Bus diplomacy takes the road to rapprochement in Kashmir

Can India and Pakistan sustain the political breakthrough in bilateral relations that was announced last week?

That is the question uppermost in the minds of sceptics as they reflect on the surprising result from the visit of the Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh to Pakistan a few days ago.

It is not often that the word breakthrough is used with reference to Indo-Pak relations.

But even the worst pessimists, however, will have to concede that the political leaders of India and Pakistan have now agreed to make an important departure from tradition in their bilateral relations during Natwar Singh's trip to Pakistan.

The principal result from the visit was an agreement to launch in early April the first ever bus service across the Line of Control that separates India and Pakistan in their prolonged confrontation in Kashmir.

To be sure, movement of people across the contested territories among nation-states is now common place.

But in the subcontinent, where the relations between India and Pakistan have sunk to ever lower depths, the proposed bus diplomacy in Kashmir could constitute a rare project of political transformation.

Once launched and sustained the bus service between Srinagar (the capital of the Indian Jammu and Kashmir) and Muzaffarabad (the capital of the Pakistan side of Jammu and Kashmir) could alter many of the frozen realities in Kashmir.

For one, it will crack open the military wall that has separated India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. Until now only fools and determined terrorists have tried to sneak through it.

By allowing people to travel across the state, India and Pakistan are meeting a long-standing aspiration of the people of the divided state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Once the bus-service starts between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, there will be additional demands to open similar facilities elsewhere on the border and LoC.

There is already a proposal from New Delhi to launch a bus service between Jammu on the Indian side and Sialkot on the Pakistani side.

There are also demands from the people of the state for bus links between Poonch on the Indian side of Kashmir and Rawlakot on the Pakistani side as well as Kargil(India) and Skardu (Pakistan).

Hard to return to old ways

If these bus-services across the LoC gain traction in the coming months and years, New Delhi and Islamabad will find it hard to return to old ways in Jammu and Kashmir.

To facilitate the bus service, India and Pakistan will have to start removing the mines which they have planted along the LoC over the years.

Movement of people will also make it hard for the armies of India and Pakistan to resume routine firing they used to indulge in across the LoC. A ceasefire has been in place since the end of 2003 and has been widely appreciated on both sides of the border.

As natural flows of commerce and people-to-people contact are re-established across the divide in Jammu and Kashmir after nearly 55 years, the hopes for peace in the region has become more real.

They in turn could reduce the incentive for violence and terrorism and provide a conducive environment for India and Pakistan to find creative ways to resolve a contentious issue that has taken so much of their emotional and military energies for so many decades.

Clearly, the political consequences of establishing connectivity, contact and communication across the Indo-Pak divide in Kashmir are extraordinary. For the very same reason, it has been rather hard to do.

This precisely is where the pessimists will come back into focus. Sceptics had good reasons to doubt if the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus will ever take off. Notwithstanding the surprise agreement on the bus service, the cynics will now raise the question, will it actually work?

In recent years, India first proposed bus services across the LoC in July 2001 on the eve of General Pervez Musharraf's visit to India. But Pakistan was not really interested.

When India suggested it again in October 2003, the Pakistani Foreign Office reacted sharply by saying that such a bus service could only take place if India agreed to run it with United Nations documents for Kashmiris.

But the popular support in Kashmir was so strong for the bus, that Pakistan had to quickly change its attitude in favour of negotiations.

Although it was a proposal from New Delhi, there were strong reservations about it in many parts of the Indian establishment. For these sections, there were deep security concerns about such a bus service.

Would it allow terrorists free access to the Indian territory? And should it let extremists in Kashmir have easy access to Pakistan?

The question of letting ordinary Kashmiris access to the other part of the state was also of concern to the security establishment in Pakistan.

Meanwhile the foreign offices in both the capitals were concerned that political softening of the militarised LoC might undercut their long-standing national positions on the question of Jammu and Kashmir itself.

As a result, India and Pakistan had to encounter huge difficulties in working out the modalities and procedures for establishing the bus service. It also demanded major negotiations within the two governments.

Political leaderships in both the capitals had to face considerable political risks in arriving at delicate compromises and over-ruling those who had raised objections within their own systems.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Musharraf deserve a lot of credit for deciding in favour of the bus service and attempting to do the unprecedented in Kashmir.

What we now have is only an agreement. Sceptics will be right in pointing to the huge administrative difficulties in implementing the bus service.

Manmohan Singh and Musharraf must now ensure that forces inimical to change in Jammu and Kashmir do not undermine the political breakthrough.

C. Raja Mohan is Professor of South Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a columnist for the Indian Express.