The election of a new government in Pakistan and the recent visit of newly elected Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang to India — the first country he has visited since his appointment — offers the scams-tainted Congress-led UPA-II government an opportunity to redeem itself in its last year in office, by resolving India’s long-pending territorial disputes with Pakistan and China. Although it’s painful to admit, our geographical neighbours have arguable cases. It’s undeniable that following the first Indo-Pak war of 1948 in Kashmir, perhaps rashly, promises were made to the people of the valley and the international community guaranteeing maximum autonomy and special status to Kashmir, and a plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the people about the state’s political future. But over the past six decades, this promise has been substantially diluted with the state of Jammu and Kashmir becoming “an integral part of India”. True, the precondition of the plebiscite is restoration of the status quo ante at the time of accession of Kashmir to the Indian Union and vacation of PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) by Pak troops. But this is a legal quibble. A plebiscite can be conducted in Kashmir by the United Nations with Indo-Pak cooperation. An independent Kashmir — the likely outcome — jointly guaranteed by India, Pakistan and the United Nations, will become acceptable to the people of the two countries. Likewise, it’s foolish and self-injurious to deny that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has an arguable case in the Sino-India border dispute. It’s common knowledge that during the 18th and 19th centuries right up to the end of the Second World War, the British imposed arbitrary national boundaries upon the under-developed nations of Asia and Africa. There is some truth in the Chinese assertion that in 1914 when China was in “an enfeebled condition” the British India administration signed an “unequal treaty” with representatives of Tibet over which China enjoyed suzerainty during the entire Qing dynasty (1644-1912), demarcating the India-Tibet boundary. Even so China’s representatives of the time refused to accept the locus standi of the Tibet representatives and declined to sign the treaty (though they initialed it) and agree to the McMahon line as the boundary between India and Tibet, whose status as a province of China was conceded by India in 1950. In the circumstances, to dismiss PRC’s claims in the north-east as being baseless is less than honest. In true imperial fashion, the McMahon line was drawn right across the foothills of the Himalayas to Aksai Chin in the north-west where it’s also disputed by China. After the Sino-Indian armed conflict of 1962, suggestions were reportedly made by China that it might settle for territorial concessions in Aksai Chin in return for respecting the McMahon line in the north-east. This suggestion offers a platform for new negotiations to settle the border dispute once and for all time. True there are strategic defence concerns in the north-west, but even if the price is steep it needs to be paid in…
