The Hindu Business Line : Whither India-Pakistan relations?

While the Indo-Pak peace process is a cumulative result of the efforts by the present Congress-led Government, the BJP-led regime, and other dispensations of the recent past, there is no certainty that Islamabad will continue to maintain its stand that the "peace process was now irreversible" after Gen Musharraf leaves the scene, whenever that is.

IF ANYONE were to go through the joint statement issued after the recent visit by the Pakistani strongman, Gen Pervez Musharraf, the spirit of friendship and bonhomie that marks literally every operative paragraph of the document would immediately be noticed, logically leading to the question whether India-Pakistan relations are, after all, headed for a more relaxed future.

What are these salient features of the April 18 joint statement which leads to such uncharacteristic optimism? Paragraph 4 of the statement says that the Pakistani President and the Indian Prime Minister "reaffirmed the commitments made in the Joint Press Statement of January 6, 2004 and the Joint Statement issued after their meeting in New York on September 24, 2004 and expressed satisfaction on the progress in the peace process and the improvement of relations between the two countries that has since been realised".

What were the commitments made in January and September 2004?

To take the January joint press statement first, paragraph 4 of that document reads: "Prime Minister Vajpayee said that in order to take forward and sustain the dialogue process, violence, hostility and terrorism must be prevented".

More fundamentally, the paragraph added: "President Musharraf reassured Prime Minister Vajpayee that he will not permit any territory under Pakistan's control to be used to support terrorism in any manner". Paragraph 5 said that "to carry the process of normalisation forward," the two leaders "agreed to commence the process of the composite dialogue in February 2004".

The September 24 joint statement issued after the first meeting between Dr Manmohan Singh and Gen Musharraf said that the two leaders "agreed that confidence building measures (CBMs) of all categories under discussion between the two Governments should be implemented keeping in mind practical possibilities".

On Jammu and Kashmir, the two leaders "agreed that possible options for a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the issue should be explored in a sincere spirit and purposeful manner. On the India-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, the statement said that "it was felt that such a project could contribute to the welfare and prosperity of the people of both countries and should be considered in the larger context of expanding trade and economic relations between India and Pakistan".

Taking stock of the situation as prevailing today, the April 18 joint statement said that the two leaders "expressed satisfaction on the progress in the peace process and the improvement of relations between the two countries that has since been realised". But what did it have to add to the corpus of the commitments made in February and September 2004?

Quite a lot, if one goes by the number of paragraphs devoted to the subject. Thus, on Jammu and Kashmir, paragraph 6 said that the two leaders "agreed to continue these discussions in a sincere and purposeful and forward-looking manner for a final settlement".

The use of the expression "final settlement" is a departure from the position adopted previously by the two countries (certainly Pakistan). More important is the unstated assumption that a "final settlement" is within sight, which actually is a comment on the perception of each other's seriousness to end the dispute.

Continued work to "soften" the border between the two countries is another aspect of the April joint statement which needs underscoring.

Paragraphs 7 to 10 focuses on this broad subject, paragraph 7 stating that the two sides "agreed to pursue further measures to enhance interaction and cooperation across the LoC, including agreed meeting points for divided families, trade, pilgrimages and cultural interaction". The "successful operationalisation" of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service was welcomed, the important point being that both sides (specially Islamabad) "pledged that they would not allow terrorism to impede the peace process".

Indeed, this is the point at which the April statement comes closest to the 2004 January statement on Pakistan's stated resolve not to allow terrorism to disrupt the efforts at normalisation of bilateral relations, which in fact has been the one-point agenda of the various terrorist groups which do not take kindly to any move by Islamabad to scale down the India-Pakistan stand-off.

Sending an unmistakable message to terrorists who have threatened those who use the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service with dire consequences, the two sides decided "to increase the frequency of the bus service" and also to allow trucks to ply the route "to promote trade".

To take the process of human interaction further, it was decided "to operationalise additional routes including that between Poonch and Rawalakot" and also to "look forward to (an) early start of the bus service between Amritsar and Lahore and to religious places such as Nankana Sahib".

The two countries agreed to re-establish the Khokhrapar-Munnabao rail route by January 1, 2006. Another time-barred decision was the agreement to open the Mumbai and Karachi consulates before 2005 ran out. Paragraph 12 endorsed the decisions taken at the meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries in December 2004, which ranged from nuclear and conventional CBMs to terrorism and drug trafficking, and economic cooperation.

On each of the eight subjects comprising the ongoing "composite dialogue" a schedule of meetings had been fixed by the Foreign Secretaries, the April Joint Statement committing the two countries to stick to the schedule.

On the Sir Creek and Siachen issues, the two leaders "instructed that the existing institutional mechanisms should convene discussions immediately with a view to finding mutually acceptable solutions to both issues expeditiously".

The interest shown by the two leaders in subjects like these strongly suggests that they are in no mood to allow their officials to drag their stone-laden bureaucratic feet, which is undoubtedly a vast improvement from the past when the substantive, uncompromising positions of the two countries were clothed in deceptive verbiage which fooled no one else but themselves.

All this apart, it must be emphasised that the high point of the April Joint Statementlies in the last sentence of paragraph 5 which reads: "(The two leaders) determined that the peace process was now irreversible," a sharp departure from the past when Indian and Pakistani leaders did not know where they were going.

However, a note of warning should be sounded here — that while the Joint Statement's formulation on the irreversibility of the peace process is a direct cumulative result of the efforts made by the present Congress-led Government, the BJP-led Government of Mr Vajpayee, and other Indian regimes of the recent past, there is no certainty that Islamabad will continue to maintain this stand after Gen Musharraf leaves the scene, whenever that is.

What this means is that both the sides must strive to achieve in concrete terms as much as they can, the assumption being that the more the progress made now the more difficult it will be for some maverick Pakistani successor to Gen Musharraf to upset the applecart of peace and normalisation of ties.

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