President Musharraf has been speaking incessantly of his four-point solution for J&K — define or “identify” (areas relevant for a solution to) J&K; demilitarise these regions; devolve “self-governance” on them with responsibility for internal but not external security; and finally render the LoC irrelevant by building strong cross-border relationships through free movement of people, commerce, and institutional linkages under some form of “joint supervision” (rather than the earlier phraseology of “control” or “management”). Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has welcomed all fresh ideas and has suggested a Treaty of Peace, Security and Friendship between the two countries when all the elements are in place. If this echoes Ayub’s offer of “joint defence” to Nehru in 1959, it fleshes out Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah’s idea of some kind of confederal solution to J&K mooted in 1964.

To many in India, Musharraf might appear to be speaking in riddles. He is willing to drop Pakistan’s “claim” to J&K and has diluted the ideological content of the two-nation theory in some of the country’s new school textbooks. The concept of “self-determination” is being internalised, with independence firmly ruled out. The key to understanding lies in recognising that after years of sloganeering and myth-making on J&K, General Musharraf is essentially addressing his own people, slowly re-educating them to accept harsh facts and ground realities.

Unfortunately, the BJP/Parivar troglodytes have chosen this juncture to resurrect their jaded rhetoric, with little thought for the consequences of preaching divisiveness and hate. To cite a parliamentary resolution as permanently binding is to limit popular sovereignty and ignore a people’s right to forge their own destiny from one generation to the next. It is this revivalist rather than progressive bent of mind (seen when Atal Bihari Vajpayee boldly launched India on the road to rapprochement with Pakistan and L.K. Advani recalled Jinnah’s famous inaugural address to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on August 13, 1947) that represents the dark downside of the BJP.

Meanwhile, the Indo-Pakistan diplomatic back channel has been at work preparing the ground for the prime minister’s visit to Pakistan in the next few months. Yet one cannot lose sight of the fact that cross-border terrorism continues, not just across the LoC but from other points as well. The Pakistan establishment has over the years unleashed various demons that it is unable fully to control and it is possible that rogue elements within the ISI and administration are playing their own games in league with the religious right and jihadi elements who feel threatened by the prospect of peace with India. President Musharraf has hinted as much in stating that intelligence agencies on either side have built careers trying to destabilise and subvert the other. Vigilance is certainly in order, but it would be in India’s own interest to help the general walk his talk.

What must also never be lost sight of is the fact that what India does to build trust and to seek reconciliation with alienated elements on its own side of J&K constitutes the core issue. The tangled relationship with Pakistan must of course be ameliorated; but that will be greatly facilitated and even defined by an internal resolution. The prime minister’s task force on J&K on economic rejuvenation has reported while those on cross-border relations and human rights and grievance redressal are well advanced. The fourth group on Centre-State relations (“self-governance”) and internal autonomy within J&K has started its work. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq appears readying to lead the Hurriyat into the consultative process while the National Conference and PDF are increasingly speaking in harmony. Going back to the basics of accession in J&K is scarcely likely to have a domino effect or loosen “integration” with India. That apart, given freedom of choice, many in J&K will incrementally choose larger economic and political association with the Union as a matter of enlightened self-interest. Be that as it may, Indian federalism even now incorporates much diversity and can accommodate more without distress.

The greater the accommodation within the Indian part of J&K, the more will be the pressure on Pakistan to do likewise in POK and the Northern Areas. Neither, despite the grandiloquent trappings surrounding the POK constitution, enjoys much freedom, the Northern Areas least of all. The real task of self-governance lies there and within Pakistan, with the general having decided to win a khaki re-election before he risks a general election. Democracy is fragile in Pakistan but will grow following a settlement with India, impelling economic growth and the rise of a middle class that turns away from feudalism. In combination, these will relegate militarism and the role of the army and the religious right. There are, therefore, larger South Asian stakes for India in the peace process with Pakistan.

The writer is a senior journalist