A new bus service between two cities is not usually headline-grabbing news. But when the two cities are Delhi and Lahore, it is different. Yesterday’s reopened bus link between India and Pakistan after an 18-month lapse and a near war, and the parallel announcement that India will attend a regional economic summit in Pakistan in January are extremely encouraging. The thaw in relations is clearly continuing.
Credit must be given where credit is due — to Prime Minister Vajpayee, who back in April dramatically offered a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan. Even though, as recent elections show, his BJP does far better at the polls when beating an anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistani drum, he has seen that good relations are in India’s — and Pakistan’s — long-term interests.
We all know it could easily collapse. All it needs is for two or three Kashmiri suicide bombers to launch a fresh terror attack on a prominent Indian target or a new atrocity in Kashmir and it could be back to square one, with the two nuclear neighbors again breathing threats of war against each other. The history of India and Pakistan ever since independence has been one of attempted reconciliations punctuated by cold war, by actual war. Every time one or other holds out a hand in friendship, some fresh crisis overtakes events, usually because of the disputed territory of Kashmir. It was an attack on the Indian Parliament by Kashmiri militants in December 2001 that blew out Vajpayee’s earlier attempt to achieve a breakthrough with Pakistan.
If India and Pakistan could put Kashmir aside as an unresolved issue that needs time to sort out, in the same way that the UK and Argentina have put the Falkland Islands aside, there is no reason why relations should not flourish. That is what Prime Minister Vajpayee wants. It is what Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf also thinks is for the best. Unfortunately, history suggests that it will not stay in its box.
That said, there are a couple of major differences this time. One is the unstated pressure by the international community and Washington in particular on both sides to work towards reconciliation. The world was shocked at how near the two came to war and is determined it must not happen again. Moreover, both Islamabad and Delhi need to keep in with the rest of the world, and especially the Americans, for economic as much as for political reasons.
The other is that Delhi is prepared to accept that President Musharraf is doing his best to control the militants but that he is not in full control of the situation.
While these two differences remain in force, there is reason for cautious hope that the thaw will continue.
