All aboard?

India and Pakistan

Feb 17th 2005 LAHORE
From The Economist print edition

It is only a bus, but it gives a tired-looking peace process a burst of life

AT LAST, what looks like a breakthrough in the long quest for peace by India and Pakistan. On February 16th in Islamabad, India's foreign minister, Natwar Singh, and his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Kasuri, agreed to “impart momentum” to an ineffably tedious “composite dialogue” started a year ago. But this time there was some substance to the waffle. Most significantly, they agreed to open, from April 7th, a bus route between Srinagar, the capital of Indian-held Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-held Kashmir.

The agreement is important in two ways. First, it offers Kashmiris, the real victims of the two nations' squabble over their homeland, something many have longed for. The road linking the two Kashmiri capitals was closed after the first of three wars over Kashmir in 1947-48. Kashmiri families were divided, homes destroyed and centuries-old trade routes blocked. When the reopening of bus links was mooted in late 2003, road signs were swiftly erected in Srinagar, pointing to Muzaffarabad. It was a moment of hope.

Second, the removal of the obstacles delaying this agreement shows a rare flexibility from both sides. Pakistan has always been suspicious of the idea of the bus, fearing that travel between the two Kashmirs would legitimise the existing “line of control” that divides them, turning it into a permanent border. Wanting precisely that, India had insisted on those using the bus carrying national passports, thereby conceding its sovereignty over at least part of Kashmir. Now it has agreed that, once identities have been verified, in some unspecified way, passports will not be needed.

Optimists believe that the opening of the roads linking the two halves of Kashmir could be the bond that keeps the peace. It ought to restore dignity to the shattered lives of Kashmiris on both sides and give them a real stake in peace rather than in insurgency and jihad. Kashmiris on either side of the divide will be able to embrace each other in only three hours.

More generally, the reopening of transport links means the restoration of age-old trading routes in the subcontinent. It takes nearly eight hours by road from Amritsar in Indian Punjab to Jammu, the closest point in Indian Kashmir. But it would take half as long if a traveller could transit Pakistan. The hinterland of Lahore, capital of Pakistani Punjab, used to stretch from Delhi to Srinagar. It might do so once more.

The foreign ministers reached other, less contentious, agreements as well. The two countries will open rail links further south, between Pakistan's Sindh and India's Rajasthan states. They also decided on a joint push for oil and gas pipelines through Pakistan to India: from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan; and from Iran and Qatar. India is short of energy and Pakistan stands to benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees.

All of this suggests that the peace process launched by India's former prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in April 2003, is back on track. Ever since his party lost an election last May, there have been fears that the momentum had been lost. Indian foreign policy under the new government, led by the Congress party, had seemed to be back in the hands of crusty diplomats, schooled in Pakistan-bashing. But the patience of Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has been vindicated. At last he has something to show for the olive branches he has thrown at India, notably a ceasefire along the line of control in November 2003, and an effort to rein in the Pakistan-based militants stoking the insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

They could yet upset this process through a spectacular act of terror in Kashmir or in India. Hardline separatists in Indian Kashmir have been swift to reject the bus deal as a sop that avoids the real issue of the territory's status. They will not stop fighting yet. The Indian army, too, may find it hard. It has this month promised to adopt a friendlier approach in Kashmir, and, after a brutal war that has claimed perhaps 60,000 lives, to try to win hearts and minds. But India may not be able to stomach close political links between Kashmiri separatists in Srinagar and their brethren in Muzaffarabad.

There are also bound to be security-related snags over the pipeline projects. It will take some time before Afghanistan is stable enough to carry the pipeline from Turkmenistan. And Pakistan's army is gearing up in Baluchistan to combat a nationalist insurgency that is threatening existing pipelines. Disagreements over another crucial resource—water—could also sour relation between the two rivals.

Or the two countries could simply succumb to the weight of history and start squabbling again. But this week's breakthrough implies two very hopeful things: that the national-security establishments in both are now ready to recognise the pivotal role of economics in bilateral relations. And second, that resolution of the Kashmir dispute is no longer a precondition to better relations. Rather, it is seen as a potential consequence.

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