in Naik's hotel room. The two emissaries agreed on four initial
elements: first, both would move beyond the rigid publicly stated government
positions on Kashmir. Mishra would not refer to Kashmir as an integral part
of India; Naik would not mouth Pakistan's demand for a plebiscite based on
the 1948 UN resolution.
Second, any solution had to be balanced and take
into account the interests of India, Pakistan as well as that of the
Kashmiri people.
Third, the solution had to be "just, equitable, feasible
and implementable." Finally, as per Mishra's suggestion, it was decided that
any solution had to be final, not partial. The mistake of the 1972 Simla
Accord, which deferred a final settlement, would not be repeated.
The fourth
clause ruled out all proposals that would place contentious regions under
temporary UN trusteeship or joint Indo-Pakistani control for 5 to 10 years
without a final plan.
Governed by these four elements, over the next few days, the duo discussed
all possible solutions to the Kashmir dispute.
First, Mishra suggested the
proposal common in Indian circles: to convert the Line of Control
which had been established by the 1972 Simla Accord that ended the third
Indo-Pakistani war into a permanent border. Naik predictably rejected the
proposal. "It's the status quo. Then why did we fight two wars?" Naik asked.
Second, Mishra suggested increased autonomy within Kashmir through fairer
elections. "It won't work. Elections are not a substitute for the Kashmiri
demand for a plebiscite," Naik countered.
In turn, Naik offered the Owen Dixon Plan, drawn up by UN mediator Owen
Dixon in 1950, which recommended the redrawing of regions of the state as
majority-Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim. "Why not use the same criteria of
Partition to divide Kashmir?" Naik suggested. Mishra said India could not
afford to introduce the communal factor, especially with the
Hindu-nationalist BJP in power. "It will result in a blood bath," he said.
Finally, both discussed the option championed by the Jammu and Kashmir
Liberation Front, the original, secular organisation which had launched the
Kashmiri secessionist movement in the late 1980s: an independent Kashmir.
Both rejected the idea.
From there, Naik and Mishra rapidly went through the
Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar's proposal, the Finnish-Sweden model over a
disputed island, the recent power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland, and
other plans, without success. Discussions had reached a dead-end. Mishra
reported to Vajpayee that all existing possibilities had been exhausted.
"You are working on the right lines," Vajpayee told Mishra, "Ask Mr Naik to
come up with a new initiative."
Pressed to innovate, Naik proposed that the duo explore easily identifiable
geographical boundaries as possibilities for establishing a new border. He
suggested the Chenab River, which flows through southwestern Kashmir, as one
potential new border. Mishra said he didn't know the rivers location. Naik
went down to the hotel lobby and bought a map.
With a rudimentary tourist
map of India, the two negotiators discussed the potential fate of Kashmir.
Neither could afford to request their respective Foreign Offices for
detailed maps of the state without rousing suspicions.
Mishra still had many more questions about Naik's proposal, especially regarding the percentages
of Hindus and Muslims in the area. On April 1, the day Naik returned to
Islamabad, Mishra asked his counterpart to send detailed, blown-up maps of
the Chenab. He neither rejected nor accepted Naik's proposal.
Days later, bunkers were spotted on the Indian side of the LoC. Soon, the
Indian external affairs office discovered the surreptitious communications
between Naik and Mishra. All through, only Naik, Mishra, Vajpayee and Sharif
had known of the existence of these talks. The back-channel initiative on
Kashmir the first such exercise in recent history had run dry. The two
never discussed Kashmir again.
In the coming months, as the world's two newest nuclear powers inched
towards an all out war, Naik materialised in Delhi on several occasions,
carrying messages from Sharif to Vajpayee. Naik traveled to Delhi for the
last time on June 26, 1999. India had readied tanks along the border in
Rajasthan and looked to be hunkering down for a protracted conflict.
"Things were really getting out of hand," Naik said. Sharif had dispatched Naik with
four points: first, restore sanctity of the LoC, second, cease all aerial
bombing, third, reaffirm a commitment to the Lahore process, and fourth,
take concrete steps to resolve all issues, including Kashmir, as agreed in
Lahore. After a half hour meeting with Naik, Vajpayee agreed to all four
points.
The next day, Sharif was set to fly to China in a last-ditch effort to shore
up support for Pakistan's flagging campaign. Naik had a plan: The Pakistani
PM would fly over Indian airspace, and send a diplomatic greeting from the
aircraft to the Indian PM. Vajpayee would reciprocate and invite Sharif to
make a technical halt in Delhi on his flight back from China. The two would
meet in Delhi, and jointly declare an agreement to end the conflict.
The two sides had agreed to exchange drafts by fax of the politically loaded
salutations beforehand. That evening, Naik faxed a copy of what would have
been Sharif's airborne greeting to Vajpayee. But, Vajpayee's invitation
never came. Instead, the Indians sent back a fax of a 'statement of war.'
The next day, Sharif's flight never went over Indian airspace. The plan
collapsed.
A little over a week later, Sharif traveled to Washington DC to sign a joint
agreement with US President Bill Clinton. According to Naik, aside from one
paragraph in which Clinton promised to take a personal interest in the
sub-continental dispute, the Washington agreement mirrored the four points
Vajpayee had accepted a week before.
Apparently, Vajpayee had admitted to
Clinton by phone that the hawkish sentiment in India was too strong to
enable a bilateral solution, Naik said. "With so much mistrust at that time,
the US was the only country to be able to bring the two sides together," he
said.
It was during those clandestine trips during Kargil that Naik was spotted by
the Indian press. Months later, as news of the back-channel talks trickled
out, Naik would become a marked man, making headlines whenever he was
spotted this side of Wagah.
Since Kargil, he has been in India at least
twice in April and then in September though supposedly only on
non-governmental missions. However, his initially icy relationship with General
Musharraf (whom he had blamed largely for hatching Kargil) has thawed, and
its is not unlikely that he will be enlisted again. But, Naik or not, given
the 'face-saving' considerations for both sides on concessions over Kashmir,
any future negotiations with probably be done outside the public eye.
"I am quite sure, if in the future, any such dialogue resumes," Naik said,
"the threads I left in April will be picked up again."
Design: Dominic Xavier
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