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Detour To Peace

Pakistan answers history's wake-up call tentatively as it looks for much more than just a ceasefire

It seems that hope had always been just a handshake away at the Attari-Wagah border. The floodgates of realism had been thrown open in the sub-continent; the tide of history was flowing at its peak. Prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee could do no more, except devoutly hope that there would be no need to look back.

For Sharif, the bus diplomacy was a high risk gamble that hit the jackpot. Suddenly, the man who just couldn't get it right even after two stints in power was being praised for surfacing successfully from uncharted waters."Both the prime ministers should be congratulated for taking the bold step of initiating a dialogue. No miracles were expected, but at least they took the giant step of crossing the Attari-Wagah border. The step is more meaningful for Vajpayee than for Sharif, says political commentator Anees Jillani.

Professor Khalid Mahmud, expert on Indian affairs, agrees:"No other prime minister in India, certainly not an avowed liberal like I.K. Gujral, would have risked holding out an olive branch to Pakistan, for fear of a backlash from Hindutva warriors.

The Lahore declaration, the memorandum of understanding and the joint statement all pointed towards bilateral consultations on security concepts, whether these were problems related to Kashmir or to the nuclear arena. In an editorial, the English daily The News comments,"Perhaps the most concrete and yet most modest outcome of the summit has been in the realm of nuclear confidence-building measures. Both countries have agreed to provide each other with advance notification of ballistic missile tests.

The two developing countries who gatecrashed their way into the exclusive nuclear 'gora club' have shown that they were aware of their responsibilities."The spectre of a nuclear holocaust, the fear of a ruinous arms race and the campaign by peace parties in both countries on the social and economic backwardness in the region have deepened the desire to avert an armed conflict in future, says former foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmad Khan.

ìNot only Pakistan but the entire world has been given to believe by the Indian prime minister that India is now ready to open a new chapter of durable peace and security in this region. We will expect a genuine and positive movement towards the final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, adds Tariq Altaf, additional secretary at the foreign office.

Saying 'Kashmir' can't have been so hard after all for Vajpayee, though Sharif could be forgiven for strutting a bit. It was the first time an Indian prime minister had acknowledged that Jammu and Kashmir needed to be discussed in bilateral talks. Vajpayee too had reason for cheer. New Delhi had long demanded that there be dialogue besides Kashmir; Islamabad had stubbornly insisted that nothing would be discussed if Kashmir was not. But economic and security constraints have forced decision-makers in Pakistan to realise that they could not remain hostage forever to the solution of the Kashmir dispute.

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But moving forward on other issues does not imply that Pakistani leaders can afford to put Kashmir on the backburner. Says Tanvir Ahmad Khan:"Kashmir would be a far greater challenge to Pakistani diplomacy if deliberations don't live up to the criterion of 'early and positive' outcome.

Others attempt to interpret the 'bus diplomacy' in the only language that they speak: trade."Bilateral trade totalled just $160 million during the fiscal year ending March 1998, as against the unofficial trade volume of over $1. 50 billion in the same period, says Senator Illyas Bilour, former president of the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a leading Muslim League industrialist in the nwfp. Bilour welcomed the establishment of an India-Pakistan chamber of commerce as agreed on in Lahore. Under the changing economic scenario, he feels that the World Trade Organisation (wto) would soon try to curtail import tariffs and lift trade barriers. His advice to the business community?"Pakistan will be forced to restore business and economic ties with neighbouring countries, including India. So we should do it now on our own before doing it under compulsion at a later stage.

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However, the likelihood of more trade routes opening up has worried the United Nations drug control programme. Though opium cultivation is on the wane in Pakistan, most opiates seized in 1998 in India were routed over land and sea from South-West Asia. The majority of the heroin seized in India in '97 came from Kabul via Peshawar in Pakistan. Clearly, areas relating to 'soft security' between the two countries have to be studied. And both countries must also work together on two potentially explosive issues, aids and water distribution. While the aids epidemic will affect millions of people in both countries over the next few years, the wars of the future will be waged over water rights.

These future bogeys can't detract from the overwhelming support, shown for perhaps the first time, for Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League government. Leader of the opposition, Benazir Bhutto, took nothing away from Sharif's diplomatic coup when she groused that her invitation had arrived late, and missed the opportunity to be at the Wagah border. Just as well, says an aide to Nawaz Sharif."She would have grabbed the attention of those international cameras who still love her and she makes good copy for any journalist. Sharif would have been dwarfed by the coverage. Benazir was left complaining to an unsympathetic audience that the ppp-Indian summit when Rajiv Gandhi came to Pakistan had delivered more than this 'bus diplomacy'.

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Her legal eagles in the Senate, Aitizaz Ahsan and Reza Rabbani, together with the Awami National Party's secretary-general, Senator Ajmal Khattack, spoke with greater maturity:"Though the opposition appreciates the opening of political dialogue with India, Pakistani leadership should take the nation into confidence on the outcome of recent parleys between the two countries.

It was a valid complaint. Sharif missed an opportunity to build bridges with the opposition in the upper house. And even the day before the bus drove into Lahore, he did not mention it in his nationwide address on television.

But it was the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami that failed to read the popular rejection of the 50-year-old legacy of hate. Its outbursts in Lahore on the two days that Vajpayee was present now has its leaders sending letters of apology to ambassadors in Islamabad who were harrassed on their way to a state dinner. Ironically, the Jamaat was ticked off by another right-wing party, the Jamiat-ul-Islam, whose secretary-general Fazlur Rahman asked:"Why did not the Jamaat object when bureaucracy-level talks were going on? Is it a sin when politicians are engaged in the process?

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But the popular case is weakened in Pakistan when the Indians talk of confederations. Or when an Indian journalist asks Aziz Siddiqui, political commentator and human rights activist, about Pakistan's position on Kashmir. Or Vajpayee is quoted as saying on his return to Delhi that there would be no improvement in bilateral relations until the militants stopped killing people in Kashmir.

ìWhat one had expected from Vajpayee was not the opening up of new wounds but the initiation of a healing process. If he is sincere in solving the Kashmir problem, as he claims he is, then he should have prepared public opinion in his country for a change and eschewed stoking the fire of hatred, was the summary of the English daily The Nation.

Perhaps this is history's last wake-up call to the two countries."The historic opportunity to negotiate a quid pro quo for peace and friendship should not be lost. If Vajpayee travelled all the way to Lahore to sell peace and friendship, there is no reason why Pakistan should shy away from making a positive response, says Prof Khalid Mahmud. No reason at all, says a growing chorus of voices in Pakistan.

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