The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan agreed to put the needs of their people in the centre of the relationship by expanding travel and trade across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir as well as across the international boundary, in what amounts to a path-breaking shift in the way both governments have dealt with each other so far.
What is striking is that the smallest new opening was made on Wednesday by increasing the number of days which will allow truck movements across the LoC from two days to four days a week, both on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and the Poonch-Rawalakot routes.
Trade and commerce, in fact, between the two countries seems to have made a direct comeback, although all the initiatives still seem so small and insignificant that they look like test balloons. If they work, both sides will pat themselves on their backs and open up further; if they don’t, the initiatives will be easy to dispense with.
Still, the jargon that dominated the joint statement issued after the meeting, could not hide as much as it wanted to. “Designated authorities will resolve operational issues concerning cross-LoC trade through regular interaction,” means that although the same 21 commodities will remain, several bottlenecks in the movement of goods will have to go.
Cross-LoC travel becomes even more significant. Kashmiris are now allowed to visit each other for tourism and religious pilgrimage, a path-breaking development in itself. Meaning, Kashmiris no longer need to say that they have to meet “family” on the other side of the LoC (in both countries), but can simply travel for reasons of praying at a mosque or a temple or even travelling to a beautiful part of the Kashmir valley.
If this doesn’t have the potential to change the relationship, here’s another : “Facilities, including waiting area, terminal and clearing procedures at the operational crossing points will be streamlines by both sides for smooth cross-LoC travel,” sounds like both countries have decided that they have decided to further soften the border.
The usual staples in any India-Pakistan encounter — a focus on counter-terrorism, including progress on the Mumbai trial as well as movement on the Kashmir dispute — also found their way to the joint statement issued after the ministerial encounter, but clearly those items were around so as to assuage hardline constituencies in both countries that they weren’t “selling out” to each other.
Clearly, however, it was Pakistan’s 34-year-old foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar who stole the show, not only because she came across as being beautiful and sophisticated and affable, but also politically bright when she reiterated the messages she had brought from the “people of Pakistan” as well as from President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
If this was an indirect message to the all-powerful Pakistan army which plays a big role on Pakistan’s foreign policy, especially with India, Afghanistan and the US, that Pakistan’s elected representatives would be in the driving seat, then it was a brave one, especially since it was delivered from Indian soil.
Whether or not Hina Khar’s performance will be closely watched by Pakistan army’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi is a moot point — after all, last year’s encounter between Foreign Minister S M Krishna and Khar’s predecessor Shah Mehmood Qureshi ran aground because Qureshi accused Krishna of “taking dictation” from Delhi and the Indian side accused Qureshi’s team of being an “advance party” of the Pakistani army.
Clearly, on Wednesday’s public display of friendship and goodwill between Khar and Krishna were clearly far more calibrated than last year’s display of bad manners between Khar and Qureshi. What is interesting is that the Khar-Krishna roadshow — focusing on “cooperation not competition,” “convergences, not divergences,” and the acceptance that both countries had “some distance to travel, but we will do it with an open mind” — was clearly what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Asif Zardari had ordered, if behind the scenes.
It is not known whether Krishna’s comment, made when he stood next to Khar in the verandah of Hyderabad House, that there was “cordiality and positive vibrations” in the talks was scripted by his Foreign Office. Khar, however, warmed herself to her audience when she said that she had little idea what there was in store for her before she emplaned for Delhi yesterday, but after on Wednesday’s talks with Krishna, she knew that things were only going to get better.
“I am more confident today than when I arrived in Delhi, which is a good sign,” said the young lady, who was a junior finance minister before the Zardari-Gilani combine decided she should be awarded the foreign ministry.
Even the two foreign secretaries, Salman Bashir and Nirupama Rao, seemed to fall under the spell. Rao, who is on her way to Washington in a few weeks and will look at the India-Pakistan relationship from a new perspective very soon, spoke of the need to clear the “fog and the undergrowth” as well as the brand-new “political impulse” to focus on the positives.
Bashir, a good, old-fashioned Pakistani diplomat and a very good China hand to boot, waved away a question on whether the obvious goodwill hid little headway on key questions, such as movement on the Mumbai attacks.
“We cannot be mired in the past…it is counter-productive to keep coming back to the same old words,” he said.
