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Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Meyers arrives in New Delhi for what would otherwise have been billed as routine consultation. Anything but. Fresh from his inspection tour of continuing Iraq violence, he carries another invitation to send troops to bolster the Coalition.
Meyers will find a chaotic situation, even by the standards of the huge country with its more than a billion people.
There has been an escalation of violence in Kashmir, including the embarrassment of a brigadier being killed and two other generals narrowly escaping the same fate. Interestingly, New Delhi has reacted quietly Ñ not blaming Pakistan for the incident although it continues to argue that the violence is the product of infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir ø nor breaking off newly reestablished relations. [The opposition prohibited volatile Defense Minsiter Fernandes from responding in parliament because he is still under a cloud for corruption accusations.]
The arrival of suicide bombers in force has introduced new anxiety as well as growing demands, behind a new Kashmiri state government, for a role in negotiations. Or it could be Indian recognition of the trials and tribulations of PakistanÕs Gen.-President Musharraf, now in a domestic political crisis wherein former corrupt political parties allied with fundamentalist Islamicists challenge his legitimacy. [They want him to either give up his army leadership or his role as president in a limited representative government ø the kind of legalistic obscurantism that only a product of the British Indian inheritance.]
Then there is the perennial concern with China. Vajpayee hardly returned from a love-fest in Beijing where he traded concessions on Tibet ø recognition of ChinaÕs full sovereignty, and new restrictions on the Dalai LamaÕs Indian-based followers ø for a less than BeijingÕs recognition of IndiaÕs incorporation of the Himalayan ministate of Sikhim. Chinese patrols crossed into the contested Himalayan region in northeast India ø beset by half a dozen local ethnic and racial insurgencies. And when the Indians complained, Beijing announced China did not recognize IndiaÕs state of Arunachal Pradesh, scene of the Indian defeat in the 1962 Himalayan war.
Like the U.S., India is entering a highly political period with elections in five states in the next few months leading to national elections next year. The Opposition led by NehruÕs longtime ruling Congress party opposes the expeditionary force. The BJP, VajpayeeÕs lead party in a bickering coalition of some 30 parties, has a feud going with its grassroots ø Hindu revivalist organizations. They are pushing for a series of highly inflammable actions where Hindus maintain that Islamic rulers built mosques over their older temples, some claims mythological at best. VajpayeeÕs Deputy Prime Minister [and rival] Advani, who recently made a triumphal tour of Washington, is the groupsÕdarling ø and a defendant in the destruction of a mosque that brought on communal rioting with thousands killed, the worst since of British Indian Partition in 1947. Communal tension is growing on all sides after a pogrom in what had been thought to be the progressive state of Gujarat last spring. [The Supreme Court, in a complicated ruling for a Christian claimant, says the government should get on with a common civil code promised in IndiaÕs constitution, instead of different laws -- including inheritance, marriage, etc -- that now govern Hindus, Moslems, Christians, and Parsis.]
With Ambassador Blackwill ø sent packing back to Harvard in March but now rumored to be taking the deputy chair at the National Security Council with a portfolio for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India ø just gone, Meyers will be bidding from a poor hand. True, the Indian military would like to go ø have had a division standing by, in part to reclaim their image from their debacle when they intervened in Sri Lanka in the mid-90s and their recent bloody noses at the hands of the terrorists. [In classic terror and counterterror, better than half a million Indian security forces have not been able to pacify Kashmir with its Pakistani sanctuaries and an increasingly hostile Moslem Kashmiri population.]
India also wants some major U.S. concessions ø liaision with the Central [Middle East] command [as Pakistan has] instead of its armslength relationship with CINCPAC in Honolulu, sales of the joint U.S.-Israeli Arrow missile [to match Chinese missiles and those China and North Korea sold to Pakistan], access to dual use American technology, etc. There is a talk of a compromise in which two Indian brigades would joint the Polish-Danish-Czech-etc. force now coming into being.
India rejected the invitation to send a division only a few days ago ø at least until there is a United Nations cover for Coalition augmentation. According to Indian sources, Sec. of State Powell has assured the Indians Washington will go to the UN for a new resolution that would give them that cover.
Meyers may return to the turf battles among the services at the joint chiefs with alacrity.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.