Is peace process alive? 

Sudha Ramachandran 

Pakistan needs to back it words with deeds. For much too long we have the victims of its double speak. While it promises of peace the Pakistan army continues to fund and assist forces that cross the border with evil intent. Even now anti Indian outfits have all the freedom to plan, propagate and act against India. Unless this is stopped there can be little hope for a lasting peace between the two. 

Even as the positive atmosphere at the just-concluded official talks between India and Pakistan in Islamabad suggest that the peace process is alive, Pakistani firing on Indian border posts in Jammu and Kashmir has put the four-year-old ceasefire under strain.

The divergent signals being sent from across the border raise questions as to who is in fact calling the shots in Pakistan when it comes to its India policy and whether the new civilian government is keen to build on gains made over the past few years.

The two-day talks in Islamabad, the first India is holding with Pakistan's new government, concluded on Wednesday with the two sides signing an agreement on consular access to each other's prisoners and agreeing to increase the frequency of buses running between Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. They also agreed to finalize the modalities for intra-Kashmir trade and truck services at the earliest, expand railway services to include transport of goods, liberalize restrictions on travel between the two countries and so on.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Pakistan by the year-end. This is an indication that things have been going well. The visit was under active consideration for over two years but did not materialize as both sides wanted to time it with a breakthrough on at least one of the contentious issues. That breakthrough appears to be in the offing.

In Islamabad, the two sides stressed the importance of the ceasefire that has been in place since November 2003 and reaffirmed their commitment to respecting it. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi declared that his government was ready for a "grand reconciliation" with India through dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues "with self-respect and dignity".

But Pakistan has been singing a different tune across the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. Sporadic firing was reported at an Indian border post at Mendhar in Poonch district on the eve of the talks.

India's frontier with Pakistan consists of three sections - the international border, the 778-kilometer LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in the Siachen region. Shelling used to be a routine occurrence along the LoC and the AGPL.

That changed in November 2003 when India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along the entire frontier. The ceasefire has held for four years. India now alleges that Pakistan is violating this ceasefire.

Amid the ceasefire violations came a series of bomb blasts in the northern Indian city of Jaipur that left over 65 dead and about 150 injured. Indian ministers did not blame Pakistan by name for the blasts but darkly alleged a "foreign hand" was behind the attacks - often a euphemism for Pakistan.

At the Islamabad talks, the two sides strongly reaffirmed that they would not permit terrorism to impede the peace process and, in a joint statement, "re-emphasized the need for effective steps for the complete elimination of this menace". Qureshi condemned the Jaipur blasts and said it was "not just lip service, but came straight from the heart".

A former Indian diplomat attributed this disconnect between "the verbal commitment to dialogue and normalization at the Islamabad talks and the firing at the frontier" to either "typical Pakistani doublespeak" or attempts by elements in the military/Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)to "sabotage the peace process in order to discredit the civilian government".

Pakistan's policy towards India and Afghanistan has always been directed by the military, even during periods of civilian government. Any attempt by civilian rulers to normalize ties with India have been opposed by the generals, as in 1999 when General Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan's army chief (now president), masterminded an armed intrusion across the LoC at Kargil, even as Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif were shaking hands over the Lahore Declaration.

Its role in the political arena severely discredited, the military might be seeking to embarrass the civilian government on the international stage by backing militant groups again. The jihadi-military nexus which had broken somewhat following the military operations against the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad last year could be in the process of being revived.

But there is concern too over the approach that civilian politicians are taking with regard to issues of importance to India - dealing with terrorists, the Kashmir issue and so on. They have signed a peace deal with Taliban militants in Swat and softened on anti-India terror outfits.

A report in The Hindu, an English daily in India, has drawn attention to a videophone address by Lashkar-e-Toiba chief Hafiz Saeed on March 1 announcing the easing of restrictions on the outfit's activities. Apparently, the announcement has been followed by a buildup of Lashkar cadres along the LoC. The outfit has set up a state-of-the-art wireless communication center near the LoC, and training centers at Balakote and Gujranwala.

Restraints on other terrorist outfits too have been eased. Masood Azhar, the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief, was released from house arrest and allowed to parade with armed cadre in Bahawalpur town. ISI funding for the Hizbul Mujahideen which had been shut off under international pressure in 2006 has been resumed, The Hindu reports.

These moves have understandably triggered questions and anxiety in India.

"Is Islamabad going soft on terrorism, in the name of a political engagement with the militant groups? Is Pakistan buying domestic peace with terrorist groups by allowing them a free hand across its borders?" noted analyst C Raja Mohan asks in an article in the Indian Express. This, he points out, is of concern not just for India "but also Afghanistan, which faces cross-border attacks from the Taliban based in Pakistan".

There are worrying indications that Pakistan's civilian rulers are reluctant to build on progress that India has made in its dialogue with Musharraf over the past four years. Quiet negotiations have been going on between the special envoys of Manmohan and Musharraf and these are said to have made progress in defining the framework for a mutually acceptable settlement.

But on May 12, Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani rubbished Musharraf's proposals on Kashmir as "half-baked things that didn't have the mandate of parliament". He said that the "core issue" of Kashmir must be settled "in line with UN resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people".

UN Security Council resolutions call for a plebiscite in Kashmir, which India has rejected. Such statements from Pakistan are seen by sections in India as signaling a worrying return of Pakistan to its old positions and old ways.

And it is not just the politicians who are playing around with what in India is called the "K-word" - Kashmir. The military too has been shooting off its mouth on the issue. Following a visit to forward locations near the LoC, army chief Ashfaq Pervaiz General Kiyani spoke of the "national consensus that exists on the Kashmir issue" and "reaffirmed the commitment of the Pakistan army to the Kashmir cause in line with the aspirations of Pakistani nation".

Alongside the return to old rhetoric and positions, is Pakistan now returning also to its old tricks of shelling and firing across the LoC to provide cover to infiltration of militants into India? Jammu and Kashmir is going to the polls in a few months and militants and those backing them will seek to disrupt the democratic process there.

India has responded with restraint to the firing from across the LoC and the international border. It has formally raised the issue at flag meetings of senior officers of the two sides at the LoC. But this restraint is unlikely to last long if Islamabad does not rein in its armed forces along the border with India.

"Adventures like the recent assaults on Indian forward positions, as well as heightened infiltration, will sooner or later compel some measure of military response by New Delhi," warns The Hindu in an editorial. It goes on to point out that this will be to the benefit of neither. "Renewed tensions along the LoC, an inevitable consequence of the direction of Islamabad's policies, will hurt India. However, they will cost Pakistan far more. As the 2001-2002 confrontation demonstrated to no one's benefit, even low-grade state-sponsored terrorism can end up precipitating a full-blown military crisis."

The ceasefire and the dialogue might not have resulted yet in a halt in Pakistan-backed terrorist activity in India or produced a major breakthrough on Kashmir and other contentious issues. But significant gains have been made in the normalization process, especially with regard to improving people-to-people contact and trade.

And it is these gains that the easing of restrictions on militants, the ceasefire violations and irresponsible rhetoric are putting under jeopardy.