Who Died First ?
'By a Correspondent New Delhi The cold logic of possession makes India's attitude in regard to Kashmir more rigid every day. The reaction to the Jarring report conforms to the general pattern : that all that remains for justice to be done is for the Security Council to declare Pakistan an aggressor and close the whole case. In the face of 'toothless' UN resolutions, India herself has taken the matter as settled.
No wonder that one official told me that all Mr. Jarring did 'was to survey the dead bodies of resolutions in the Kashmir morgue to try not to identify causes of death but simply to establish who died first.' A great deal of editorial nonsense has been written here about the paragraph that refers to changing factors and to changing patterns of power relations in West and South Asia. Most of the Indian press interprets this to mean that Jarring is hinting that the original, UNCIP resolutions can no longer apply because of a new set of reasons. No one points out that what the Jarring report says is that it 'could hot fail to take note of the concern expressed' (at the changing factors). India has been expressing the concern and India has been pointing out the changing pattern with special reference to Kash- mir for a long time now : it is the new 'scare' line, One shrewd diplomat suggested that Mr. Jarring may have put in the paragraph just to amuse himr self. From all accounts he spent a miserable time in the sub-continent, talking to no one except those directly concerned with the dispute, with little time for easy, relaxed parties or sighi. seeing.
There is general conviction here that Pakistan will not let the matter rest with the Jarring report. If Pakistan decides to raise the matter again in the United Nations, India will not be seriously disturbed. The whole dispute has become 49 Menon-and-moth-eaten that even a responsible Indian admitted 'it must now get worse before it can get better.'
How that will happen it is not easy to predict. It is certain that India, now in undisputed posses- sion of those parts of Kashmir vital to her interest, will not press its argument to its nth point of action by attempting to annex the rest of the State. But with Krishna Menon as Defence Minister and 46 per cent. of the national budget available for defence, India is certainly not as vulnerable as she was nine years ago.
Meanwhile there is anxiety to get a move on with 'freeing' Goa. One of the reasons for this urgency is that scanty reports from Goa indir sate that India's economic blockade of Goa has failed. Goa is reported to be prosperous as never before and business is booming. A new airport has been built, and a few prominent Indian businessmen have chosen Portuguese citizenship. More iron ore and manganese from Goa is now being exported. Indians, on the other hand, are in for a new bout of austerity cuts.
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