BHARAT SURAKSHA YATRA

April 6 -- May 10, 2006

Press Statement issued by Shri L.K. Advani

Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)
At a press conference in Bhilwara, Rajasthan

The Congress-led UPA government will soon complete two years in office. During my Bharat Suraksha Yatra, I have highlighted many failures and betrayals of the government, especially on issues that impinge on the country's internal security and the security of the common man.

Today I am constrained to comment on an issue of vital importance to India's external security. There have been persistent media reports in recent months, buttressed by statements of senior officials of the government of India, about an "imminent settlement" of the Siachen issue with Pakistan. These indicate that the UPA government is thinking of pulling out Indian troops from Saltoro Ridge, of which the Siachen Glacier is a part.

Neither the Prime Minister nor the Defense Minister has taken the nation into confidence about the government's thinking or plans in the matter. On the contrary, the nature of the reports is such as to lend credence to the speculation that the Prime Minister wants the "Siachen settlement" ready to be signed during his proposed visit to Pakistan. Indeed, Dr. Manmohan Singh himself gave currency to this speculation by saying, in June 2005, that he would like to see Siachen's hostile heights turned into a "Peace Mountain".

It is well known that the Indian Army has made immense sacrifices first to gain, and thereafter to secure, control of this strategic area in the north of the Line of Control (LoC) since 1984. All attempts by Pakistan in the past 22 years to dislodge the Indian troops from Siachen have failed. The government must not gift away on the diplomatic table what our soldiers have fought hard to gain on the battlefield. Previous Congress governments have an unedifying record of doing so, a prime example being the Shimla Agreement of 1972 when India returned to Pakistan both territories and large numbers of PoWs without securing, in return, a full and final settlement of the Kashmir issue. India is continuing to pay a heavy price for that blunder. I would like to caution the government against a repeat of 1972.

Indeed, Siachen itself is a legacy of the Shimla Agreement, which converted the Ceasefire Line after the 1971 Indo-Pak war into the Line of Control. However, the glaciers to the north of LoC remained undelineated on the maps. To obviate any dispute in the future, the Indian Army gained control over the Saltoro Range in 1984. India's position over Saltoro is termed as "Actual Ground Position Line" (AGPL).

If media reports are to be believed, the UPA government is considering an "innovative compromise", in which India effects pullout from Saltoro Ridge without Pakistan agreeing to a mutually defined and demarcated AGPL. Several think tanks and semi-official strategic affairs experts in Washington have been urging India to accept such "innovations". As my colleague Shri Jaswant Singh has stated in his recent letter to the Defense Minister, "any settlement without explicitly confirming the validity of the AGPL would be a violation of the sanctity of the LoC." In this context, India cannot forget Pakistan's treacherous incursions into Kargil, in violation of the LoC, in 1999, leading to the fourth war between our two countries.

The BJP is not against settling the Siachen issue with Pakistan. However, we believe that it cannot be treated as a "stand-alone" issue. Any settlement on Siachen should be guided by a sound strategic consideration of India's security and overall national interests, and without succumbing to any external pressure.

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One of the hallmarks of the first two years of the UPA government is its utter distrust of the Opposition. I am baffled by the degree of the government's disinterestedness in engaging the BJP and other opposition parties into a constructive dialogue on vital national issues, including matters of national security. In most cases, there is no consultation at all. And on the rare occasions when it happens, it is mostly casual and cursory. This is in stark contrast to the practice of regular consultations and consensus-building followed by the Vajpayee government.

The Prime Minister did not think it necessary to consult the Opposition on the Indo-US nuclear agreement which, as we have pointed out, seriously compromises India's independent and sovereign control over the future development of our nuclear capability. Similarly, he has not deemed it necessary to consult with us on the Siachen issue.

I suspect that the Prime Minister trusts Americans more than he trusts the parties in the Opposition. This shows how much the ruling party believes in the letter and spirit of parliamentary democracy.