The job of a diplomat is to provide his government’s point of view and not his personal assessment of a given situation. It is often said, not without a grain of truth, that a foreign service officer lies abroad for his country. That is part of the game. It is when a diplomat retires that he feels free to tell the truth as he sees it. He has many advantages often unavailable to a historian. In the first place, during the time he served his country, he was part of the process of decision-making. In the second place he was aware of the way decision was taken at the highest level, taking into consideration all the pros and cons. That is why Howard B Schaffer, author of this remarkably objective book excels in his presentation.
A 36-year veteran of the US Foreign Service who not only served as Political Counsellor in Pakistan (1974-77) and in India (1977-79), but also twice held the highly responsible post of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for South Asian Affairs in Washington—he had also served as US Ambassador to Bangladesh—his credibility as a commentator on America’s role in Kashmir remains unchallengeable. Trouble began soon after independence, when Pakistan government-supported tribals invaded Jammu & Kashmir. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the US had no expertise in South Asian Affairs and had to rely to a large extent, on Britain—a point that Schaffer readily acknowledges.
The British took advantage of this and misled the US in the formation of its policy—with disastrous consequences to India. At one point, the State Department felt it necessary even to “rap (US Ambassador to India) Henry Grady’s knuckles when he accepted an Indian position that Washington had instructed him to oppose”. Grady was giving his independent opinion. The State Department was being led by its nose by a scheming British Government which was supporting Pakistan to the hilt from behind-the-scene. When things did not work the way the US under British tutelage wanted, the latter would tell Washington that Nehru was to blame.
For much of early US mistakes concerning the Kashmir issue the blame lies squarely on British shoulders. Chester Bowles as Ambassador would seek to present India’s case. As Schaffer puts it, his (Bowles’) interpretation of Nehru’s position in Kashmir was far more positive”. But Bowles seldom make any impact on US policy. Then there was Sheikh Abdullah who was talking with a forked tongue. On the one hand, he was all for Jammu & Kashmir being part of India. In his talks with US officials, however, he was taking a different—Schaffer calls it “inconsistent and often ambiguous”—line. The US government was hard-pressed. When Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called on the Pakistan government (then) in Karachi, he was apparently much impressed with Pakistan’s “martial prowess”, and its “genuine feeling of friendship with the US”. He didn’t know that he was being taken for a ride.
In Delhi, Dulles found Nehru “an utterly impractical statesman”. Dulles was a poor judge of people and turned out to be a worse formulator of policy towards India and Pakistan. All three had to pay for it in the decades to come. There was no way the US could have succeeded, considering that from the very beginning he was hostile towards India and supportive of Pakistan, pushing the former to the wall. What Schaffer has done is to relate events as they occurred. Dulles apart, President Eisenhower was more receptive to the non-alignment policy advocated by Nehru and Nehru, in turn, says Schaffer “recognised that it is not in non-aligned India’s interest to drift too closely to the Soviet camp”. The question has been often asked: Was the US intriguing in Kashmir? What was Adlain Stevenson’s role in 1952 when he visited Srinagar and held long talks with Sheikh Abdullah? Schaffer is not wholly convincing in his reportage of that particular event.
Schaffer has also little to say of VK Krishna Menon who helped policy Nehru’s foreign polish and whom he dismisses lightly. Menon’s 6-hour speech in the Security Council on the Kashmir issue in 1956 hardly received six inches of space in the New York Times whereas the text of Pakistan’s delegate Sir Feroze Khan Noon’s speech in its entirely was given full-page treatment by the same paper, revealing the low level of Indo-US relations. There were many ups and downs –mostly downs—in those relations. They reached an all-time low during the Nixon-Kissinger era that needed better attention from Schaffer.
Even earlier, when John Kennedy—more India-friendly than one expected—met Nehru, the meeting turned out to be a disaster. For some years following, India was off the US radar. But is there now a role for the US to play? Schaffer makes three points: One, a Kashmir settlement has become even more important (now) to American interests in South Asia and beyond. Two, India’s and Pakistan’s positions on the terms of a settlement have grown closer and three, the United States and India have dramatically strengthened their relations and developed a serious partnership, and it may help New Delhi recognise that greater US involvement could actually benefit its interests.
Schaffer’s guess is that the possibilities of a breakthrough, though limited are likely to the higher than they were in 1962 during the Kennedy era. His advice to the US government is that “because negotiations may be protracted, Washington and its diplomats in the field should accept that they are in it for the long haul, stay patient, and repress the natural American preference for swift results”. Schaffer does not have much to say about the vicious activities of the ISI vis-à-vis India or of Pakistan’s behind–the-scene activities in the nuclear field. He shows an understanding of India’s concerns over continuing US military aid to Pakistan. Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation gets no mention.
Strange. But Obama gets credit for thinking that India should not all the time be kept being bogged down on the Kashmir issue. Obama is quoted as saying that he recognised that “working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way” would be among the critical tasks of the administration.” This is a work of solid research that doesn’t go overboard in either condemning or supporting the three concerned parties: India, Pakistan and US that is its strength and relevance. Whether in the end—considering the current situation –the US would step in to offer its good offices to India and Pakistan is another matter. Schaffer understands what he calls “the limits of Influence” that the US suffers from, but he sounds optimistic. In politics, nothing is impossible. Apparently the Kashmir issue is now once again on US radar.
(Penguin Books India Ltd, 11,Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017)
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