Daily Times Editorial Sept 28, 2013

Maturity in peace process In two separate incidents in Indian-held Kashmir, attackers killed police and army personnel on Thursday in the latest in a series of recent incidents across the Line of Control (LoC) causing tension between India and Pakistan and threatening the composite dialogue both countries have been struggling to restart. According to reports, the attackers were wearing Indian army uniforms. Three militants attacked a police station in Samba, about 10 kilometres from the boundary with Pakistan, killing five policemen. They then hijacked a truck and struck an army camp in the vicinity, killing one civilian and three soldiers, including a Lt-Colonel. After hours of fighting, the gunmen were killed by the Indian security forces. In the other incident, the Indian army stated it had killed more than a dozen militants out of a group of 30 it alleged had crossed over from Pakistan into northern Kashmir. The operation against the rest is still ongoing, according to local commanders. Opposition Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) leaders immediately jumped into the fray, reiterating their opposition to restarting talks with Pakistan. They demanded that the scheduled meeting between Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Dr Manmohan Singh on September 29 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session be cancelled. However, saner voices were to be found in the ranks of the ruling Congress Party and Indian-held Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. The latter squarely nailed the attacks as an attempt to derail the peace talks. The former, represented by the prime minister, home and foreign minister, all said the ‘spoilers’ would not be allowed to hold the peace process, and thereby India, Pakistan and South Asia hostage to their vested interest in continuing conflict. The Pakistan foreign office too reiterated its belief in the continuation of the dialogue. Civil society groups in both India and Pakistan, some of whom have been in the forefront over many years in seeking peace and normalisation between the two countries, also called for continuation of the talks and peace process, adding the two countries should sign a no-war pact. The situation in India and Pakistan presents contrasting situations as far as peace and normalisation of relations are concerned. In India, ironically, the BJP presents a different face in government from what it is these days displaying in opposition. Who can forget the historic visit of former Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Pakistan in 1999 when the Lahore Agreement was signed with then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. That historic breakthrough of course was sabotaged by Pervez Musharraf with his Kargil adventure. These days it is not the regular army that carries out forays and raids across the LoC but an array of Kashmiri and other jihadi groups. The distance BJP has travelled since then may be ascribed to domestic political considerations, particularly the looming general elections in India. But it does betray the opportunism often on display by politicians for purely expedient reasons and while flying in the face of history’s imperative that India and Pakistan learn to live together as civilised neighbours while talking through their mutual differences, including Kashmir. Fortunately things have moved in a more positive direction in recent years in Pakistan. There is now hardly any mainstream party that does not subscribe to the idea of peace and amity with India. This marks a tremendous shift in the anti-India-laden political rhetoric of past years. If there are holdouts in the hate India brigade, they represent marginal religious and right wing groups with more clout within the power corridors than is justified by their numbers, merely because of the hangover of the hate India rhetoric of the past. Even more marginalised as far as popular support is concerned are the jihadi armed groups that are the prime suspects in the kinds of provocation that of late have been occurring. So while the major opposition party in India, the BJP, blows hot and cold, depending on whether it is sitting on the treasury or opposition benches, in Pakistan the anti-India lobby has been in retreat for many years, having been bypassed by history and its dictates. What is noteworthy and appreciable in the present attempt to derail the meeting in New York of the two prime ministers and the subsequent reset of the composite dialogue is the mature response of the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and the Congress government in seeing through the provocation and reiterating their commitment to the talks. In that sense, India-Pakistan relations seem on the cusp of breaking with the past when provocateurs could all too easily derail peace efforts by the odd incident of provocation. In that sense, maturity seems to be dawning on both sides, along with the realisation that terrorists neither have any faith nor country. They are the common enemies of both countries and therefore need to be tackled together in close consort.