The familiar script

Another reason could be that the two countries want to announce the accords on the two irritants in a dramatic way on the soil of their country. They do not want the impact to be lost if made public amidst various other noises abroad. People back home need to know the pluses and minuses of the agreements. They are the ones who have to be involved to make the accords a success.

Yet another reason could be that all expectations were centred around the discussion on Kashmir. Should the joint statement say what is still at the consultation stage through the back channel? The four and a half hours consultationtwo hours between Manmohan Singh and Musharraf, and two and a half hours at dinnershould have touched unresolved issues. The joint statement makes a general observation that unresolved issues would be settled peacefully. There is nothing new in it.

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I also suspect that Islamabad does not want to make any announcement until Kashmir figures in it. Its people may regard everything else as an anti-climax. Strangely, Musharraf took a hard line in his speech at the UN. He brought back the Security Council resolution which, he conveyed many a time earlier, is not possible to implement. He again spoke about Kashmir and Palestine in the same breath for domestic consumption. Sometimes Musharraf gives the impression of having two lines: one for the lobby in Pakistan and another for the world, including India, where he wants to go down as reasonable and pragmatic. The UN speech was for the first, while the joint statement for the second.

However, the joint statement should not be written off. There was Pakistan's reiteration to weed out terrorism, the point that both New Delhi and Washington have emphasised to Musharraf. No doubt infiltration has decreased, but there is no evidence about the demolition of scores of training camps in Pakistan. Musharraf had promised Manmohan Singh that Islamabad would see to it that no terrorism would flow from their soil. But this is not one hundred per cent correct. However, one good development is that Musharraf has stopped comparing terrorists with "freedom fighters" or "jehadis."

I wish the joint statement had talked about trade and more people-to-people contact between the two countries. Such steps will decrease distrust without which no settlement can survive. This reminds me of the remark Jawaharlal Nehru made to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at London in November 1961: "Zulfi, I know that we must find a solution for Kashmir. But we have got caught in a situation which we cannot get out of without causing damage to the system and structures of our respective societies."

By and large, this is as much true today as it was 44 years ago. Neither of the two sides is bold enough to defy their society. Yet both of them have come a long way from the positions in which they have been frozen for decades. Whatever Musharraf's statement, Pakistan has realised the futility of sticking to the UN resolution or a plebiscite. India, on the other hand, has conceded, without saying so, that Kashmir is a dispute because it is discussing with Pakistan and the Hurriyat leaders the future of the state which New Delhi considers an integral part of the country.

The history of conflicts and confrontations between them is a long and bitter one. Still they have sustained the peace accord which they signed 33 years ago at Shimla. Manmohan Singh and Musharraf have gone further. They have firmed up the ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC) and it has held good for more than a year.

Of course, there is fear that the process towards normalisation can be defeated if there are no specific talks on Kashmir, and Musharraf says so openly. It all depends on what are his options after he has assessed the pressure from within, the army commanders, and extreme public opinion. If he pitches in his demand too high, the irreversible process of peace can reverse. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was realistic. He told the then Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral that he had realised that India could not give Kashmir to Pakistan, nor could Pakistan take it from India forcibly. He said there was no alternative to talks, however long it took to find a solution. It looks as if Musharraf is veering around to that point. Redeployment of forces at Siachin glacier is something which should have taken place long ago. Either the place should have been reverted to the status of no-man's land or the LoC should have been extended to the Siachin area following the norms that the army commanders of the two countries had agreed upon after the Shimla conference. The key is trust. Can India expect from Pakistan not to occupy the Siachin glacier it vacates?

A midway solution bandied about is an independent valley. Both former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are reportedly dead against it. Musharraf was also not in its favour, but he has been brought round on the plea that an independent valley will ultimately merge with Pakistan. The difficulty is with India. I have heard communal elements, repulsed at the last polls but not defeated, arguing that if the Muslims in the valley can opt out after being part of India for 60 years, then how "loyal" would the 150 million Muslims in the rest of India would be? No government or, for that matter, no political party can agree to such a proposition. It can undo India. Hindu rashtra idea may then come to prevail.

Shabaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Pakistan's Punjab, suggested to me once at Lahore to give Pakistan the Muslim-majority valley. I told him that I did not want to see another partition, the ravages of which I had experienced when I travelled from Sialkot, my hometown, to Amritsar. It was a horrifying thought. Manmohan Singh's remark that he wants to make borders irrelevant can provide the basis for settlement. An economic union embracing India, Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Azad Kashmir can eliminate borders. The economic union can be expanded subsequently to include all countries in the region, from Afghanistan to Myanmar.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.