The Hindu Business Line : Tiger, goat and grass

WHO does not know of the old story posing the tantalising conundrum describing the predicament of transporting across the river by boat a tiger, a goat and a load of grass? The just-concluded Manmohan-Musharraf summit at New Delhi has given rise to a similar conundrum.

The puzzle involves three statements which are to be reconciled before untangling the tangled skein of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute be-devilling relations between India and Pakistan for close to 60 years: First, the firmly expressed view of Pakistan that the Line of Control (LoC) cannot be made a permanent international border; second, as Dr Manmohan Singh declared after the summit, in the emerging world of information technology and globalisation, the world has shrunk to the size of a pea, making borders redundant and irrelevant; and the third, running afoul of this contention, is another of Dr Singh's categorical assertion that there can never be any redrawing of the borders of India on any count.

Mentioning these three postulates in seriatim (as the pedantically inclined would say), the President of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf, with impish good humour, smilingly challenged the media persons: "Take these three together and now discuss the solution." He mercifully did not add, "To your heart's content and to everybody's discontent!" Whatever it be, he has certainly aggravated the horrible plight of policy-makers in India and Pakistan.

If the LoC has to be done away with, it will mean redrawing of redundant and irrelevant boundaries, which is anathema to India. Pakistan would be hopping mad if the LoC were to be taken as final. Surrender of the portion in Pakistan's occupation (which is illegal, according to the UN Security Council's resolution) is totally unacceptable to that country. The very whisper, however inaudible, of referendum or self-determination will drive India up the wall.

Making confusion worse confounded, a dozen or more splinter groups, going by various names, are in the Valley in a constant state of volatility and agitation like molecules of gas in a heated container. Gen Musharraf wants a "reasonable time-limit" to solve the puzzle. Taking the rough with the smooth and the swings with the roundabouts, will an eon be reasonable? Or, eternity?

B. S. Raghavan

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