It is difficult to promise Sharif will listen. He too will be surrounded by old Cold Warriors from his own foreign office who would continue to remind him that Kashmir is the core issue, that any other way to treat the disease is akin to mere aspirin therapy for a disease defying cure for a half century.

But look at the stakes Sharif has in this summit. He ran, and won, a whole election campaign without mentioning Kashmir not because he has become a peacenik. He did it because he knew that if he had to become a real prime minister he had to defang the army, the power of the Eighth Amendment that it exercised through the President and he wasn't going to be able to do it on a politically sustainable basis until Kashmir was taken off the frontburner. He is not about to give away Pakistan's claims on Kashmir. But he would prefer if his own extra-parliamentary establishment is denied its greatest leverage within his country's power structure.

Already the build-up to this summit, the league phase, has been qualitatively different from any in the past. It is the undoubtedly the first summit where India has not been isolatedly fighting at least four of the remaining six (with the customary exception of Bhutan and Maldives) simultaneously. Slowly, diplomacy in South Asia too is acquiring a strong trade and economic dimension and the idea of sub-regional groupings, driven by economics and isolating Pakistan as it has so far refused to play along with the move towards a common trading zone has already caused consternation in Islamabad.

The new mood among the Bangladeshi, Nepalese and the Sri Lankan delegations is a tangible gain from the Gujral Doctrine. It doesn't automatically follow that the tactics will play out exactly the same way with Pakistan. But when the subcontinent's first ever Punjabi summiteers meet in its most expensive and exotic beach resort at Kurumba (coconut) island tomorrow, the topmost question on their minds will be the same now to sidestep Kashmir without letting the people back home know and get on with the business.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.