Take Heart

India-Pakistan relations are a forest in which everything can be found. Hares race in one place, hounds in another and it is only to be expected that their paths will cross. Lambs work their corner while lions growl nearby, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on those foolish enough to have left themselves unprotected. There are bees who will sting and disappear; and snakes who will wait in the grass for the moment when they can strike terror. Bears will growl, even those who mean no particular harm. You will also find Pan strolling along playing the flute, dreaming of the beauty that is also an integral part of a forest. Within paradox and conflict we have to keep struggling to find peace, certain in the knowledge that the only alternative to peace is a debilitating and dangerous war.

There is one way out of the confusion. If you want to know what is really happening, or more accurately what might really happen if some saboteur does not turn up, then look through the thicket of statements that land up in newspapers every day and search for the unusual rather than the usual. Political leaders will repeat the usual because they are bound to do so. Past positions will not change unless something significant happens, and to reach the point of significance you have to tread with care. President Pervez Musharraf was clearly dragged out of context when some journalists announced that he was launching another Kargil, but that is not really the point. It is usual for a general to dredge up the prospect of war. That is what he is trained to do. That comes instinctively to him, which is one reason why generals are generally poor peacemakers however strong their intentions might be. General Pervez Musharraf was an author of the Kargil operations, and he will always believe that it was useful in any case and could have turned out more positively for his country if but the politicians had listened to him. Otherwise he would have to deny his sole contribution to Pakistan's military history, and not a very glorious one at that. A general like him is bound to argue that three full-scale wars have taken place because of Kashmir, and if something is not done, a fourth one cannot be ruled out. (Just for the record, one of the three wars was not over Kashmir; it was over Bangladesh.)

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More depressing are the other "usuals" in his repertoire, which he pulled out in the course of his trip to Germany, Britain and the United States. The nuclear gambit, for instance. This is meant to frighten everyone. The United States should be frightened into selling its F-16s; India should be frightened into a dialogue. I do not know where President Musharraf gets his advice from. I hope it is not from any North Korean, because he is beginning to sound like one. In any case, he should change advisers quickly. Crying nuclear wolf frightens no one, except of course investors who might for some reason be wanting to put a little money into Pakistan. Why should any businessman sow money into a country whose leader threatens to wipe out the crop in a nuclear war?

He has a second "usual": time. Things must happen, they must be seen to happen, and they must happen quickly. As he said to yet another interviewer, his armies cannot be deployed on the border, facing India on the one side and Jihadis waiting to cross over on the other, without something starting to give. Tough luck, general. I think it was understood on all sides that the worst mistake made in Agra was hurry. It is better that matters get resolved bit by bit so that every spoke is out of the way before there is any forward movement. We do not want another puncture, because poison gas leaks out of the tyres. The niggles that have come in the way of restoring transit relations prove that it is far better to sort them out before journeys restart. The debris of past experience must be cleared. The bus to Lahore will hopefully restart in July, but hawks have descended on the train and the aeroplane. All manner of excuses are being trotted out to stop the Samjhauta Express from resuming: a train becomes a vehicle for smuggling, suggest some officials sombrely. As if smuggling between India and Pakistan was waiting for a train! Others find their hearts bleeding for the harassment by immigration at Wagah and Atari. The answer to that is surely to stop the harassment, rather than stop the train.

The current deadlock over flights is typical and instructive. Pakistan wants flights to resume between India and Pakistan but is hesitant about overflights across airspace. Why? Apparently someone in Islamabad believes that this would increase the level of contacts between India and Afghanistan. This is how silly a problem can become. The government of India may not have the wealth of the United States of America, but it still has enough money to buy tickets via Dubai for any number of persons it wants to send to Afghanistan. Others want to punish India for the mistake -- and it was a mistake -- in banning overflights after the attack on our Parliament.

All this is usual. Is there anything unusual in what we have been hearing? I suppose sentiments of piety are not taken seriously, and when President Musharraf says that he will take two steps towards peace for every one that India takes, it is greeted with a yawn. But within the thicket of statements look and you will find a suggestion that if both sides shed their rigidity, there could be the beginning of a solution to problems, including Kashmir.

The most specific unusual statement was made by Mr Advani during his visit to the United States and Britain. He clearly said that with a little bit of give and take, the most difficult of problems could be resolved. Mr Advani also made the statements that are usually expected of him on this trip. He has a constituency, and he was going to address it. But the "give and take" phrase indicates that there is some flexible thinking going on. Mr Advani is doing something that may be happening in both countries. It seems to me, and it is difficult to be more definite than this, that an effort is being made to seed the mind of the people and prepare them for the start of some new turn in direction. I would be happy to be proved right, but I am prepared to be proved wrong. Experience tells me that pessimism rules longer in India-Pakistan relations than optimism.

By the end of June the leaders of India and Pakistan will have sounded out the world, and the new epicentre of the world, Washington, on what they think about their problems. They will also have heard what others think. Prime Minister Vajpayee cannot have forgotten the warmth with which his peace initiative was praised wherever he went -- Berlin, St. Petersburg, Evian, Lausanne. George Bush made it a point to meet Mr Advani, and must have conveyed what he did to Mr Vajpayee at their famous dinner in Russia. President Musharraf will hear a similar international urge for peace. But India and Pakistan have often been brought to the water: can they be made to drink? The nub lies exactly where it did in Agra. India has to talk about Kashmir, and Pakistan has to end support for terrorism. We are in serious danger of succumbing to another cliché : which comes first, the chicken or the egg? There used to be confusion about the answer once, but these days matters should be clearer. Cross-border terrorism must be curbed to the satisfaction of the watching world. It is not only Delhi which says that this has not come down; the American ambassador in India says the same thing.

Equally, cross-border terrorism may have begun at someone's command; it will not end as easily as it started. (The biggest example of officially sponsored cross-border terrorism, if you come to think about it, was Kargil.) There has to be forward movement on people-to-people relations, and then a government-to-government dialogue. There is a bit of good news. See how easily hearts warm up even when governments meet. Emotions jumped out of the photographs when the Pakistani technical team came to Delhi to finalise details of the bus relationship.

India-Pakistan relations should be taken away from the tongue and returned to the heart.

MJ Akbar is Chief Editor of the Asian Age.