Square Brackets

It was at 8.55 on the night of Monday, July 16, that the Indian delegation knew the Agra summit had collapsed. A call had then come from Amar Vilas Palace, where Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was staying, seeking an appointment for the guest to make a farewell call on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Musharraf wanted the meeting for 9.30 pm. The Indian aide, however, politely suggested that the prime minister would be having dinner then; could the President instead come at 10 pm?

It was at 10.15 that Gen Pervez Musharraf's impressive motorcade swung through the gates of the Jaypee Hotel. Accompanying him was the Pakistan delegation and his wife Begum Sehba. His dinner over, and quite reconciled to what seemed an irretrievable breakdown of the Agra summit, the PM was waiting for his guests.

The Pakistani delegation then promptly went up to their 'holding rooms' upstairs. These had been allocated to the guests to allow them to consult, discuss and review the progress of the summit during their two-day stay in Agra. The summit isn't still over, whispered a waiting Indian delegate. His reason: since Begum Sehba was upstairs and her husband had come down alone, it was obvious he was to make a last try at not returning to Islamabad empty-handed. The memory of an earlier summit, the one at Shimla, was rekindled. Then Zulfikar Bhutto and Indira Gandhi had walked in the woods and promptly returned to initial the Simla Accord.

But that wasn't to be the case this time. An hour later, Musharraf walked out of the prime minister's room, looking grim. He strode up to the holding rooms and held a meeting with his team for about 15 minutes. Then they all trooped down. The prime minister was waiting for him. When Musharraf drew level, they shook hands and the two walked all the way to the end of the corridor. The Agra summit was over.

When Musharraf entered the car with the minister-in-waiting, Digvijay Singh, there was uncomfortable silence for over two minutes. As the cavalcade swept its way to the airport, the general regained his composure and told Singh that though he hadn't got everything, the summit was certainly a beginning of the peace process.

Perhaps the general's hope stemmed from the fact that before the Agra summit was declared dead, Vajpayee had conceded two crucial points. For one, the draft that came near adoption mentioned neither the Simla Accord nor the Lahore Declaration. More significantly, Kashmir had moved from No. 2 in the previous composite dialogue format, formulated during the tenure of Inder Kumar Gujral as prime minister, to the No. 1 slot. In other words, Kashmir was to be the focus of negotiations between the two countries. In response, Pakistan had conceded an implicit linkage between Kashmir and terrorism, with terrorism/drug trafficking (see infographic) moving up to No. 3 slot, up from the earlier lowly sixth point of discussion.

In the end, there also emerged a framework to discuss Kashmir, terrorism and peace and security matters in an integrated manner. These were to be discussed at the level of the foreign ministers, later receiving political attention. The rest of the listed items were to be addressed at the foreign secretaries' and other appropriate levels.

So, what went wrong? Ultimately, it was just one paragraph that came between Musharraf's persistent desire for a joint declaration that he could take back triumphantly to Islamabad and the collapse of the summit.Even as late as 7.30 on Monday evening, Indian officials had been urging Musharraf to drop the contentious paragraph and take the package.

The paragraph had to do with Kashmir. With the rest of the draft making no reference either to the UN resolution or any other mechanism to address the Kashmir issue, Musharraf tried to put in caveats that would have opened a Pandora's box of fresh implications in future negotiations.

But first, to the beginning, Sunday morning, July 15: It had seemed Vajpayee and Musharraf had struck a personal rapport. For instance, when the pleasantries began at 11 am at the Jaypee Palace hotel, the photo-opportunity alone took 30 minutes to complete. The two leaders shook hands and smiled for the 75 camera crews that came in batches to take pictures and can footage of what was billed to be a historic moment.

It was at 11.30 that the first one-to-one meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf began. It was expected to last for about half an hour. But it dragged on for 90 minutes, the two leaders reciting their positions before taking a break. Musharraf promptly took the opportunity to refresh himself.

It was now time for the delegation-level talks. The Indian delegation, besides external affairs/defence minister Jaswant Singh, comprised home minister L.K. Advani, finance minister Yashwant Sinha, commerce and industry minister Murasoli Maran. With the exception of Maran, the delegation consisted virtually of the entire Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs (ccsa).

It was unprecedented for the ccsa to get what is euphemistically now being called a "bird's-eye view" of the summit. Sources say it was felt necessary to have Advani in attendance—even though it was (as it usually is) to be the prime minister's show—because his presence was expected to provide a reassuring and calming influence on the bjp's core constituency.

The delegation-level meeting began with the prime minister reading out from a prepared text. The prime minister said, "We have already had a frank discussion on important matters. We look forward to a further detailed exchange of views on all issues, including that of Jammu and Kashmir. You are fully aware of our views on this subject and we have heard yours. We cannot deny that there are vast differences between us on this. We are willing to address these differences and move forward." He also hammered the point that "we firmly believe that a framework to address the differences between us on Jammu and Kashmir would have to include the issue of cross-border terrorism in its ambit".

It was now Musharraf's turn to speak. He didn't even have a prepared text and spoke extempore. The plenary lasted for about an hour, followed by lunch which the prime minister hosted. It was then the drafts began to be discussed. At 3.30 pm, Musharraf left for his prior engagement of seeing the Taj Mahal. To the journalists there, Musharraf declared that his talks with Vajpayee were "fruitful".

Meanwhile, officials on both sides got down to the laborious and painstaking drafting process. Each country had its draft. As is the normal practice, the draft of the host nation was taken up for negotiation. Into this was incorporated the points that the Pakistani delegation wanted, after negotiations, paragraph by paragraph, word by word. The points of disagreement were mentioned in square brackets. Every time there was progress or agreement, sources say the "kitchen cabinet on security affairs" reviewed the progress.

After visiting the Taj, shortly after 7 pm, Musharraf and Vajpayee met for an hour and a quarter. The idea was to review progress and set out markers for progress. When the issue of cross-border terrorism surfaced, Musharraf repeatedly beseeched Vajpayee to understand his "majboori" and his compulsions. But at no stage did the general say he would be willing to exercise control over this activity.

The bureaucrats broke for the governor's banquet and then immediately returned to negotiate the draft. It was pretty much burning the midnight oil; the negotiations continued till about 4.45 am, when the first streak of light lit up the sky. The moment of reckoning had come.

At 9 am, Musharraf went for the now-famous breakfast meet with editors. The expectations from the summit had started to soar. A little before 11 am, Musharraf and Vajpayee met for yet another round of talks. The first session lasted for an hour before the principals reconvened at 12.25 for another 45 minutes. (Meanwhile, Star TV had started to beam the footage of Musharraf's breakfast meeting—see accompanying story...) Vajpayee was then informed of Musharraf's deliberate indiscretion of letting the tape fall into the hands of the television media. The warm vibes between the two leaders suddenly turned frosty. The Star TV telecast of the breakfast meet convinced the Indian side that Pakistan was preparing its fall-back option: win the media war even if the summit failed to yield envisaged results.

The Monday morning negotiations were by far the toughest, simultaneously being carried out between Musharraf and Vajpayee, their two foreign ministers and later, the delegations. Both sides now had a text, which still had a number of square brackets. The negotiations had reached the tricky stage. As one diplomat put it, "Everything they were insisting on ran counter to our stated positions, the parliamentary resolution as well as to our Constitution. What we were negotiating for was a possible dropping of reference to Lahore and Simla in exchange for their dropping their insistence on various aspects of Kashmir, including the UN resolution. We were in effect telling them if you don't talk of the Kashmir package in the draft, we won't talk about cross-border terrorism." (At this point, since the draft was still being negotiated, the Pakistanis conveyed that they would skip the Ajmer leg of Musharraf's visit.)

Ultimately, according to diplomats involved in the negotiations, it was the paragraph on Kashmir which proved to be the stumbling block. Though it went through several revisions, the Pakistanis insisted on including three broad elements into it—either expressed separately or in different combinations.

First, there was a reference to a "settlement of Kashmir". This was Pakistani shorthand for the various solutions that have been proffered in their country. Like the Chenab formula, which calls for recognising the Chenab river as the boundary between two countries. This would result in India handing over Muslim-dominated districts of the Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan.

Second, there was a reference to the centrality of Kashmir in the relationship between India and Pakistan. This would have meant accepting Pakistan's contention that the resolution of all outstanding issues between New Delhi and Islamabad would be conditional to progress on Kashmir. In other words, Islamabad would have reserved the right to define progress in Indo-Pak relationships.

Third, the Pakistanis wanted some reference to resolving the Kashmir issue in accordance with the "wishes of the people of Kashmir". This would have enabled Pakistan to justify jehadi activities and negate India's description of militant activities in Kashmir as cross-border terrorism.

None of these three formulations was acceptable to India. Not willing to compromise on Kashmir, and certain India wouldn't acquiesce, the Pakistani president decided to dial at 8.55 pm and seek a farewell meet with the Indian prime minister. Nearly three hours later, the subcontinent was told that there would be no Agra declaration.