The death, by explosive devices, of more than sixty persons on the Delhi-Lahore train places the two governments at a critical moment, and their responses so far have been strikingly mature. New Delhi has rightly hastened the visa process for Pakistani officials and relatives to attend to the dead and injured. All assistance must remain forthcoming. Islamabad has reaffirmed New Delhi’s primacy in dealing with the first fallouts of a tragedy that happened on Indian territory. In dealing with the aftermath, the two countries will be further tested by the manner in which their security and political establishments convey compassion by giving primacy to the victims.

The human complexities of the current tragedy make it impossible for India and Pakistan to freeze into traditional modes of confrontation. In fact, if the two countries are mature and responsive in dealing the with demands of the victims and the emerging threads of an investigation into the incident, the benefits for the peace process could be far in excess of gains made on traditional subjects of bilateral engagement — the logistics of a truce on Siachen, for instance. The passengers — the train service itself — were participants of what remains both the process and eventual goal of confidence-building measures: people-to-people contact.

That contact is much too fettered at the moment but the progress made since the Saarc summit in Islamabad in January 2004 must not be underestimated. The first visible proof of that breakthrough was resumption of rail and road links. Cross-border travel — for reasons of personal interest as well as institutional interaction — in ever greater numbers in the past three years has placed stricter responsibility on the governments. It has enlarged the arena for talks beyond arcane negotiations on subjects like Wullar and Sir Creek. It has made obsolete the old insistence on incremental, one-subject-at-a-time approach. Yes, terrorist acts are born out of intent to keep the people apart. That will not happen. People-to-people interaction has already created a critical mass of opinion that articulates that the response to terrorism is not to be driven apart — but for the governments to rise to challenges of security to facilitate this interaction.