Asia Times: ANALYSIS: How far can the bus go?



	February 23, 1999	atimes.com

India-Pakistan

ANALYSIS: How far can the bus go?
By Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI - India's Prime Minister Atal BihariVajpayee will make history on Saturday with his Pakistanicounterpart Nawaz Sharif, when he travels to Pakistan by bus.

As the first head of state to cross the land border toPakistan, Vajpayee and Sharif's ''bus diplomacy'' is one of thebest things to have happened to the bitter rivals in threedecades, since they last fought a war in 1971.

It marks a thawing of their mutual icy relations, which is awelcome sign. But whether or not it leads to substantive resultsin the form of resolution of some of their numerous disputesremains unclear.

On Feb. 20, Vajpayee will take the inaugural bus from Delhi toLahore - a four-times-a-week service the two governments havestarted - and be treated to what Sharif promises will be an''unforgettable'' welcome.

The two leaders - Vajpayee, from a Hindu right-wing party, andSharif, from the pro-Islamic Muslim League - will hold two roundsof discussions, the first such talks between the prime ministersto be held in either India or Pakistan in 10 years.

The need to mend strained relations has become imperative forboth governments under international pressure to observe mutualstrategic restraint and prove that they can reduce high levels ofhostility post-May 1998.

In addition both prime ministers want to score over theirdomestic rivals and gain some public goodwill by defusingtension, at least in some areas. Both are thus driven bypolitical self-interest.

In both India and Pakistan, large numbers of people are fed upwith the age-old mutual enmity and sabre-rattling that theirgovernments whip up to obscure their own misgovernance anddomestic policy failures.

All the recent opinion polls, from resolutions of thePakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy (which has held twocitizens' conventions in each country since 1995), and fromTrack-II exchanges between diplomats, military leaders and non-governmental groups, indicate a high level of support for peace.

The 1990s have seen more cultural exchanges across the borderthan any other decade. There have been dialogues involving tradeunionists, between industry leaders, among social scientists, andmost impressive, between schoolchildren in Bombay and Karachi.

Such people-to-people exchanges will grow as the Delhi-Lahorebus starts plying regularly between the two cities, a distance of450km, and closer than parts of India are to the capital city.

The bus service is likely to prompt a demand for liberalizingthe present, extremely strict, visa regime, and for reopeningthe Bombay and Karachi consulates which were closed down in 1993.

Talks between the prime ministers over the weekend are expected to result in some progress in thefield of economic cooperation. Both sides would like to formalizethe huge clandestine trade between them, which runs at $2 billion a year, or over 10 times India's exports to Pakistan.

Last October, their foreign secretaries held negotiations onsix different issues, but failed to achieve results. Among themare three boundary demarcation and water-sharing disputes, one ofthem on the 6,000 metre high Siachen glacier.

India and Pakistan are fighting an irrational high-altitude war at Siachen. Although theytwice came close to a solution, they failed to clinch it becauseof lack of mutual political confidence.

Even if these disputes are now resolved, two other issues willprove thorny: Kashmir and nuclearization. Kashmir has always beena bone of contention. India is reluctant even to admit it is a''dispute''. And for many Pakistanis, Kashmir represents the''K'' in Pakistan's primary identity; it is part of the''unfinished agenda'' of Partition.

If Kashmir is taken up up-front in the coming talks, there islittle likelihood of progress. Pakistani moderates and Indiafavor a graduated approach: solve the easier disputes first,take up Kashmir later. Hardliners in Islamabad, including ForeignMinister Sartaz Aziz, want Kashmir to be addressed right now.

Nuclearization is deeply fraught too. The crossing of thenuclear threshold has not impelled either government to becomesober. They have not even begun to acknowledge the risksand dangers of nuclearization.

The two governments might at best agree on some limitedconfidence-building measures, like not to bomb each other's nuclear facilities or civilian targets, without frontallyaddressing issues of nuclear restraint.

However, deep uncertainties and ambiguities still remain,which make for instability in strategic equations. Their rulersand generals have little confidence in, or firm knowledge of,each other's capabilities, preparations or doctrines.

This spells a grave danger which can only be eliminated if thetwo stop making nuclear weapons. There are no signsyet that they are interested in such restraint. There might liethe limits of ''bus diplomacy'', welcome as it is.

(Inter Press Service)

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