A proposal for peace

By Kuldip Nayar

Whenever anyone asked me in India or Pakistan in the last two- three weeks about the prospects of the summit, I said: It will not fail but it will not succeed either. Now that something like that has really happened, I feel sad. Somehow I believed, probably it was wishful thinking, that the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, would hit on something which might not be a breakthrough, but would suggest one.

As a person who has been writing and immersed in the subject for more than four decades and as a person who as an activist has striven to help the two countries span the distance, I am disappointed. This means that people-to-people contact has not generated enough pressure for the rulers on both sides to respect their desire of burying the hatchet.

I thought that so many summits had failed in the past that this one could not afford to meet the same fate. I had never seen before in both countries such optimism and such a spirit of give and take, which I witnessed this time. Whatever the Foreign Ministers of either country may have said to assuage the feelings on both sides, the rulers have not risen above the formulations we have heard ad nauseam.

Islamabad was not agreeable to any formulation which would even remotely suggest that it was responsible for fuelling the insurgency. One, it was like asking ``When did you stop beating your wife?'' Two, were Pakistan to give an assurance on cross- border militancy, it would stoke the fires of defiance by the jehadis and others. That was Pakistan's fear.

Still, the bigger dilemma was what concrete idea Gen. Musharraf would show back home on return. India was willing to recognise Kashmir was the main issue, even if not a dispute. How would that satisfy the people who wanted ``some movement'' on Kashmir - the people who had come to believe that the Muslim- majority Valley would one day become part of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

If the end is the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the path should not have led through the difficulties over Kashmir or cross- border terrorism. There should have been discussions on how to meet the aspirations of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists living in the State without dividing them religion-wise and region-wise.

All of them are tired of what is happening within the State. You call the violence in the State by any name - jehad, azadi, insurgency - the fact of killing cannot be denied. I have never known how peace can be brought through the use of the gun!

I want to go back to my proposal, which both Gen. Musharraf and Mr. Vajpayee once agreed to: a ceasefire for six months on the international border, the LoC and within the State; no gun should be fired whether hidden, secret or open. This will apply to the armed forces, the paramilitary outfits, the police as also to the jehadis and militants operating from Pakistan. Once the atmosphere is created, the two sides should try and find a solution. Even non-officials can be used for this. The 15-year people-to-people contact has thrown up individuals on both sides who can probably help remove certain misgivings and bring round the intransigent elements.

I do not see the subcontinent being reunited. But I do believe that one day the high walls that fear and distrust have raised on the borders will crumble and the peoples of the subcontinent, without giving up their separate identities, will work together for the common good. This might usher in an era fruitful beyond their dreams. This is the faith which I have cherished over since I left my home town, Sialkot, in Pakistan, 54 years ago. And this is the straw I have clung to in the sea of hatred and hostility that has for long engulfed the subcontinent.

As usual, I shall go to the Wagah border to light a candle on August 14-15 midnight, when the two countries were born. It may be a tiny light and may not be able to totally shatter the darkness. But someday, I hope the light will spread.

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