Move step by step

He even went to the Teherik-e-Pakistan, the minaret built to commemorate March 23, 1940, when the resolution for the partition of India was adopted by the then Muslim League. He wrote in the visitors8217; book that prosperity and unity of India were dependent on the prosperity and unity of Pakistan.

The problem is not with India but with Pakistan, which continues to propagate the two-nationtheory, that is, Hindus and Muslims are two nations. Based on that premise, Pakistan says that the Muslim-majority Kashmir belongs to it. And it goes to justify its interference in the state, training, arming and sending infiltrators across the Line of Control LoC.

Despite several agreements and accords not to violate the line, it has continued to do so almost on a daily basis at least for the past one decade.The theory died once Pakistan was constituted. Its founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, himself buried it when after the British and the Congress accepted the division formula.

He said that in the course of time Muslims would cease to be Muslims and Hindus would cease to be Hindus, not in the religious sense but otherwise and they would be either Pakistanis or Indians. Again, after the birth of Pakistan, he said at Karachi: 8220;You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan8230;.You may belong to any religion or caste or creed 8211;that has nothing to do with the business of the state8230;.8221;

Even otherwise, it makes little sense to talk about the two-nation theory in today8217;s Pakistan when the country8217;s population is 98 per cent Muslims. Is the two per cent minority a separate nation? After East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan in 1971 for its separate linguistic identity, the religion-based theory of two nations got a fatal blow.

A Pakistani legal luminary, S. M. Zafar, has correctly said in an article that 8220;the two-nation theory has outlived its utility after August 14, 1947, when Pakistan came into being, and that its importance is now only of archival nature to be preserved as a historical determinant.8221; After the birth of Pakistan, he has argued, harping upon the two-nation theory would be tantamount to 8220;whipping a dead horse.8221; The intellectuals, who equate the Pakistan ideology with the two-nation theory, he thinks, are mistaken.

Islamabad can adumbrate some other argument to claim Kashmir because the argument that it is8220;an unfinished task of partition8221; does not wash after 52 years. Even the Hurriyat, agitating for independence, consider the Kashmiris a separate nation and they include the Kashmiri Pandits in it.

The fallacy of the two-nation theory does not, however, mean that New Delhi should not hold talks on Kashmir. Had Islamabad not played false, the Lahore Declaration would have constituted a firm framework for a serious dialogue on Kashmir.

In fact, a beginning had been made and foreign ministers of the two countries were appointed as supervisors. Why did Pakistan resort to arms to scuttle a peaceful process? Kargil has not internationalised the problem of Kashmir as Pakistan claims. It has only brought upon it the pressure 8212; and odium 8212; of international opinion to withdraw from Kargil. Pakistan8217;s aggression has made the inviolability and the sanctity of LoC a fact.

America has come on the Indian side not because it has jettisoned Pakistan but because Washington knows that any unilateral or forcedalteration of the LoC will not be accepted by New Delhi. When the US says that the LoC must be restored, it wants to create conditions where the two countries can sit across the table to discuss their problems, including Kashmir.

Nawaz Sharif or the armed forces or both do not realise how difficult they have made the resumption of a dialogue. Indians were so overwhelmed after Vajpayee8217;s bus ride that they were willing to go to the farthest to accommodate Islamabad, even on Kashmir. The Kargil perfidy has changed the atmosphere. The main problem is the lack of trust. Americans cannot instil it. This has to be done by Pakistan itself.

What the Pakistanis do is their business. Reports say that both Sharif and the armed forces will be hauled over the coals, even though the latter have tried to shift the blame for withdrawal to the political leadership. The Pakistan media has already characterised the intrusion as ill-conceived8217; and downright foolish.8217; It indicates loud thinking, if notintrospection.

India8217;s stand is that after the clearance of intruders, Pakistan must stop the practice of sending them into its territory. Even after the Lahore Declaration, Islamabad did not stop it. Abetting terrorism cannot go on if the talks have to have some meaning.

And then by insisting on Kashmir as the core issue and by describing the outstanding problems between the two countries as peripheral, Pakistan, more or less, stalls the process of peace. When they have lived as enemies since their independence, all their problems are core problems. Preference should be given to the ones which are less tractable so that their solution generates goodwill and confidence.

That may be the reason why Zulfikar Ali Bhutto proposed to India a step-by-step approach. But those were the days when New Delhi was hawkish in its attitude and wanted all issues to be solved at one go. It did not work. The step-by-step approach is all the more necessary at a time when the Kargil episode has knocked out even the littleconfidence India had. The structure of conciliation has to be rebuilt from scratch. For example, the sale of power to India was in the final stages. Why not sign the agreement?

Again, the status of Most Favoured Nation MFN under the WTO agreement is overdue. India has already extended the concession to Pakistan. Why should Islamabad drag its feet? To put New Delhi in the wrong Pakistan should unilaterally lift ban on Indian newspapers, books and literature. One thing will lead to another. A new equation may get built in the process.