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India wins Lanka's support for Kashmir position, in return for backing off from Eelam

Saisuresh Sivaswamy, recently in Colombo

It was to be expected, from the array of noises that Pakistan had been making since May 11, that the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation summit in Colombo would see some fireworks, with Islamabad insisting that the bilateral problems plaguing the two nations be brought on the agenda.

Given this, it was also on the cards that India would need to brush up its act to be able to counter this diplomatic offensive, given Pakistan's earlier successes in forcing New Delhi on the backfoot once too often.

Naturally, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief tried his best to force bilateral issues before the summit, and even called for amending the SAARC charter, which was multi-laterally agreed upon 13 years ago by the seven member-nations.

Even as Foreign Secretary K Raghunath likened the SAARC charter to the "10 Commandments, and hence immutable", it is a fallacy to believe that in international diplomacy -- as in most other areas of life -- anything could remain static and yet retain dynamism.

Stretching the same argument further, India's hard bargaining for expanding the permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and a place for itself on the refurbished body falls flat by using the 10 Commandments theory.

Sharief's contention was certainly not lacking in clarity. "The founding fathers of SAARC had sought to develop cooperation among member states for the betterment of the peoples of South Asia and to engender mutual trust and confidence. Regrettably, this goal continues to elude us. The belief that, in the course of time, increased interaction would lead to greater trust, confidence and understanding among member-states has not been transformed into reality," he told the association's inauguration, even as the rest of the association knew that whatever may have its inherent sense, this was a line of thinking that would meet with defeat before the summit was over.

Sharief did not stop with merely identifying the problem, he went on to suggest a remedy: "In my view, the primary reason for the failure of SAARC to live up to its promise lies in the fact that it excludes the discussion of political problems. Peace is inseparable from progress and development. Without an environment of peace, security and stability, efforts towards mutually beneficial regional co-operation will have limited success. SAARC cannot and must not remain indifferent to or pretend to be oblivious of the differences and tensions between its members."

This, of course, was in line with Pakistan's long-standing plea for mediation in its disputes with India, a demand that the latter has consistently dismissed, as it did in Colombo.

The SAARC charter, the "immutable document", is rather clear on the issue. Point D of the charter's article 1, says the organisation's objective is to 'contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems'. Principle 2 of Article II rules out any ambiguity that the previous point may have engendered, by stating unequivocally that 'such coooperation shall not be a substitute for bilateral and multi-lateral co-operation but shall complement them'.

The Sri Lankan president, who chaired the summit was cautious about taking sides between the two divergent points expressed by India and Pakistan, and chose the middle path. And the final Colombo Declaration that emerged after two days of brain-storming among the heads of seven South Asian governments, reflected this caution. Did Chandrika Kumaratunga really snub Sharief when he insisted that his viewpoint be reflected in the final declaration? Were the other SAARC nations sympathetic to Pakistan's posturing? Did India really score a diplomatic victory in Colombo, as the prime minister claimed in Parliament on Monday?

Hard to say, but from the proceedings in Sri Lanka, it was evident that the host was not keen toeing the Sharief line on putting bilateral issues on the agenda, since she realised it was a double-edged sword. The same arguments used by Islamabad for resolving the Kashmir dispute, could be extended by India to discuss the Eelam issue -- an issue, let it be said, that India has a greater claim on than does Pakistan over Kashmir.

While the Indian prime minister was in Colombo, a number of Tamil organisations did make an attempt to convince him of the importance of India involving itself, once again, in the island's Tamil ethnic crisis that is far from over.

New Delhi, of course, wants no such involvement, having reaped a bitter harvest for its earlier regional adventurism in Sriperumbudur seven years ago. But the very fact that Tamil leaders have been voicing such an opinion, especially during the SAARC meet when international focus was sharply on the goings-on in the Sri Lankan capital, could well have been thin end of the wedge.

Today, public opinion even in Tamil Nadu may be against India's reinvolvement in what is purely the internal affairs of another nation, but it may crystallise into the familiar one, if the Lankan army goes on the offensive, frustrated by the lack of clear victory in the north-east.

Considered opinion gleaned from experts while Colombo, indicates that New Delhi has agreed to a hands-off policy on the Tamil ethnic crisis, in return from Sri Lanka's agreement with its basic position vis-à-vis Kashmir and the handling of bilateral disputes.

But New Delhi would be fooling itself if it mistook a battle for the war. Pakistan's turn to host the regional summit, when it comes, will be the real test for its diplomatic manouevrings.

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