There are positive signs coming from either side of the Kashmir border, and with them hopes are growing of a forward movement on the peace initiative of Indian Premier Atal Behari Vajpayee. This muted optimism is being nurtured by the tone and tenor of statements from both New Delhi and Islamabad.
It has been just over a week that Vajpayee extended the hand of friendship to Pakistan, and Islamabad has been cautiously enthusiastic in its reaction. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has called Vajpayee’s initiative a “good offer” and, more significantly, Premier Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali not only welcomed it but talked by phone with Vajpayee yesterday about ways of improving bilateral relations, the first such contact for over a year.
That the optimism should be tempered with caution is also understandable. There is little doubt, for one thing, that the peace offer took Islamabad by surprise, coming as it did hard on the heels of belligerent statements by Indian Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and Defense Minister George Fernandes. Moreover, the strings Vajpayee attached to a resumption of dialogue created a suspicion that this could just be a return to the beaten path on the Kashmir issue.
There is a third factor that has, after a period of acrimonious exchanges, led to the prevailing air of caution on either side. Who will now take that decisive first step to kick-start dialogue, the step that could set the region on the long road to normality? Each country is hoping that the other will make the crucial move.
But since it was India that took the controversial steps of shutting down the air, bus and rail links and recalling its high commissioner to Pakistan, the initiative must now again be taken by New Delhi. Islamabad for its part has accepted the offer to resume talks with alacrity. And if the dialogue is to be more than just mere proximity talks, then restoring the situation that existed prior to the Dec. 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament is crucial, because it can set the tone for resuming discussions between the South Asian rivals. Enormous political will is needed on both sides for this. But the Indian offer and the prompt Pakistani response give cause for hope.
The timing of offer and response, too, and for both India and Pakistan, could not have been better chosen. The G-8 meeting in Evian, France, is expected to take up the India-Pakistan issue and US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage will be in India and Pakistan early next month, presumably to push both countries to conciliatory positions.
Separatist-linked violence in Indian Kashmir has seen a sudden spurt following Vajpayee’s peace overtures and the possibility of a thaw in the frozen Indo-Pak relations. It provides fuel to the anti-dialogue lobby in New Delhi. But as the state’s Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed says, the escalation is an act of “desperation” and an effort to dissipate the positive atmosphere that is gathering pace in the state. That is how both the countries should view these unfortunate incidents, and work toward restoration of links in every sphere of life. Both countries have come to recognize that, despite the rise in militancy and a myriad of other obstacles, stalemate cannot be a substitute for policy. That is why there is now a thaw in South Asia.
