The Hindu : Focus on India, Pakistan CBMs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 10, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Focus on India, Pakistan CBMs

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, JAN. 9. After the Islamabad summit, the next phase of India-Pakistan diplomacy must necessarily focus on a variety of confidence-building measures which could help maintain the momentum of the peace process amidst the preparations in New Delhi for the next general elections.

The joint statement issued in Islamabad last Tuesday "expressed the hope that the positive trends set by the CBMs would be consolidated". The CBMs — those already under discussion and additional ones to be taken up — constitute one leg of the tripod on which the new peace process now rests.

The other two are an Indian commitment to negotiate seriously on Kashmir and Pakistan's readiness to prevent cross-border terrorism. In his press conference on Tuesday, the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, pointed to the "linkages" between these three elements.

Skeptics in India would want to wait until the summer months to make an assessment on how Islamabad is implementing its promises on the prevention of cross-border terrorism. Realists in Pakistan know that the Government in New Delhi — soon to be lame duck — might not be in a position to engage in a significant negotiation on the Kashmir question immediately.

The first round of the composite dialogue in the new framework, slated for next month, offers preliminary interaction between senior officials from the both the systems dealing with a wide spectrum of bilateral issues. Amidst the shadow of the impending elections in India, they are unlikely to register substantive progress in the short-term.

Neither New Delhi nor Pakistan, however, should want to squander the period before the elections. That is precisely where "confidence building" comes in. By focusing on a range of CBMs — from easier access to each other's societies and markets, to creating better political conditions in Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi and Islamabad could signal their political resolve to stay the new course.

If the two systems revert to the familiar arguments that prevent more engagement between the two societies, they will be creating the conditions for undermining the political breakthrough engineered by the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Gen. Musharraf.

Hard-ball diplomacy as well as the changed regional and international situation have helped produce a new framework for engagement between India and Pakistan. But lack of political imagination and bureaucratic drift in New Delhi and Islamabad could quickly destroy it.

Given the abysmally low level of bilateral relations between the two countries, there are scores of measures that the two sides could take, many of them unilaterally, that would rapidly improve the atmosphere of bilateral relations and create enduring support on both sides for the peace process.

It should be easy for the two Governments to relax the ugly visa policies they have pursued for decades. Discarding the requirements of police verification, removing restrictions on the movement of visitors beyond one city and multiple entry visas are among the many steps the two sides could take to offer relief to ordinary citizens who hope to travel between the two nations.

Besides the present proposals for improved connectivity — a ferry between Mumbai and Karachi, rail links between Munabao and Khokrapar, and a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad — that are expected to be discussed shortly, many other old transport corridors between the two nations could easily be revived.

One notable suggestion is for a bus service between the old twin cities of Lahore and Amritsar.

Others call for short-duration visas on arrival, which could bring thousands of visitors who want to rediscover their past, meet up with divided family members, and pray at holy sites. Organised religious tours, with specifically designed charters and pre-approved operators, could boost travel and tourism between the two countries without rattling the security establishments on both sides of the border.

On the economic front, too, India and Pakistan need not wait until the implementation of the just-concluded South Asian Free Trade Area. India could give unilateral concessions on market access and Pakistan could move towards granting New Delhi the long-denied normal trading privileges.

The two countries could also take steps around the core political bargain they have made at Islamabad — on terrorism and Kashmir. Credible and visible steps from Islamabad in curbing militant organisations operating in Kashmir would help convince hardliners in India about Pakistan's real intent to prevent cross-border terrorism.

Actions by India — such as reduction of troops in Jammu and Kashmir, and early talks with various Kashmiri militant groups — would underline the declared Indian political will to address the challenges in the State, that has been at the heart of the divide between India and Pakistan for so many decades.

These moves need not be tied to one another; nor do they need to be seen as part of a negotiation. Unilateral gestures from one side on issues of core concern would beget similar actions from across the border.

The CBMs, in general and specially those that relate to Kashmir, could create a "virtuous circle" of growing mutual trust and confidence that will generate the conditions for a credible peace process.

The emphasis in the coming days, then, must be on small steps that could make a big difference.

A series of imaginative CBMs in the coming weeks could provide by summer — when the Himalayan snows melt and a new government takes charge in New Delhi — a political basis to launch a historic negotiation on Kashmir amidst an environment free of violence.

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