"Teri barbadion ke mashawara hain aasmanon mein"—O Muslims, the fates in heaven are conspiring to destroy your existence," says one of the recent comments in the highly charged Paki press as a reaction to Shri Vajpayee's glittering reception in America. Some others may also be noted as follows : "America and India have drawn up a joint plan to establish Akhand Bharat in 12 years. America will launch an air attack on Pakistan's nuclear installations and Indian forces will start a land attack on its territory." "America and India are trying to evolve a solution of the Kashmir problem behind the back of Pakistan." "Only a redoubled spirit of Jehad can keep Pakistan united." "Pakistan should now depend only on China and strengthen collaborative ties with it." "General Musharraf failed in the UN and the USA to convince anyone there of Pakistan's principled stand on Kashmir because of his own lack of credibility as architect of the Kargil misadventure and killer of democracy at home.

After all, to carry conviction is a matter of the credibility of the person concerned who makes the effort. India and Vajpayee carry an all-time high respect and weight in the comity of nations today. Pakistan's bungling in Kargil has finished its credibility and sharpened civilian-military confrontation." "The Mujahideen should be ready for even ten years' more of (terrorist) war in Kashmir to achieve their purpose. They had nearly brought the Indian army to its knees in Kargil but betrayed by a premature ceasefire dictated by Nawaz Sharif's cowardice and surrender to Clinton's dictates. They can repeat the feat." "Hizbul Mujahideen's later cease-fire offer had to be withdrawn because it was threatening to divide the Jehadi groups and start a civil war among them as in Afghanistan." To cap it all, comes the badly isolated and 'cold-shouldered' General Musharraf's own loud and clear announcement on landing in Karachi after visit to New York—that "India has seen only our friendship. Now it will see our enmity also," as reported in an Urdu daily of Karachi (September 15).

Obviously, he has another Kargil up his sleeves. This was in reply to Shri Vajpayee's repeat rejection of his offer of talks "anytime, anywhere" by making fun of his gambit by saying, "What should we talk—should we ask him, How is the weather or How are your wife and children. In any case, why to go in for new agreements when the old ones are violated and disregarded?" But then perhaps Vajpayeeji could also have asked the discomfited General : When and where are you staging your next misadventure, when even earlier one has cost Pakistan so dearly—shattering its structure to smithereens? But then old habits die hard. Pakistan was created with the weapon of violence and terrorism and it fated to die in terrorism. It will not rest contented till the Baqistan is split into four, as the last week's London convention of leaders of non-Punjabi provinces declared open rebellion against Punjab. Anyway, the world is coming round to the view that Pakistan has become the headquarters of cross-border terrorism not only for India, but for the entire world. Hence the emergence of a worldwide anti-terrorism coalition comprising USA-Russia-Central Asian Republics and India with headquarters in Delhi. The 'Crescent of Crisis' has become such a menace for the whole world that even Selig Harrison a leading light of the hard-core pro-Paki lobby in the USA has declared "The Politics of hate spring from Islamabad"

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ANYWAY, although there is generally more heat than light in Pakistani papers which I generally try to scan for some useful nuggets at least twice a week on my internet, there is quite often more light of a rare kind also in some of my favourite columnists, especially those of Urdu. In any case, as it is said, distance lends enchantment, to the view, but sometimes clarity also, where you see a particular thing from two prisms, of both India and Pakistan in this case.

"The Politics of hate spring from Islamabad", says Selig S. Harrison

For example, see how a Pakistani columnist recently summed up the 'situation of three different Islamic entities now vying for supremacy in Kashmir. The Hizbul Mujahideen is the captive of Islamabad, the Hurriyat of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) and Farooq Abdullah of a particular American think-tank influencing official U.S. policies, at least those of the Pentagon (American Defence establishment), according to the veteran commentator.

That perhaps explains one thing at least—Why Farooq Abdullah has recently kicked up so much dust over the shop-soiled issue of 'Autonomy', which is his dynastic code word for virtual Azadi about which the former Congress Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao had once promised "sky as the limit"—that is a blank cheque and a limitless licence to loot and exploit the people of Kashmir and blame India for it, which they have been doing with a vengeance even otherwise. It is interesting to note that Rao's generous offer came when Ms Robin Raphel's views about Kashmir as "the disputed territory" and Azadi as its sure-shot solution reigned supreme in the first Clinton term in Washington. In any case, the Rao's announcement was made after a visit to the USA, from Burkina Faso, an obscure Islamic country of Africa, whose ruler at that time was chairman of the Islamic Conference (OIC). To add drama to the announcement for worldwide advertisement of India's commitment, it was made through a direct telecast to Kashmir through a satellite channel. As the Congress lost in the Lok Sabha polls a year later, the promised Assembly polls in the J&K were held in the Congress-supported Deve Gowda regime, with full central support and security cover to Farooq and his party without which it could not have contested and won its much-hyped two-thirds majority which is now being used as an Islamic dagger against India from within. Well has some one said in this context : God, save me from my friends; I will take care of my enemies myself."

In any case, that has been the 'core' of Abdullah dynasty's opportunistic somersaults against India, encouraged as it has been by the US response to its overtures right since 1948. But then India has lived through it with grit and determination to frustrate the crypto secessionists. Interestingly the latest position of this pro-Azadi American think-tank, for long representing the 'core' position of American administration also, has been stated in clearest terms by the above-mentioned Selig S. Harrison in an article in The International Herald Tribune (reproduced by The Asian Age, New Delhi, in its August 19 issue) as follows : "India will have to be much more responsive to Kashmiri demand for autonomy in order to create a favourable atmosphere for a stable ceasefire (by the Pakistan-supported militant groups like Hizbul Mujahideen from inside and Pakistan Army along the border from outside). "Even the Indian-installed Chief Minister of Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, has been pushing demands for autonomy. Kashmir would remain within the Indian constitutional and defence framework under the Abdullah plan, but with a degree of autonomy bordering on independence. Pakistan would keep the portion of Kashmir that it has ruled since the division of the State after the first India-Pakistan war in 1947. "This is the only realistic basis for a long term settlement, and one that most Kashmiris on both sides increasingly seem to favour."

(Italics added) Which means the 'core' of the opinion-making intellectual lobby in the USA is still hooked on to keeping the 'India-held' Jammu and Kashmir as a nominal part of India with defence responsibilities for saving the fiefdom of Abdullah dynasty or its cohorts from being gobbled up by Pakistan, but otherwise converting it into another Pakistan by putting even the linguistically and racially different Jammu and Ladakh regions at the mercy of crypto-Islamists. And which any sensible central government in the initial stages should have divided on linguistic basis by a reference to the State's Reorganisation Commission as was done in case of Hyderabad in 1955. It would have saved Jammu and Ladakh from relentless religious biased and persecution at the hands of the Kashmir's neo-Sultans—masquerading as secularists. Selig S. Harrison, it may be pointed out again, has impressive credentials. A former correspondent of Washington Post, based in Delhi, he is now a senior fellow of a couple of US centres for scholars. He is also the author of five books on Asia.

Till a few years ago, he was a protagonist of the Dixon Plan; that is, a new division of J&K along the river Chenab with non-Muslim majority area of the State going to India, and even Doda, Poonch and Rajouri of Jammu going to Pakistan or to a an enlarged Azad Valley. Now he is for the Farooq Abdullah type Azadi minus the defence portfolio as the Sheikh dynasty's relentless manoeuvres for 'Azadi' including setting up of militant groups have changed the ground situation in J&K. Or at least so they think—so that the atoot ang (the inseparable part of India, as it is fondly called by the Indian nationalists) is sought to be reduced to a limping, continuously bleeding limb, with a tenuous connection just short of total break off; kept intact only with the help of lakhs of army troops and para-military forces. According to this school of thinking, there will be no alternative for India but to accept this position, favouring a pro-US semi-independent Kashmir under the Abdullahs' heels before long. It will thus require the mobilisation of the entire country to defeat this conspiracy, even by more ruthless suppression of the inimical forces if need be. Ironically, greater danger has always been from the opportunistic elements which started conspiring right since 1948.

It is interesting to note in this context some earlier comments of Selig Harrison about the American role during the Eisenhower era of 1953-1961 (when Nixon was the Vice-President) in teaching a lesson to non-aligned India by setting up Pakistan as the Anglo-American puppet against India, says a specialist on Indo-American relations in this context : "In a series of three articles on August 10, August 24 and September 7, 1959, in the New Republic, Selig S. Harrison rightly narrated how and why the United States came to take the decision of granting military aid to Pakistan (in 1954) and later set up the South East Asia Treaty Organisation which Pakistan joined as member. According to him, the United States in taking up this policy decision was influenced by the opinion of certain prominent British officials that Pakistan should be groomed to fill the vacuum created by Britain's withdrawal from the sub-content of India. Apart from the British influence, the desire of some influential Republicans to get tough with Nehru played an important role in shaping this policy.

Selig S. Harrison concluded by saying that Vice-President Nixon 'urged this alliance as a counter force to the confirmed neutralism of Jawaharlal Nehru's India'. No wonder, if many Indians suspected as such." (Selig S. Harrison, quoted in Lal Bahadur Shastri by C.P. Srivastava, Oxford University Press, 1995, P. 157) In this context, it would be pertinent to point out another recently revealed fact—that Sheikh Abdullah sought American help for Azadi by contacting the American delegate Warren Austin during his very first visit to the UN Security Council on January 28, 1948, as a member of Indian delegation (headed by Sir Gopalaswamy Ayyangar) which was sent to represent India's case against Pakistan.