Once again, with realism

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.

Beyond confidence building in Kashmir, New Delhi and Islamabad are purposefully negotiating on the question of J&K for the first time since the Shimla Agreement of 1972. It is widely known that the back channel negotiations on J&K have made significant progress. While such sensitive negotiations must necessarily be ‘in camera’, there has been an extraordinary public debate in both countries on potential solutions to the Kashmir dispute. This could only be to the good of both the countries.

All these advances, however, are in danger of being lost after the gruesome terrorist attacks on suburban trains in Mumbai. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf addressed the new questions on the relationship between the peace process and cross-border terrorism in their meeting at Havana two months ago. The answer they came up with was a decision to establish a joint mechanism for cooperation on “counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations”.

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