Diplomacy, religion and world disputes

There were no bets placed on a positive outcome of the Agra Summit between Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and Pakistani President Musharaff. The outcome was more disappointing than expected with the two leaders failing even to agree on a joint communiquŽ. What was significant about the Agra Summit was that it did take place after two years since India refused to talk with President Musharaff after his military takeover in Pakistan. This summit did break the ice but no more.

Kuldip Nayar, the veteran Indian journalist, diplomat and now politician, writing on July 7 to The Island in his column, traced the history of Indo-Pakistan summits. He noted that all previous summits collapsed because both sides were talking different things. It happened once again in Agra. The Pakistani president had stressed over and over again before the Agra Summit that Kashmir will be the most important issue to be considered and he raised it there. As his predecessors had done at similar meetings. Mr. Vajpayee did not budge from India’s traditional position that Kashmir is an integral part of India and is non-negotiable. So the talks collapsed while fifty Kashmiris were killed the same day.

The Hindustan Times was reported saying that ‘Musharaff’s one note melody of Kashmir, Kashmir, Kashmir’ was the cause that led to the collapse of the talks. In these Indo-Pakistan exchanges, some do become deaf to particular notes. The Hindustan Times, perhaps, had not heard the ‘one note Indian melody’ of ‘non-negotiable’.

The Indo-Pakistan problem has proved to be the most intractable international problem since World War II. Almost all the post Cold War problems caused by ideological differences have gone away save for those issues that have deep roots in racial and religious conflicts.

Among the old remaining conflicts are: the Israeli-Palestinian and Northern Ireland conflicts. With the end of the Cold War, old religious and racial conflicts have surfaced along with the Indo-Pakistani issue. The post -Cold War conflicts include: ethno-religious conflicts in the Balkans, conflicts in the former Soviet republics such as Chechnya, renewed terrorism of the ETA in Spain, Moslem-Christian conflicts in East Timor, other Indonesian islands and in the Philippines, the Fijian conflict and African conflicts which are basically tribal in origin.

All these new conflicts could fall into the category of the Clash of Civilisations as enunciated by an American professor Samuel Huntington.

Western nations, having gone through their own racial and tribal conflicts, now stand on high moral ground preaching and attempting to resolve the current religious and ethnic conflicts elsewhere, albeit at times aggravating them further. Europe having gone through bloody racial and religious wars for centuries, finally went through two of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever known – the first and second world wars – and have since then had a continuous peace for fifty years. These European nations that colonised Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas are very much the main cause of today’s Asian and African problems.

Having practically obliterated almost the entire native populations of the Americas, the European colonisers have set up the greatest and most powerful democracy in the world and they together with European nations are attempting to resolve the racial and ethnic issues elsewhere according to their views and perceptions.

The question is whether the efforts made by these western nations to forge a New International Order based on their values and conceptions will succeed and eliminate the racial and religious conflagrations that have erupted at places where Prof. Huntington says, ‘the geopolitical tectonic plates clash’?

Can complex diplomatic and legal formulae now tried out – at times under the aegis of the UN – help eliminate the atavistic fears, prejudices between different religions such as the Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Muslims, Muslims and Christians, Catholics and Protestants, rival African tribes and the many racial conflicts?

In the existing world order we are told that this is the only way out even though between peace negotiations, the age-old way of resolution—military force comes into play. Can diplomacy and legal formulae solve Himalayan problems such as Kashmir? Moralists will call for a change of heart and values, but in this age of the market economy and globalisation do morals have any value? Rationalists will agree with Marxists that today, religion is very much the opium of the people and is at the root of much of the world’s misery. Religionists will disagree with vehemence. Meanwhile, the people of Kashmir and elsewhere will keep killing each other for the sake of religion and race.

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