Eid ceasefire emits hopeful pointers

Pakistan's inspired gesture this week to initiate a unilateral cease-fire could be the first step in many, ahead of a key South Asian summit that will create the atmosphere for a much needed warming of relations between the sub-continental giants.

Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, seen by many in Pakistan as the visionary who can make peace, has already said in his first public comments on the Eid ceasefire that he believes "this time it will work."

It is an indication, if any, that his Bharatiya Janata Party government, will cite the lull in the cross-border firing to underline that Pakistan has met the sole Indian pre-condition for talks. It will pave the way for the first interaction between Pakistan's civilian prime minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Vajpayee.

The litmus test for a lasting peace will rest however, on whether the cessation of covert hostilities will extend beyond the Saarc summit in Islamabad and into the spring and summer of 2004. For now, the pointers are hopeful. For the first time since the '71 war, this winter will see guns falling silent across all three sectors of the India-Pakistan border – the International Boundary that snakes through the Thar desert and Punjab, the 742 km long Line of Control through Kashmir and the Actual Ground Position Line on the Siachen glacier along the Saltoro range.

The International Boundary has remained largely peaceful, with the fencing along the Punjab and the harsh desert expanse ensuring relative quiet. The Kashmir valley has seen daily shelling through earlier cease-fires, while in the icy wastes of Siachen, Pakistan and India have turned control of the heights into a bloody game of one-upmanship.

Ending the shooting in Kashmir paves the way for a Vajpayee-Jamali summit on the sidelines of Saarc as it meets the main Indian objective of an end to cross border movement, much as it did between then prime ministers Gujral and Nawaz Sharif in Male, and again Nawaz and Vajpayee in Colombo.

Jamali's moves will no doubt be scripted by Pakistan's President Musharraf, who as head of the armed forces represents the military's views on all security matters. There is little debate in Indian policy making circles that Delhi must do business with the men who call the shots in Islamabad.

In this case, Jamali is seen as the civilian face, just as President Musharraf was when he took over as president and was invited to a summit in Agra shortly thereafter. "Delhi takes issue with going to the peace table with a gun to its head, remove the irritant and we are willing to discuss any and every issue," said an aide to Vajpayee. "Much of the debate within Pakistan on whether Musharraf should continue to hold the post of military chief is of purely academic interest, an internal matter. We suspect this would be of interest to the west which wants to see Pakistan become a full fledged democracy. After Agra, it is clear to us that an end to cross-border terrorism is the only way forward."

The crunch could come as it did in Agra on the terminology that India and Pakistan use to describe the Kashmir tangle – an independence movement or a bloody insurgency.

This is where Vajpayee's ability to think out of the box comes in. In the past year, he has spun an intricate economic web of links around energy and capital flows between India and powerhouse China, Asean and Central Asia. The most interesting is the new grouping Jacik, which includes Japan, Asean, China, India and Korea.

Vajpayee's mercantilist instincts are inseperable from his determination to leave his mark on history as the man who made peace with Pakistan.

He realises the value of creating a vested economic interest within the two countries that will in turn, create its own dynamic for peace.

"Vajpayee has in the past few months tried to move relations with Pakistan out of the bilateral context and fit it into the multilateral context of Saarc," says Delhi based analyst Jyoti Malhotra. The Saarc summit therefore and agreements on a free trade area and most favoured nation status as well as restoring air links are a given.

But there are pitfalls. He succeeded in painting a vision of a common market to Nawaz Sharif where India and Pakistan become trading partners. This had no takers at all with Pakistan's military which believes that Kashmir must come first, and everything else will fall into place. With China, India has been able to set aside the border issue and move on to establish new areas of convergence.

Vajpayee has even suggested that India must be prepared to make sacrifices, that many see as India giving up its claim over the Aksai Chin.

With Pakistan, Vajpayee has a much tougher task ahead, as indeed does Pakistan's leadership. Will a domestic constituency allow for concessions on the line of control, on Siachen?

De-escalation is one thing, a lasting engagement quite another.