POLITICS-INDIA: Easier Entry for Pakistanis Boosts Summit Atmosphere

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jul 10 2001 (IPS) - India’s announcement Monday of plans to open visa facilities at checkposts along the Line of Control (LoC) that runs through disputed Kashmir is the latest move aimed at building confidence with Pakistan ahead of a bilateral summit in a week’s time.

“It is our conviction that the foundations of peace between India and Pakistan have to be laid in the minds and hearts of men and women,” foreign ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said at a press conference in the Indian capital Monday.

Rao said it was Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s wish that “henceforth Pakistani passport holders be allowed to come by the road route (to India) and obtain visas at the checkposts.”

Not least, the move is welcome news for people who travel from Pakistan to India regularly to visit relations, especially those who families were split after the partition more than a half a century ago.

“Given the large number of divided families in India and Pakistan, any liberalisation of travel formalities is likely to be greeted with considerable relief across the border,” said C Raja Mohan, a foreign affairs commentator.

Pakistan was created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims out of Hindu-majority British India, after it was granted independence from colonial rule in 1947. But the partition divided many families and resulted in communal riots in which millions perished.

Musharraf, who was himself born in Delhi, has called the dispute over Muslim-majority Kashmir the “unfinished business” of the partition.

But experts here say Monday’s decision is not just about border policy.

“Vajpayee has brought about a paradigm shift in policy which views Pakistan not as an enemy country but one which shared a common past with India,” said M L Sondi, said to tbe social scientists closest to Vaypayee.

Sondhi is chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, which on Monday announced the award of 27 “Vajpayee-Musharraf scholarships” that will benefit Pakistani scholars wishing to pursue social science research in India.

In February 1999, Vajpayee travelled overland by bus to the Pakistani city of Lahore for the last Indo-Pakistan summit. He thereby inaugurated a bus route which has continued to run in spite of an undeclared war that broke out at Kargil on the LoC later that year.

The two South Asian rivals are now trying to restore normal diplomatic relations, which broke down as a result of the Kargil war, through the invitation for the Jul. 15 summmit Vajpayee has extended to the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

At an all-party meeting Monday, Vajpayee was pledged support by the Congress Party and other opposition political groups for the summit at Agra city, best known for its Mughal monuments including the Taj Mahal.

Earlier, Vajpayee proposed that security experts from the two countries initiate confidence-building measures that he said were called for as a result of the two countries testing nuclear weapons in 1998.

He also called for steps leading to the demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier, where the armies of the two countries maintain an expensive standoff on what is regarded as the world’s highest battlefield at an average of 20,000 feet.

“Pakistan regards Kashmir as the core issue for the talks and (says) that India is reluctant to talk about it – but this is not true,” Vajpayee reportedly told the all-party meeting.

Briefing reporters soon after the meeting concluded, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan claimed that the meeting showed a “consensus” among all political parties on issues related to national security.

The Congress Party has in the past severely criticised Vajpayee’s policy toward Pakistan and accused him of going to Lahore at a time when Islamabad was clearly plotting an armed intrusion over the LoC at Kargil.

Mahajan said Kashmir would not be the only issue discussed at Agra, but would be seen “in a totality of ties that we expect to discuss.”

But the deep differences between the rival countries was highlighted in how this remark contrasted with Musharraf’s declaration in Islamabad at the weekend that he would not follow the “hackneyed path” of discussing other issues while ignoring the “core issue of Kashmir.”

Musharraf has also ruffled Indian feathers by insisting on meeting, while in India, representatives of the All Party Hurriyet Conference (APHC), an umbrella organisation of separatist political groups in Indian Kashmir.

India considers several of the Hurriyet’s leaders to be working for the eventual integration of Kashmir into Pakistan on the grounds of a common Islamic faith. Hurriyet leaders were earlier denied permission to visit Pakistan by India’s home ministry.