As India and Pakistan resume their peace talks on Tuesday, both nations are confronted with a paradox. In two years of the peace process, until the Mumbai massacre stalled it, the two governments have done a lot more than any of their predecessors over the last two decades. Yet, there is a widespread sense that the peace process is stalled and that the talks between the two foreign secretaries will be tense.

The pervasive mood of pessimism in India, generated by the July terrorist attacks in Mumbai, need not necessarily correspond with the real state of play in the official negotiations between New Delhi and Islamabad. But first, a word on the broad gains from the peace process. Since the peace process was launched in June 2004, India and Pakistan have produced an impressive array of understandings on a range of issues, from nuclear arms control to greater contact between the two peoples.

Despite Pakistan’s reluctance to offer either the most favoured nation status or fully implement the South Asian Free Trade Agreement, official trade between the two countries has grown rapidly in the last few years. More visas are being issued today by both embassies than ever before.

Even in Jammu and Kashmir, that enduring bone of contention between the two countries, the guns on the international border, the line of control and on the Siachen glacier have fallen silent for nearly three years. For the first time in decades, the line of control has been opened up for the movement of people between the two parts of J&K. India and Pakistan also have plans to facilitate trade across the LoC.

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