India-Pakistan ties swing from hate to love

Praful Bidwai, Inter Press Service, New Delhi

In Islamabad, where a 30-odd-strong delegation of Indian members of parliament, journalists and former generals has been visiting since last week, there is unprecedented bonhomie and a flood of goodwill between the guests and their Pakistani hosts.

There is talk of waging peace, breaking barriers and strengthening mutual cultural bonds between these groups from rivals India and Pakistan.

But here in New Delhi, the government of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has just rejected an offer for a ceasefire at the border made by Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday.

It thus returned to the familiar refrain of Pakistan first ending its support to "cross-border terrorism" as a condition for progress in bilateral relations. India describes the offer as old hat, and worse, propaganda.

So, which of the two is the real story? What is the truth about India-Pakistan relations, four months after Vajpayee held out the "hand of friendship" to Pakistan, and after the Lahore- Delhi bus service resumed last month?

The short answer is, both stories contain some truth.

India-Pakistan relations still remain pretty cold, despite the restoration of ambassador-level representation that was ruptured following an attack on India's Parliament in December 2001.

The two states have yet to resume air and rail services or agree on an agenda for talks. They continue to spar, and to corner each other whenever they get a chance.

Even when making relatively friendly gestures, they are cautious and guarded. They have a long way to go before peace descends upon the subcontinent, which has been torn over the past five years by overt nuclear rivalry, in addition to strategic hostility. But at the citizens' level, India-Pakistan relations are undergoing a major transformation.

Among the first to board the Delhi-Lahore bus last month was a two-year-old middle-class girl from Pakistan, Noor Fatima, with a heart problem which needed surgery. Noor was successfully treated at a hospital in the southern Indian city of Bangalore and went back with what her doctors called "a happy heart".

In the 20 days that she and her parents spent in India, they created a near-riot -- of affection and empathy. They were inundated with goodwill messages, donations and gifts. More money poured in than they could handle. Noor's parents used part of it to set up a fund for Indian children in medical need.

The Indian public's reception to Noor was staggering. She was in the media every day -- an embodiment of innocence, symbol of hope, harbinger of a new dawn.

For millions of Indians, Noor had suddenly liberated them from long-felt prejudices about their neighbors. They could begin to see the Pakistani people as human beings, much like themselves.

The second case is that of 13-year-old Munir, who strayed across the Indian-Pakistan border into Rajasthan state at the end of June. Munir, who comes from a desperately poor family of cowherds, is illiterate and carried no papers. He was arrested and illegally detained for a month in a regular adult jail.

Normally, the Indian authorities detain such children -- and vulnerable, underprivileged adults like fisherfolk who accidentally enter the country's waters -- for long periods such as a year or more, unless relatives come to claim them.

But local Indian residents took up Munir's case. A human rights group followed it up, lobbying both Indian and Pakistani officials to act humanely and to drop their bureaucratic insistence on proof of identity.

Munir's supporters scored an amazing success within four days. By Aug. 12, the boy was back in Lahore, carrying gifts and a lot of goodwill. Such prompt repatriation is unprecedented.

Third, the visit of Indian MPs from a broad spectrum of political parties, and journalists, at the invitation of the recently established South Asia Free Media Association, was probably the most high-powered event ever at the level of citizen-to-citizen exchange.

The visit followed a successful trip to India by four firebrand leaders of the Pakistani alliance of religious parties called Muttehadi Majlis-e-Amal, including Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Rehman met Prime Minister Vajpayee, and a host of other ministers and leaders to talk of peace and reconciliation.

The MPs -- mostly first-time visitors to Pakistan although they do not even need a visa to travel within South Asia -- were overwhelmed at the rousing reception they got everywhere.

It was during an interactive session with the visiting delegation that Musharraf made his ceasefire offer, with its two "connotations".

First, this would involve stopping the daily exchange of gunfire across the Line of Control, which divides Kashmir, by Indian and Pakistani troops. Second, Musharraf would also issue an appeal to Kashmir's Islamic "freedom fighters" to stop their violence.

Musharraf laid down conditions: India should stop committing "atrocities" upon the people of Kashmir, free political prisoners, allow Kashmiri political leaders to travel freely, and reduce the numbers of troops in the valley.

But India says ceasefires have no meaning so long as Pakistan continues to sponsor terrorism directed against India and provides support to cross-border infiltration.

But New Delhi has itself made two ceasefire agreements with Kashmiri militant groups in the past three years.

The latest Pakistani offer represents a certain softening of Musharraf's position on Kashmir.

Earlier, Pakistan made dialog with India conditional upon New Delhi's recognition that Kashmir is the "core issue" between the two states. This time, Musharraf did not belabor that theme. Rather, he is linking progress to what India does internally, within its state of Jammu and Kashmir.

If India wants to take reconciliation forward, and build on the new momentum, it should devise a creative response to this proposal and make its own counter-proposals.

Not to do so now would mean squandering an opportunity to improve state-to-state relations when the popular mood has so perceptibly changed.

If Vajpayee is as astute a politician as he is said to be, he should sense the mood and recognize that there may be more political mileage in India-Pakistan amity than in enmity.