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Who are the infiltrators?

There are no infiltrators; they are freedom fighters who are fighting for their right of self-determination.' This was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief's reply to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who told him that infiltrators must vacate the territory they had occupied on the Indian side of the Line of Control.

Hearing Sharief 's reaction, Vajpayee said: 'If you are of this opinion, then how can the matter be resolved?' The conversation took place on the telephone after the incursions in Kargil. Since Sharief has himself disclosed this at a function in Lahore, there is no reason to doubt its authenticity.

Had Sharief made the observation some years ago, it might have had a ring of credibility. Then the rigged state polls had eroded the faith of most youth in the ballot box. Many of them crossed into Pakistan for training and returned with weapons. They were the ones who raised the arms. It was a response which shook Kashmir and the rest of India.

Yasin Malik and Shabir Shah, the two popular young leaders, were among the freedom fighters. They and many like them spent years in jail. Several lost their lives. They wanted the Kashmiris to decide their fate themselves. Their stand has not changed since. But their methods have. They have realised that a peaceful expression of grievances is far more effective than violence.

After they turned their backs on violence, the insurgency in the valley ended practically. A bit of it has been kept alive by Islamabad through bribery, instigation and the export of mercenaries, including the Afghans and the Sudanese, from Pakistan which is dotted with training camps.

Participation of locals is very little. But the Inter-Services Intelligence has kept it going in the Jammu region by picking Hindus at Doda and other places and shooting them down point blank.

To describe the armed men whom Pakistan pushes into Kashmir as freedom fighters is an insult to those who did at one time rise for the cause they consider dear. That they still feel alienated is a different matter. But they have come to believe that their problems can be solved by sitting across the same table.

They want a tripartite conference, the Kashmiris participating in the talks between India and Pakistan. Many of them resent Islamabad's intrusion which, they think, is not helpful to them. Neither does it help their cause -- the peaceful solution they are seeking.

It is apparent that Islamabad has been finding less and less response among the Kashmiris for continuing insurgency. Otherwise, it would not have depended first on mercenaries and now on their regular forces. It has been proved beyond doubt that the Pakistan soldiers crossed the LoC to fight, lead and help the infiltrators in the Kargil sector. At places, the Pakistani forces have been fighting without even dressing up as infiltrators. It means that the Pakistan forces have been fighting on the Indian side of Kashmir.

That may well be the reason why Pakistan Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz has said that the LoC is not clearly demarcated. He forgets that after the Simla Agreement in 1972, the military establishments and surveyors of the two countries took months to delineate the entire LoC, except the 47 miles which comprise the Siachin glacier area.

As many as 19 maps were signed by both sides. How can Pakistan now challenge the very demarcation of the LoC? The Simla Agreement said that the LoC would not be altered unilaterally. The Lahore Declaration endorsed the Simla Agreement. How could Pakistan be so categorical in agreements when the LoC was vague?

That Pakistan was building a case to justify the violation of the LoC goes without saying. But it was not clear that it would use it as an argument to perpetrate the occupation of the territory in Kargil it was able to grab through subterfuge and New Delhi's negligence.

Then why should Sharief say the Kashmir problem should be settled by sitting across the table. Islamabad has already begun using methods which by no stretch of the imagination suggest peace. He says he is a man of peace! How do you square the statement with what the Pakistan forces are doing?

That such a thing should happen soon after the Lahore Declaration is both sad and surprising. It only underlines the fact that the armed forces call the shots. They did not like the atmosphere of bon homie which was spreading in the two countries. They have retarded the process.

Linking the Kargil incursions with the immediate talks on Kashmir does not make sense. The caretaker government in Delhi has no authority to negotiate a settlement with Pakistan on any subject, much less Kashmir. A new government, coming with a popular mandate, is the party to be asked. Strange, Islamabad is not willing to wait till mid-October when the new government will be in the saddle.

This is, however, not the first time that Pakistan has tried to settle the Kashmir issue through infiltrators. It was done in 1965. Pakistan's calculation was that if it were to send infiltrators, there would be uprisings in Kashmir and it would justifiably intervene. The plan failed.

After the Bangladesh war, I met Ayub Khan in 1972 at his residence in Islamabad. He denied having anything to do with the 1965 war. "It was Bhutto's war," he told me.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did not deny the charge. He said he was of the opinion that India would go from strength to strength, with the establishment of ordnance factories on the one hand and the public undertaking on the other. If Pakistan was to defeat India, this was the time.

In fact, they were Kashmiris -- Mohammed Din from Gulmarg and Wazir Mohammed from Mendhar, Jammu -- who were the first to tell the Kashmir police about the infiltrators. Pakistan's plans to distribute arms and ammunition to the local population and to organise a revolt remained on paper.

There was no response to Ayub's broadcast to the people of Kashmir to exercise their right of self-determination. Yes, the 1965 war took place. Surely, this is not the intention this time also.

In his book, Ayub Khan, Altaf Gauhar, his information secretary, has described how Ayub Khan was not fully aware of Operation Gibraltar under which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the then foreign minister, sent mujahideen into Indian territory.

The directive issued by Ayub Khan was: "The aim was to take such action as would defreeze the Kashmir problem, weaken Indian resolve, and bring her to the conference table without provoking a general war. However, the element of escalation is always present in such struggles. So, whilst confining our action to the Kashmir area, we must not be unmindful that India may in desperation involve us in a general war or violate Pakistan territory where we are weak. We must, therefore, be prepared for such a contingency."

One hopes that a similar directive has not been issued by the top brass, if not Sharief. The statement by both sides that it is a war-like situation is ominous. The ray of hope is that the two prime ministers still talk about the Lahore Declaration, which eschews hostilities.

At Lahore, Sharief read part of a poem written by Vajpayee at the banquet given in his honour at the Red Fort (Lahore). The poem, captioned "we shall never allow war to break out", was an undertaking not to ever have hostilities between India and Pakistan. Subsequently, at a civic reception, Vajpayee himself read the full poem, poignant with hope and promise.

Kuldip Nayar