Flurry of pre-summit gestures

The unilateral move by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, to announce people-friendly gestures ahead of his prospective meeting with Pakistan's President and Chief Executive, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is evidently designed to stir the conscience of the citizens of both countries towards sentiments of goodwill.

Outwardly, Mr. Vajpayee can indeed be seen to have unveiled a bold proposal concerning the highly militarized Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. He wants the LoC to be thrown open to people with Pakistan's passports at select points. The discernible objective is to allow the people residing in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to travel to the Indian side of the LoC so as to interact with friends and relatives and also establish new links of goodwill. New Delhi has sought to portray this gesture as an integral part of an overall framework of friendship at the people's level.

While diplomacy of the populist kind is eminently relevant to the prospects of long-term peaceful coexistence, India and Pakistan cannot hope to normalize their relationship without an agreement between the governments of the two countries in an exercise of their free will.

It will be an error of judgment to imagine that New Delhi's latest round of diplomatic activism, manifest in diverse areas ranging from nuclear security to trade and people-to-people contacts, can crowd out the Kashmir issue from a pivotal position at the planned Agra summit on July 15.

-- The Hindu, New Delhi