Obama’s Kashmir comments
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
This weekend US President Barack Obama presented a curious twin thought: the best way forward for the resolution of outstanding issues between India and Pakistan, including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, would be for Islamabad and New Delhi to address them bilaterally because “it is not the place of any nation, including the United States, to try to impose solutions from the outside.” In the same breath, however, the America president also emphasised the need for other nations to play a role in stabilising Pakistan. The message was clear: while Pakistan’s internal ‘problems’ were too big for the world to ignore or allow Pakistan to deal with alone, Pakistan’s India-related problems were best left alone by the world. Ruling out altogether that Pak-India disputes could be resolved outside the bilateral framework, but highlighting the need to mount international pressure on Pakistan to fix the problems that threatened its stability as well as that of the region – where have we heard this before? Yes, it seems that the US has accepted India’s position on Pakistan hook, line and sinker, to the utter neglect of Pakistani concerns.
Indeed, one of the basic tenets of India’s foreign policy has long been to discourage any third-party involvement in its affairs. As the most powerful country in the region, and the status quo power in Kashmir, it has favoured dealing with the neighbourhood bilaterally. But the fine point that many forget is that the Kashmir dispute is not only a territorial one – it is first and foremost an issue of the right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people – as committed to by Pakistan, India as well as the international community. Pakistan and India have 65 years to prove that ultimately the bilateral framework has always come down to a zero-sum game, leaving little room for flexibility. Fossilised positions have been regurgitated time and again while the dispute has lingered on, hindering the very creation of a stable South Asia. The need to look beyond the bilateral framework is thus critical – and the US would be doing a great disservice to the region if it tried to sell to the international community the idea that this is not the case. But let’s be clear: Pakistan won’t accept direct US intervention on Kashmir either because even from the Pakistani perspective, the US has its own strategic interests in this region and India is becoming critical to these interests. However, that does not rule out the UN as a third party mediator – with support from the major powers, including the US. The UN has a commitment to intervene on Kashmir – a commitment it acquired in 1948 when India took the dispute to it and it proposed that a plebiscite be held under UN supervision. Over six decades later, the international community, including the US, has to put its weight behind doing the right thing on Kashmir. Isolating Pakistan just to serve the interests of another ‘strategic’ partner would not serve the US well in the future.
Chairlift tragedy
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Few who live outside mountainous areas of the country will be aware of the importance of chairlifts that span rivers and gorges, connecting isolated communities to the road network. Many of these communities are accessible only by chairlift, and for them it is literally a lifeline. The accident on Sunday that killed eight people riding a chairlift when the cable broke on Sunday was probably preventable. Chairlifts can range from the extremely primitive rope-pull type that carries a single person, two at most; to the ‘heavy-lift’ versions that have a motor powered pulley system and are made of the suspended carrier compartment of a small truck. By their very nature these contraptions span rivers which are often in spate when snow melts upstream; and often replace or supplement suspension bridges. They may be a very significant source of revenue for the families that own and operate them.
The key to safe usage of chairlifts is regular and efficient maintenance, and there are not infrequent disputes as to who is responsible for this. Some lifts operate on a partnership agreement with the local administration, and this may have been the case at Gas Pain. An existing bridge had been swept away a year ago by flash floods and the administration had built a suspension footbridge which for whatever reason the villagers were unwilling to use. The villagers had reported that the cable carrying the lift was in poor condition a week previously, but nothing had been done by the Public Works Department (PWD) to repair it. A tragedy ensued. It is easy to lose sight of micro-infrastructure facilities such as chairlifts in remote areas, but they are no less vital to the communities they serve than are dual carriageways and motorways to those who live in flatter parts of the country. Chairlifts do not have potholes that a wheelbarrow load of stones can fill, and the safety margins for their operation are much narrower. Perhaps now is the time for PWDs in mountain areas to check all of these lifts and in doing so perhaps prevent another accident.