I was on the bus which the former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee took to Lahore to lead a delegation of artists, writers and journalists in 1999. He was responding to an invitation by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. As we approached the border, Mr. Vajpayee called me and showed a message saying that some 25 Hindus had been killed by terrorists in the Jammu district. He was visibly shaken and wondered whether it was worth his while to make the trip. I told him that such incidents indicated how desperate certain forces were to sabotage the efforts to reduce the distance between the two countries. He still was not sure how the hardliners in India would react, particularly those in his own party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Yet Mr. Vajpayee did not waver. He had realised that there was no option to negotiations. That was the reason why Vajpayee picked up the thread with President General Pervez Musharraf, knowing well that the latter had sabotaged the Lahore Declaration through hostilities at Kargil.

Apparently, the talks at Lahore were taking a concrete shape because an acceptable formula seemed emerging from the unofficial channel the two countries had established. When Nawaz Sharif was ousted in a military coup, Vajpayee told me: ‘We were almost there’. He never disclosed the contents of the formula. But he did say: ‘He (Nawaz Sharif) went because of us.’ I still do not know the formula. Even Nawaz Sharif whom I met at Jeddah a few months ago did not spell it out. With Vajpayee’s exit, the scene has changed. Things have become a bit difficult. One, no one in the ruling Congress party has the type of equation which he had come to develop with President Musharraf and two, what Vajpayee could have sold to his Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might not be able to. However, he has one advantage: the BJP cannot go back to its original intractable position. Vajpayee may support a ‘reasonable’ solution. But his stock within the party has gone down after its defeat at the polls and he may not be able to push through what is Pakistan’s minimum. However, his commitment to a settlement with Pakistan is so strong that he will make his party agree to back the Congress formula.

The BJP’s concurrence to any solution is necessary because it represents those fanatical Hindus who have grown up with an anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan bias. The Congress has not been ‘averse’ to rapprochement with Pakistan. The party has a long record of talks, negotiations and even wars. Its relations with Pakistan have been far from normal. Yet the statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-that he wanted to settle problems with India’s neighbours, particularly Pakistan, indicates that New Delhi would like to span its distance with Islamabad. The Congress Party’s President Sonia Gandhi said at her victory rally that the Congress was all for talks and would continue to pursue them. Even the party’s foreign relations expert Natwar Singh who has become minister of external affairs has pointed out the futility of recrimination and estrangement. A similar remark has been made by former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao-a senior Congress leader- in reply to a question during an interview. He has said that there has never been any difference among the political parties on talks with Pakistan.

The left, a major supporter of the coalition, has reiterated its support for close relations between India and Pakistan. Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi party, the third largest in parliament, goes even further and advocates a SAARC economic union. Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, another ally of the Congress, is keen to have a friendly equation with Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Foreign Minister Khurshied Kasuri are correct in their assessment that all political parties in India are supportive of efforts to solve the problems facing the two countries. Talks have been initiated and they will not be stalled. What may be different from before is the pace of talks. It all depends on Islamabad which appears to be in a hurry to solve the Kashmir issue but how far it is willing to face the facts is the question. President Musharraf seems to want a shot gun solution. He has said that if there is no movement on Kashmir by August or September, the entire exercise on confidence building measures could be off. This may well be part of his tactics to put pressure on India. Still the government in Islamabad, dictated by General Musharraf’s threat, can put an end to exchanges at different levels and even go back to push into India the usual quantum of infiltration which may recreate the hostile atmosphere all over again. I got confirmation of such a possibility when I visited Islamabad after the SAARC Summit. By then the joint statement between Mr. Vajpayee and General Musharraf had been signed, sealed and delivered. Pakistan’s Foreign Office, still showing irritation over the scant attention paid to it during the preparation of the joint statement, said that the situation would go back to square one by the end of the year ‘if things did not move on Kashmir’. Dr. Manmohan Singh, the new Prime Minister, is travelling towards conciliation with Pakistan for the first time. Atal Behari Vajpayee had covered a long distance and wanted to achieve something during his tenure. The Joint Statement provides the outline, if not the roadmap. On the other hand, the Congress is committed to the Simla Agreement which Mrs. Indira Gandhi signed with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at Simla in 1972. Although former Congress Prime Minister Narasimha Rao wished better relations with Pakistan, he could not do so because Islamabad was in no mood to make up with India.

The Congress-led government would like to make the Simla Agreement the basis for further talks without denouncing the joint statement. The Simla agreement has given the two countries a solid base. In fact, it has survived various tests and been able to sustain peace between the two countries except the brief encounter at Kargil. The Pakistanis, who undoubtedly hoped that Vajpayee would be back, have fears about the Sonia Gandhi-guided government. But they should not forget that the agreement between the two countries on the Siachin Glacier was reached during the regime of Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi’s husband. It was the out-of-turn statement by a Pakistani diplomat which spoilt things. Tthe edifice of India-Pakistan friendship can be built step by step. Patient, unhurried talks may eventually untie the knot. Confidence Building Measures (CBM), already initiated, will prove productive. They may lead to an appropriate framework for a settlement. But Islamabad should not push the process. All this, however, depends on Pakistan’s military. How far is it willing to go to accommodate India’s compulsions? Not only that, how far it is prepared for democracy to return to Pakistan? This would mean going back to the barracks. In the present state of affairs, it will be too good to be true if the military vacates the territory it has come to occupy on the civil side.

My assessment, after following India-Pakistan relations for 50 years, is that the use of force and Kashmir are the two problems which have created bad blood between the two countries. India has insisted on the renunciation of force to sort out differences and Pakistan on the solution of Kashmir before taking up anything else. The history of relations between the two countries is littered with examples where both things have shattered the possibilities of becoming good neighbours. The post-1965 war talks at Tashkent between Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and President Ayub Khan did not succeed first. Ayub had brought along with him at the meeting a draft which talked only about ‘peaceful means’. Shastri wanted him to say specifically that Pakistan would not employ violence to solve the problems between the two countries. Ayub had to write in his own hand the words, ‘without resort to arms’, for the agreement to be signed. Again, at the Murree meeting in Pakistan, after the Bangladesh war, Union Minister D.P. Dhar told Aziz Ahmed, Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, that New Delhi wanted ‘durable peace’, which would be founded on the ‘renunciation of conflict and confrontation’. Islamabad’s approach was tentative, ‘the elimination of consequences’ not an undertaking to give up arms. It was the same story at Lahore, although Nawaz Sharif had realised by then that peaceful methods would bring Pakistan more dividends than hostilities. Whatever the twists and turns, Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto signed an agreement at Simla ‘to settle their differences by peaceful means’ This was the first time that the principle of bilateralism came to be accepted. Both agreed that they would not associate a third party with negotiation between India and Pakistan.

It is apparent that General Musharraf had not given up his faith in occasional forays. That explained his ambivalent stand at Agra where he was asked not to indulge in adventures through the army or the terrorists. In fact, hostilities at Kargil say more than what a conflict normally conveys. They prove once more that the situation in Pakistan is such that the political say is feeble and the military’s voice loud and clear. How can this help towards Confidence Building Measures? Still, two questions need to be answered. One, did the army indulge in the adventure at Kargil because it suspected a solution on Kashmir without its involvement? Two, was Kargil a consequence of collusion between the military and the political leadership? Let me take the first. The military which has ruled Pakistan for nearly 45 years since its creation in August 1947, has come to have a vested interest in power. Apart from this, there may be a belief in the military that a country seeped in feudal, religious and hierarchical postures has to have a strong hand to run it. The thinking may also have arisen because of the fear that a political Pakistan cannot take on a powerful India which is reluctant to give Pakistan its ‘due’.

If the first argument is followed logically, the military’s input in any negotiations between India and Pakistan becomes important. Then it appears that the Kargil adventure followed the military’s perception that Kashmir was being ‘sorted out over its head’. In other words, the formula reportedly anvilled at Delhi and Islamabad was not acceptable to it because it was not a party. It has a clear message: the military’s involvement (and approval) is necessary for any settlement between the two countries. General Zia-ul-Haq would often tell me that India should have a settlement with the military in Pakistan. ‘You will have problems when a democratic government takes over’. Nawaz Sharif warned me at Jeddha that ‘we will not accept the solution of Kashmir which India reaches with the military-guided government at Islamabad’. How to reconcile the military’s wishes with the aspirations of political parties is a big challenge before New Delhi. Both count. The two top political leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif with whom I have had talks on the subject do not recognise the government headed by Prime Minister Jamali nor do they accept President Musharraf who wields all the power in Pakistan, directly or indirectly. Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif may denounce any agreement that New Delhi reaches with the present set up at Islamabad.

But the military’s stamp of approval is equally important. The second point is whether the Kargil operation was the result of understanding between the military and the political leadership. Nawaz Sharif denies this, while General Musharraf says, ‘everyone was on board’. This scenario is somewhat similar to the one in 1965. At that time also, the Pakistan army infiltrated into Kashmir with the connivance of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then foreign minister. President Ayub Khan told me that he had no idea of the infiltration and came to know about it when the fat was on the fire. In fact, he described the 1965 war as ‘Bhutto’s war’. In the same way, Nawaz Sharif puts the blame of Kargil on President Musharraf. Presuming both Ayub and Nawaz Sharif knew only a bit about the army’s intentions, the fact remains that both went along and raised no voice until Pakistan began to lose. My contention is that if collusion between military and political leaders can take place for a misadventure, it is not difficult to imagine a consensus for peace between New Delhi and Islamabad. However much I may dislike the National Security Council (NSC), which has institutionalised military rule in Pakistan, it places some system in position. The National Security Council will increasingly play a role in the Indo-Pak affairs. The set up may not be a hundred percent democratic but it has the trappings of it. After taking over, the army has seldom gone back to the barracks in a third world country. How do we proceed on relations between India and Pakistan, without accepting the reality of the entrenchment by the armed forces? The episode of Shahbaz Sharif -- he was forcibly deported back to Saudi Arabia after trying to return to Pakistan in May 2004 -- shows the helplessness of political forces in Pakistan. Whether the conditions should be normalised first to solve Kashmir or whether Kashmir should be solved first to normalise relations is an unending debate. It is no use entering into it because nothing will come out of the exercise. But one thing which India has realised over the years is that Kashmir has to be tackled for any meaningful relationship with Pakistan. Kashmir cannot be wished away. How do we solve Kashmir? Nawaz Sharif once made a realistic statement: Only after meeting Prime Minister Inder Gujral at Male did he realise that India could not present Pakistan Kashmir on a platter, nor could Pakistan take it from India by force. New Delhi cannot accept the solutions floating around because of their adverse fallout on the country. The one-which Islamabad is promoting, is the division of Jammu and Kashmir, the valley going to Pakistan as an ‘unfinished agenda of Partition’ and the rest to the Hindu-majority India. The argument is that the Muslim-majority valley should have gone to Pakistan in the first instance -- at the time of partition, based on religion. When I was in Pakistan with Vajpayee, Shahbaz Sharif -- then the Punjab Chief Minister -- invited Prakash Singh Badal, then the East Punjab Chief Minister, for breakfast. Shahbaz Sharif proposed to Badal that Kashmir could be settled if India handed over Pakistan the Muslim majority valley. Badal did not respond. The matter would have rested at that but I intervened. ‘You can have the entire Jammu and Kashmir’, I told Shahbaz Sharif, ‘But this time the criterion for division will not be religion’. We did not want to re-open partition. One million people died and 20 million were uprooted at that time. If Jammu and Kashmir were to be divided on the basis of religion, the Hindutva forces in India would exploit the situation and try to destroy the ethos of secularism. Shahbaz Shah did not say anything in reply.

Suppose both parts of Kashmir are united and given independence. New Delhi will never agree to it; the Hindutva elements will go to town saying: If after 55 years, the 4 to 5 million Muslims in the Valley have not accepted India, there is no reason why the 120 million Muslims in the rest of the country should be trusted. The very pluralistic and democratic ethos of India would be endangered. Islamabad has often talked about involving a third party, particularly the U.S. My impression is that after what has happened in Iraq such a line of thinking in Pakistan has died down. I got an inkling of that at Brussels recently. The European Parliament had arranged a discourse on Kashmir. The resolution concluded that the European Union be associated with the talks between India and Pakistan. I opposed the resolution. My argument was that Kashmir was a bilateral issue and it was for India and Pakistan to settle it with the help of representatives from Jammu and Kashmir. Present at the discourse were the Kashmiri expatriate and persons like Sardar Qayyum, former President of Azad Kashmir, and former Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub. They came around to my viewpoint that the west had destroyed whatever the people of Iraq had represented. How could they repose their trust in Europe? However, it appears that some in Pakistan, particularly in the military establishment, still look towards the west, particularly the U.S., for the solution of Kashmir problem. The treatment will be worse than the disease.

For any settlement, the two countries have to look within, not without. Can the status quo be sold to Pakistan? I do not think so even if America were to put all its pressure behind it. But with some adjustments, the LOC may be acceptable. Humayun Khan, Pakistan’s former High Commissioner to India, has revealed in a book that: ‘Bhutto convincingly argued with Indira Gandhi at Simla that given enough time, he would be able to make Pakistan accept the LoC with minor adjustments as a permanent border.’ However, to begin with, the Siachin Glacier should become a no-man’s land, a status to which New Delhi agreed some years ago. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto whom I interviewed in 1972, after the Bangladesh war suggested that the discussion on Kashmir be ‘postponed to some other time.’ ‘Why should it be incumbent on us to solve all our problems?’ he said. He still spoke about Kashmir, albeit in conciliatory terms. He told me that the Line of Control was ‘a line of peace’, something he did not want the Simla Agreement to mention because he required time to prepare the country. Maybe, we can freeze the problem for ‘sometime’ and go ahead with trade, travel and other things so as to come nearer to each other. The interaction may create an atmosphere of goodwill which will help us solve Kashmir as well. For that, it is important that the two countries increase people-to-people contact. Brijesh Mishra, security advisor to former Prime Minister Vajpayee, agreed with me that the different sections of populations from both sides should meet.

But the elimination of terrorism is something basic. After the summit between Vajpayee and Musharraf early this year, terrorism has gone down considerably. Even some training camps have been dismantled, although some stay at the relocated sites. But during the polls in Kashmir, people were actively stopped from voting. Vajpayee publicly accused Pakistan of ‘sponsoring terrorism’. Manmohan Singh may react more strongly because Vajpayee had come to live with terrorism which lasted all his regime for six years. Suspicion and mistrust which got built up over the years because of perfunctory contracts tangle the problems still further. Political leaders and bureaucrats on both sides have only helped to widen the gulf because they have found that the more rigid a stance they take, the higher they go in public esteem. History has also been distorted to serve this parochial end; wars between kings and overlords have been understood as wars between Hindus and Muslims. Muslims recall the days when they ruled India and Hindus see themselves as the rightful owners of Aryavarta (the land of the Aryas), treating others as intruders or plunderers. Both communities miss the dominating and determining force of economic factors in history. Foreign powers have also contributed towards keeping the two nations apart. Through arms and economic assistance, they have stoked fires of enmity. Either to preserve their ‘area of interest’ or to maintain what they consider the ‘balance of power’ in the region, they have been following policies aimed at keeping the peoples of the subcontinent divided. But those who are talking about going back to square one do not appreciate the realities on the ground. I do not think that the governments or the fundamentalists on both sides can switch off people’s equations so easily. They can create difficulties and may stall the process. But there is no going back from the point we have reached in the journey towards normalisation.

I feel people have no heart to return to the posture of hostility. There is a change in their thinking and approach. The atmosphere during the recent cricket series is only one proof -- the Pakistani players and the visiting Indians lived like a family for many days, enjoying the match in true sportsman’s spirit and flying the flag of each other’s country. I recall when I led a parliamentary delegation to Pakistan about 10 months ago, there was a tumultous welcome. Even the Jamaat-i-Islami hosted a reception at Karachi and said at the meeting that Pakistan was ready for friendly relations with India, notwithstanding the unresolved problems between the two countries. Kashmir was mentioned but its solution was not made prior condition for close contacts. The atmosphere exuded friendship and goodwill. Subsequently, when I said at a meeting that the Pakistanis should never feel disheartened because they were our blood, there was loud sobbing from the crowd. It looked as if people who lived together for centuries wanted to live as friends while forgetting the bitterness of the past but asserting their sovereignty and separate identity. The way in which visiting artists, including dancers, were welcomed shows a new trend. I tried to stage the Heer Ranjha by the Sheila Bhatia troupe during General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime. He was dead against it on the ground that Heer could not be acted by a woman on the stage. Islam, he said, did not permit such a public show. There was not even a murmur when Uma Sharma recently held kathak recitals at Lahore and Karachi. The audience was spell-bound by her artistic display and applauded her to their heart’s content. Similarly, Ghulam Ali from Pakistan swept the people of Bangalore off their feet with his ghazals.

The new atmosphere of understanding is here not only because India is doing better economically and technologically but also because there is realisation in Pakistan that they have everything to gain from its friendship. They want trade barriers to go and are anxious to sell their goods in a big market. Some have already established contacts with the Indian parties for agencies. There is yet another factor working in Pakistan: the September 11th aftermath has made America a bigger enemy than India in the eyes of Pakistanis. They are convinced that Washington has declared a war against Islam. The events in Iraq have only deepened their hatred. The greater is the American intervention in West Asia, the more hostile is the reaction in Pakistan. The action in Waziristan in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) has only increased the venom against Washington. Against all this, New Delhi is seen less inimical. Even otherwise, many developments have taken place to make the Pakistanis feel that India is probably a boat which they can ride to swim across the sea of their troubles. With the absence of strategic depth through Afghanistan and with the warming of relations between New Delhi and Beijing, Pakistan feels India may well be the opening. The feeling of being lonely is increasingly apparent in Pakistan. Normal relations with India also give Pakistan hope of getting back democracy one day. At present, there is very little movement on the political front. On the other hand, the military has allowed religious elements to usurp the territory which the political parties occupied once. The situation may have helped the military at one time but not now. The fundamentalists are increasingly seen as an adversary. Their attitude towards India is full of contradictions. They want Muslims in India to be a force. But they do not like too much proximity with New Delhi which they believe is pro-Israel. The military’s predicament is how to keep the fundamentalists at bay till it has reached some understanding with India. After all, they may come in handy if nothing moves. Whether Washington’s pressure has made the two countries to start confidence building measures is difficult to say.

There is no doubt that both sides are more realistic than before and they do not want the talks to break down. There is something positive about the rapprochement. New Delhi has lowered its objection to Islamabad becoming part of the ASEAN regional grouping. It looks as if the talks on nuclear Confidence Building Measures will prove productive. They may lead to an appropriate framework for a settlement. The feeling of kinship needs to be spread throughout the region. Even an economic union of SAARC countries falls short of the region’s requirements. Our aim should be to constitute a South Asian Union, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, having soft borders, having one currency and having no custom or excise barriers. Arrangements will have to be worked out in such a way that India, the developed part in the region, does not get the advantage. I believe that one day the high walls that fear and distrust have raised on the borders will crumble and the people in the region, without giving up their separate identity, will work together for the common good. This may usher in an era fruitful beyond their dreams. This is the faith which I have cherished ever since I left my home town, Sialkot in Pakistan, 57 years ago. And this is the straw I have clung to in the sea of hatred and hostility that has for long engulfed the region.



Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the U.K., former Rajya Sabha Member, Resident Editor of the Statesman and the Indian Express.

References

* Kulldip Nayar, Distant Neighbours: A tale of the subcontinent, (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1972)
* Kuldip Nayar, Wall at Wagah: India-Pakistan Relations, (New Delhi: Gyan Books Pvt. Ltd., 2003)