Editorial, 'SETTLE WITH OUR NEIGHBORS' in LAW ANIMATED WORLD,15 October 2010 issue

SETTLE WITH OUR NEIGHBORS

and strive for peace in Asia, consequently in the entire world – that is the sincere advice we offer to the rulers as well as the ruled in our country. It is a sad fact that only India in South Asia has so many unresolved border disputes with its neighbors. We are happy with none and none of them is happy with us. Even Bangladesh, for which we did so much sacrifice, is cross with us and is deliberately aiding anti-Indian tirades and fugitives. Now there is a talk about the US-Pakistan-China axis encircling India, despite our overreaching efforts to appease the Americans and the obvious American apprehensions about the Chinese overtaking. A couple of years ago we used to hear about a salutary Russia-China-India axis as a bulwark against the American schemes to dominate the world. Now things are fast changing. At one time it was Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai with the third world finding a beacon of hope in these two great neighbors but the 1962 faux pas by Nehru and the gruff rebuff meted out by China changed all that. And none of our neighbors barked for us in those trying times. Fortunately efforts to mend fences with China started again since Rajiv Gandhi’s times but now seem to have again struck an impasse. Our neighbors, Nepal and Burma, not to speak of Pakistan now chums with China, have come to mutually satisfactory border settlements with China in a friendly ‘give and take’ spirit. That is what we too need to display towards China with which we have no rancorous legacy of hostility (save for the lone 1962 conflict) instead of our rulers and bureaucrats longing to step into the shoddy and slippery shoes of our erstwhile British masters. The same holds good for our relations with Pakistan too. The Ravanasura Kaashtha of Kashmir needs a final quenching. After all, it is a continuance of the 1947 partition tragedy, with already a ground-level division of possession that satisfies nobody. We better remember our own promises to the UN in this regard and try to finally settle the dispute under the UN auspices or bilaterally with a ‘give and take’ spirit, duly catering to the sentiments and needs of both the Kashmiri Muslims and the expelled Kashmiri Hindus §§§