Inching towards -- what?

Take the main achievements: to continue the LoC ceasefire, go on talking, sorting out a few, very few, problems of marginal importance like introducing a new tourist category of visas, but sending back the eight problems to the original committees, and to agree on a few CBMs. For the rest, more routine meetings of border security, anti-narcotics officials, foreign service trainees' visits, etc are envisaged. They couldn't agree on military CBMs, including regarding nuclear weapons. More committees have been set up. There was no breakthrough on any significant issue.

There is silence over the ultimate goal, of course. Neither side felt it necessary to make new departures in settled policies: it looks as if the new Indo-Pakistan relationship has to adjust itself into the existing framework of policies. Truth is they need a rapprochement. But the quest for a true reconciliation involves going beyond merely diluting or cosmetically changing the traditional stances. The best method of reconciling is the methodology adopted by Germany and France through their treaty of 1963. These two European countries used to be traditional enemies; they had fought three big wars in 69 years, the last one of which reduced many parts of Europe to rubble. In the 59 years since the Second World War, the two have become inseparable friends and both have achieved exemplary prosperity -- in freedom.

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Why Pakistan and India cannot take this route to political prominence, economic prosperity, and cultural enrichment? The quest for normal, good neighbourliness has anyhow to cross the deep gulf of mistrust and animosity, while unchanged basic positions will continue to produce results hitherto garnered. So long as normalisation alone is sought, it will be like chasing one's own tail; old established policies will continue to keep the two at daggers drawn -- without actually being able to fight. It needs to be realised that the directly antithetical policies -- nominally on Kashmir -- need to be changed for one good and sufficient reason: presence of nuclear weapons has effectively defanged both vis-à-vis each other and frozen the dispute.

The traditional politics of Pakistan and India relentlessly pushes them into permanent confrontation. The next step has always been conflict. But as 1999 and 2002 experiences have shown, neither dared start an all-out war; neither side could. And it was not simple mutual deterrence emanating from the Bomb. The world will not put up with a war that may degenerate into a nuclear exchange; neither can live with the consequences of having used its nuclear capability. War between India and Pakistan is now out of the question. And yet neither side has realised that old policies of the two are incompatible with peace. They have to go.

It might be argued that no matter now antagonistic the current policies might be, it is not impossible to pursue good neighbourliness peacefully. Well, the record of two Kashmir Wars, Rann of Kutch fracas, the 1971 War, Kargil's half war, and the near war of 2002, in addition to the war scares of 1986, 1990, and 1995, speaks for itself. Unless Pakistan and India get out of the rut and reconcile with each other, they are fated to go on colliding. While war itself is undesirable per se, in the context of nuclear weapons it is the ultimate nightmare. Plain commonsense lays down that old politics and stances have got to change if war is to be avoided. But this cannot happen unless they begin reconciling on a people-to-people basis which alone can enable changing of old politics. And thus, forging such close bonds that would create new common purposes of cooperative endeavour to enrich respective people economically and culturally becomes possible. This will also open the gates for regional integration so that a new South Asia emerges.

This is not to say that it will be easy to make war impossible and create new structures of cooperative peace and all round economic prosperity -- that reaches the bottom rung of the societies. Governments alone cannot quickly or completely pull down the structures of fear, suspicion, and hatred they have taken so long to build. It can be done by the cooperation of the unwashed multitude and new and more humanistic thinking. It will need chaining the beast of chauvinism by promoting a humanistic, inclusivist and pluralist thinking among all South Asian peoples. Militant chauvinisms are the mother of all hate-promoting policies that result in militarisation and produce local versions of industrial-military complex.

Keep in mind that both Pakistan and India are in a quagmire: neither can actually make truly lasting peace -- in which popular welfare replaces national security as the first priority -- nor go to war. Insofar as the people are concerned, they have in recent years shown that they want more people-to-people contacts, a new politics and governments that make human security and welfare their top priority in which national security is seen as requiring only defensive measures. They would like to see Indo-Pak cooperative friendship to become a base for regional cooperation and integration. Let there be a shared and peace-promoting greatness of all of South Asia. It is an alluring prospect, unless you are, like children, fascinated by swash buckling militaries and their deadly toys.

Preference for peace and economic and cultural progress of all individuals need not lead to downgrading the difficulties, viz. the forces sustaining today's animosities. Jingoistic nationalisms have produced their own nemesis: nuclear weapons. These destroy trust in a radical manner. People talk of CBMs as a panacea. When tension mounts between Islamabad and New Delhi, both start repositioning troops and tanks rather than to reassure the other side. No Indian general can be unmindful of Pakistani nukes nor any Pak commander forget that a Prithivi-mounted weapon is at the ready. The basic military assumption is: capability equals readiness to use it. So long as the inherent mischief of nuclear weapons is not fully taken care of, there can be no stable peace in South Asia.

People say the same thing about Kashmir dispute. It is true that it is a tough problem. But atomic weapons have made it insoluble by Pakistan or India. So long as the two antagonists do not resolve the nukes problem, Kashmir too will stay intractable. Add to this the influence and machinations of local versions of industrial-military complex; they are a powerful vested interest that flourish in enmity and tension. There are ideologues on both sides who denigrate and ridicule the humanists and peace lovers as starry-eyed Utopia seekers. This gentry falls back on recent history's overhang of sharpened Hindu-Muslim tensions. The purpose of the "realists" is to ensure that nothing changes.

So what is to be made of the Natwar Singh-Qasuri encounter? Good that they met. Better that they propose to go on talking at various levels. Jaw jaw is always better than bang bang. But beyond it, it is the pie in the sky (tomorrow); different committees are to sort out the difficult problems. Not that one disbelieves either Natwar Singh or Khurshid Qasuri. But behind them are arrayed politicians (uniformed in Qasuri's case), backed by fearsome bureaucracies.

The point is that today's snail-paced progress is all that is available before it breaks down and both sides will try again after a few years. The mere fact that the FMs meetings ended on a Monday but the joint statement was issued on Wednesday shows how the respective backroom boys are haggling over what to include or exclude or on what spin to put. No substantial issue could be clinched and this is not an accident.

But still, a few things about results of Delhi encounter need notice. Khokrapar-Munabao rail and bus have still to be discussed as is Srinagar-Muzaffarabad link. Bombay and Karachi Consulate Generals are still in the womb of future. There is nothing about visa relaxation. The two negotiators, and their backroom boys, need to be told that until the common Indian or Pakistani is enabled to travel easily and visit one another's homes, nothing is achieved. This is the touchstone for judging their achievements. Common visitors are not to be treated as suspects.

There was a three quarters of a promise that journalists would be allowed free entry in India while Pakistan merely mumbled, as SAFMA has been demanding. The two Foreign Ministers had promised to get it through after persuading their respective Home Ministries -- which in effect means intelligence agencies. It is doubtful if the spooks would be happy; they would stop all non-official travel, if they can. It needs to be repeated, with emphasis, that criterion of all progress is how easily does the common Pakistani or Indian visit the other country and how hassle-free are the formalities.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.