Labour On J&K: Indian Gaffe?

NO one is taking those years of Indo-British sweetness for granted any more. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has declared a Kashmir policy that speaks of the state as an area separate from India and favours a UN-run plebiscite. Indian Prime Minister I.K. Gujral rushed an emissary, Industries Minister Murasoli Maran, to talk to the new Labour leaders but that had little effect on their stand—though he told them that much had changed after the meeting between Gujral and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the Malé SAARC summit. Cook listened politely, little else.

How did this relationship between India and Labour break down? Though Indian diplomats in London love to blame it on "constituency pressure", Labour did not change its stand merely for the sake of some votes. The Indian population is twice the Pakistani population. After Labour adopted a resolution by its decision-making national executive committee on Kashmir, party leaders began to look at the 'disputed territory' in a moral light. What induced this? Was it a change hastened, if not provoked, by diplomatic irritation?

Like all relationships that are ebbing, it's tempting to remember that it wasn't always so. Less than two years ago, Cook had taken the stage at a meeting organised by Indian councillors in Brent in west London to say this: "The position of the Labour Party on Kashmir is that Kashmir is a part of the Indian state. And the resolution of the present issue of Kashmir is an internal matter for India to be conducted on the terms of the Simla agreement." Two months later, the party passed a resolution at its Brighton conference speaking of Kashmir not as a part of India but as an area "bounded by" India and other countries. What happened to provoke this U-turn by the party?

Take another example. Cook had said at the first meeting: "It would be a very impolite foreign secretary who invited himself into such a very difficult internal situation." A Labour government would help "if we were asked, but we would have to be asked," he said. Two months later, Labour said "Britain must accept its responsibility as the former imperial power in a dispute that dates from the arrangements for Independence" and that it is "under an obligation to seek a solution". Paramjit Singh Bahia, then an Indian councillor in Southampton who played a central role in organising the first meeting at Brent, says the change started as the Brent meet was ending. "Cook was furious. The meeting had been organised by Indian Labour councillors for their Labour leader, but before we knew it the Indian High Commission had taken over," he says.

High Commissioner L.M. Singhvi "took credit for something he had not done," adds Bahia. "Cook felt manipulated because we were all seen as just a front for the Indian High Commission to play its games. They were busy trying to show off a diplomatic coup to their bosses in Delhi." One High Commission official tried to stop councillor Paul Sood, a key organiser, from going up to the stage. The host had to fight with the guest for a place for himself. In fact, the stage was crowded with Singhvi's guests, Margaret Alva and a Hinduja brother among them.

Gerald Kaufman, Max Madden and Claire Short, Labour MPs who had made Kashmir their business, were quick to seize on this. The Indian High Commission, they said, had suckered Cook into speaking at a meet he thought had been organised by Indian councillors. Cook, holding Kaufman's hand at a meeting in Brighton crowded by Pakistanis, said: "It would be fair to say that the policy stated now is in response to the confusion at Brent."

The policy pertains to definitional aspects: That Kashmir is a Himalayan tract 'bounded by' India and other countries. That Labour "believes UN resolutions on Kashmir are of equal validity to all other UN resolutions". It "also notes" that the Simla pact commits India and Pakistan to a peaceful solution. And that Labour in government "must use its influence" to bring a solution.

Singhvi announced at India House that he welcomed this policy. India House was fooled by the oldest trick in the book. Indian diplomats were shown a resolution that was dropped, and they proclaimed triumph. The Pakistanis, shown a resolution that was adopted, proclaimed victory too.

SINGHVI led his press release in celebratory style: "Labour's statement Jammu and Kashmir is an overwhelming rejection by the party of the attempt made by some elements to hijack the Labour Party policy on Kashmir through their attempts to introduce an India-baiting resolution." R.L. Bhatia, former minister of state for external affairs, had also congratulated Singhvi on his success with Labour—on the day the party reversed the stand it had taken at Brent. Singhvi and Bhatia were with Cook at lunch earlier that day. Bhatia said: "I talked to him quite a bit over lunch, and he appreciated our position, and the ultimate result has been very good."

But Cook had listened to Kaufman all along. "I was the initial drafter of this resolution," Kaufman said. And the final approver, he insisted. "I amended the final resolution and Cook accepted every one of those amendments." That puts the Indian government now in an awkward position. If Singhvi spoke for India, then India supports a UN plebiscite in Kashmir. What's more, Singhvi was given an extension for his diplomatic accomplishments.

What had happened was clear. After boasts of engineering a diplomatic coup at Brent, the Indian High Commission could not admit it had messed things. Bhatia was told all was well. He swallowed that and reproduced it. Cook gave more than a hint of trouble ahead. At a dinner held by the Gujarat Samachar newspaper, Cook said Singhvi is a great diplomat, but that "the true test of your skills as diplomat will come when Labour comes to power". Singhvi now recalls only that Cook had called him a great diplomat. But he fails to remember that he had welcomed this resolution. "That is not correct, and you know that," he said at a meeting addressed by Maran last week. The inexactitude was more than terminological.

Singhvi announced in his press statement earlier that the Labour resolution "acknowledges Pakistan's role in promoting terrorism." It does no such thing. Kaufman has plainly accused India of terrorism. On his last visit to India, he said, he was "able to repudiate to the Government of India and other Indians any allegations that either Kashmiris or Pakistanis are involved in any way in that atrocious kidnapping and hostage-taking." Kaufman said: "We condemn it, the Kashmiris condemn it and it was clear to me in Pakistan that Pakistan condemns it. " Labour clearly does not equate terrorism with Pakistan. Singhvi read what was not written and forgot what he said. The game of pretences continues. Indian officials routinely send messages to South Block that problems with Labour exist only in the media. But the signs are not encouraging. Kaufman was given the honour of proposing the vote of thanks after the Queen's speech in the House of Commons. Kaufman who was accompanied on his India tour in 1990 by Tony Blair, now prime minister, has been given a new importance in New Labour.

Labour speaks of Kashmir in the same breath as human rights. Moreover, Labour has hardly shown the zest for pushing its values in other troubled areas as it has in Kashmir. It produced a resolution on Kashmir, but there have been none on China, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia or Indonesia. For years the human rights record in Kashmir has been better than that in many countries. The Kashmir focus does not come from any grand moral view that Cook's new foreign policy purports to take. The Labour Party, Cook says, "does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business." Does this mean this newfound ethical turn to its policy-making will extend to more immediate issues, Northern Ireland, for instance? Or is the former imperial power's burden restricted to Kashmir?