Over The Boundary At Sher-E-Kashmir

All this was expected from the time Jamali called up Vajpayee on April 28. In the course of a 10-minute conversation, the two prime ministers got down to determining how best to shape a re-engagement between the two countries, estranged from the time Indian Parliament was attacked on December 13, 2001. Jamali welcomed Vajpayee’s peace overture and said Pakistan was prepared to talk to India at any level, hoping that such a dialogue would cover all issues, including Kashmir.

But Vajpayee’s lack of confidence in Pakistan was palpable in the incremental and tentative manner in which he charted out the roadmap to peace. First, Vajpayee pressed for an early implementation of the decisions on trade and economic cooperation taken at the saarc summit in Kathmandu last year. As he saw it, progress on economic cooperation, civil aviation links, cultural and people-to-people contacts would help create an atmosphere conducive to addressing the more contentious issues. Vajpayee also pointed out that cross-border terrorism and infiltration must end to ensure the atmosphere wasn’t vitiated and fresh attempts at re-engagement not derailed. If, and only if, all this was done, a window of opportunity could open for both India and Pakistan to look at the future. All these aspects the prime minister reiterated in his speech to Parliament.

This speech also put to rest talk that his fresh overtures to Pakistan were a function of personal whim. Arguing against such perceptions, sources underline the importance of the venue—and timing—he chose to offer a hand of friendship to Pakistan: it was for the first time in 15 years that an Indian prime minister was holding a public rally in Srinagar. The venue was the Sher-e-Kashmir cricket stadium, which hasn’t witnessed international cricket matches for 13 years. Earlier, the stadium would resound with pro-Pakistan slogans during matches.

Officials who prepared the prime minister’s agenda in Kashmir say there were three notable aspects to his speech—that India was willing to engage with Pakistan again; that the gun was no solution, negotiations were; and that the government was solidly behind Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Fresh from his Kashmir trip, Vajpayee informed Parliament that he had assured the people of Jammu and Kashmir that "we wish to resolve all issues—both domestic and external—through talks. I stressed that the gun can solve no problem; brotherhood can. Issues can be resolved if we move forward guided by the three principles of insaniyat (humanism), jamhooriyat (democracy) and Kashmiriyat (Kashmir’s composite cultural legacy)".

Diplomatic sources say that the prime minister has shifted the emphasis of India’s formulation on Pakistan. "Previously we said that ‘we will not talk until you end cross-border terrorism’. Now we are saying that ‘we are ready to talk but you must end cross-border terrorism’." In other words, say officials, India has taken a few sagacious steps back from an absolutist position that terrorist infrastructure has to be dismantled fully before India and Pakistan can hope to progress ahead on the road to peace.

The decision to appoint a high commissioner to Pakistan, as a gesture, doesn’t mean the progress would now be rapid and spectacular. Senior sources in the Union ministry of external affairs say the prime minister "has explained to the wider net in the government that nothing has changed, and we are not about to enter the farce of witnessing yet another Agra".

The moot question: why did the prime minister choose to nuance his Pakistan policy now? For one, sources say, it is connected to the visit of US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage. Vajpayee’s offer will scotch criticism that India doesn’t want to engage Pakistan ahead of an election year and consequently all Pakistani efforts to reach out to New Delhi are doomed to fail.

The change in Pakistan policy is also in consonance with the transformation in global polity following the Iraq war. The prime minister had harked to this aspect in his Kashmir address: "India and Pakistan as developing nations should ponder over what happened in Iraq."

India’s offer of an olive branch is also expected to blunt any Pakistani attempt to rake up Kashmir in the UN Security Council. Pakistan assumes the rotating presidency of the unsc for the month of May, and could create problems for New Delhi through attempts to press for a resolution on Kashmir.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for the change in tack lies elsewhere. Diplomats say there is a realisation that "a Pakistan policy which says you will do nothing cannot be sustained indefinitely". Global powers, particularly the US, have been expressing their concern over Indo-Pak relations, and feel India and Pakistan should open channels of communication to resolve their dispute. In diplomacy, stubbornness scarcely pays, and there are brownie points to be earned for sounding and acting reasonable.

But convincing the sceptical home audiences and somewhat aghast party hardliners is as difficult a proposition as the challenge to take forward the relationship in the face of renewed militant attacks. This is bound to increase as the snow melts and terrorists cross the border to escalate the spiral of violence. Since the prime minister’s April 19 speech in Srinagar, the state has already witnessed four bloody fidayeen attacks—at Bandipore, Radio Kashmir (Srinagar), Tral (Pulwama) and Drugmullah (Kupwara).

Senior government sources say there is no sign that normal militant communications traffic from across the LoC is abating, or that the tide of infiltrators has ebbed. Though the government accepts that violence will continue to rack Kashmir, what would roil officials is a Nadimarg kind of incident in which Kashmiri Pandits were gunned down.

As far as infiltration is concerned, the last interdiction happened in Medhar in the Poonch sector on the very night the prime minister in Srinagar had offered to smoke the peace pipe yet again. Then, army troops killed seven infiltrators from among a group of about 30. Between 400 and 500 trained infiltrators are reportedly in transit camps waiting to enter Jammu & Kashmir. Again, Jammu has recorded about 350 infiltrations in the last four months; of these, as many as 130 came last month alone. This is a foretaste of what can be expected during the summer months when the passes become accessible.

Sources, though, say the prime minister’s announcement in Parliament is aimed at restoring relations to the level they were before December 21, 2001, when India unilaterally recalled its envoy from Islamabad, snapped air, road, rail links, and pulled out half its mission staff of 110 from Islamabad.

Granting of landing rights is another issue altogether. If planes have to land, then the visa system has to be liberalised; for more visas to be given, the mission has to be properly staffed; for that to happen, the mission strength has to be restored.

Government sources say there are three tracks at work here: the course of normalisation, the course of engagement leading to dialogue, as well as the saarc track. All these, in some ways, are linked to each other. The first priority is to attempt a return to functional normalcy before other more ambitious steps can be contemplated.