Fellow blogger Namit Arora sent me the link to an intriguing news item reported in the Indian newspaper, The Economic Times. Apparently during a fence mending meeting, a month before the last elections, Barack Obama kicked around the idea of sending Bill Clinton as a mediator to the disputed territory of Kashmir in order to smooth things over between India and Pakistan, two nations which have never quite come to peace with each other since the partition of undivided India in 1947. I was surprised that Obama had India-Pakistan on his mind rather than the middle east. I replied to Namit thus:
We know that India loves Bill Clinton. Uber-narcissist Bubba Bill might enjoy the adulation he will receive there, now that Obama has stolen his thunder at home. I have heard that Clinton can handle lamb vindaloo (heat index = 4 on a scale of 5) with elan. He may even have a couple of desi girl friends tucked away in some corner of Delhi or Mumbai for all you know. Since there is no territorial dispute in Antarctica, Kashmir may be the remotest cold place where Obama may like to park Clinton during the early years of his administration. (President Clinton’s capacity for mischief is vast.)
But seriously, I doubt that this one will sell in the subcontinent. India and Pakistan are now in the midst of some substantive bi-lateral talks regarding Kashmir. Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari recently made some statements that sounded pro-India to the alarmed Pakistani hard liners and the ISI. I doubt that at this time either party would want outside intervention in this sensitive matter which is as old as India & Pakistan themselves.
In any case, why Kashmir? Have the Israelis and Palestinians made peace already? The last I heard, they are not even talking to each other. As president, Clinton came very close to a resolution in that arena with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat until the latter nixed the whole idea. Bill was supposed to have been very good as a mediator – knew the map of Jerusalem and the West Bank like the back of his own hand, I have heard. Send him there.
I realized after sending out the message that I had pre-emptively criticized Bill Clinton for something that he hasn’t even done. With Bush-Cheney fading fast out of the picture and the Republican guard defanged in the past elections, am I being paranoid about potential Democratic enemies? Am I in an angry groove after three years of critical political commentary? Am I feeling like this?
It does feel strange not to be venting against Bush after three years of ranting. I could of course shift gears and concentrate on cultural and literary posts or I could turn my ire against old style Dems like the Clintons. I didn’t realize until now that I may be a Hitchensian contrarian.
Let’s see how it feels in a few months, after Obama takes office and the new congress is sworn in. If it is all sweet and peaceful, we can always turn A.B. into a site for incessant navel gazing and recipe exchange. We’ll see.
Accidental Blogger 
5 responses to “Clinton in Kashmir?”
I look forward to that lamb vindaloo recipe. And yes, I can handle the heat.
Your reply to Namit shares a worry or two with this recent commentary in Forbes.
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Thanks for the link to the Forbes article. I have heard the same from others. The flaw in Obama’s logic that Pakistan cannot fight wars on two fronts is that Pakistan doesn’t HAVE to fight with India – Kashmir has always been a war of choice. Negotiations with India are possible, unlike with the Taliban and the Al Qaida in the west whose chickens have now come home to roost within Pakistan’s own borders.
India is a huge country with increasing prosperity and a self-sufficient military. Obama will be naive to think that India can be persuaded to resolve anything under pressure or threat. Encouraging an honest dialogue with Pakistan and disgruntled Kashmiris on the other hand, is a very good idea lest the simmering discord in the valley spills over into the plains of India. (Actually it already has, with increasing frequency.) Lasting peace for the rest of India is not possible when secessionist forces dominate the thinking of one very unhappy section of its population. Many mistakes have been made in Kashmir which is now almost completely cleansed of indigineous Hindus, as much Kashmiri as their erstwhile Muslim neighbors. Perhaps it is time to cauterize the wound at the cost of some nationalistic pride in order to ensure the safety and territorial integrity in the rest of India and calming the border with Pakistan. India ought to figure that out on its own. Bill Clinton’s participation is not essential at this time.
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The Forbes article is laughably transparent. The Old South Asianism’s power base in US politics has eroded, with American pragmatism seeing India as opportunity and solution provider, rather than as a manufactured case of human rights abuses. As more westerners experience India directly, there is less dependence on the old middlemen sitting in academic cocoons, dishing out weird exotica to feed the white folks’ fear of dangerous savages and wild places.
So the Old South Asianists feel left out and abandoned in this new discourse on India, because their training on “caste, cows, curry (Vindaloo anyone?) dowry,” seems obsolete, inadequate, shallow. This was happening even before the economic disaster; now, of course, the demand for the Old South Asianists is about on par with another cartel of middlemen – investment bankers – & Icelandic bonds.
Obama is trying to create a new liberalism, and it remains to be seen to what extent he will be allowed to break loose from past shackles of the ideologues. It will be Old Liberalism vs. New Liberalism.
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The last I read in newspapers here, Obama seems to be rethinking his intervention in Indian politics as of now also, though Indians do like Clinton I doubt any of us will welcome his playing the mediator.
As for AB turning into “a site for incessant navel gazing and recipe exchange” I doubt that there is a chance for that since even with Obama at the helm of affairs things will not change overnight. Nor will he make all the right decisions (he is human after all), so you will always have something to rant about ;) dont worry.
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I don’t think India would go for ANY designated mediator. Many Indians feel that they made the mistake in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN to begin with. That dog won’t hunt again.
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