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Canadian academics hail India-Pak peace bid

There is no harm in Indian political leaders keeping the lines of communication open with their Pakistani counterparts, Canadian academics say.

They feel Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's invitation to General Pervez Musharraf for bilateral discussions is a "positive development".

Arthur Rubinoff of the University of Toronto and Rita Tremblay of Concordia University in Montreal, political scientists and experts on India-Pakistan relations, agree that the new US administration has encouraged India to resume direct dialogue with Pakistan on Kashmir.

There could be differences of opinion between Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, that would have resulted in Vajpayee taking over this subject himself, said Tremblay, an Indo-Canadian academic and expert on Kashmir.

Prof Ashok Kapoor of the University of Waterloo (Ontario) believes that government emissary Krishen Chandra Pant has played a role and induced Vajpayee to extend an invitation to Musharraf.

There could be an Afghan angle too, but he doesn't believe there's any hand of the United States, an argument with which Tremblay and Rubinoff disagree.

Canada's Minister for Foreign Affairs John Manley would equally like India to start talking with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue, Tremblay said and that, to her, is a reason for his "re-engaging with India".

Similarly, the US administration thinks Musharraf's regime in Pakistan is better than earlier Pakistani leaders. He is fighting corruption and he has now started getting support from the Pakistani people, it feels.

There's some arm-twisting from Washington and, if it is so, it is good for India, Tremblay said in a recent telephone interview.

She was in Kashmir last year and saw how the local militant groups find themselves helpless in the face of pressure from external groups like the Mujahideen and Lashkar.

Even though these external groups get active support from Pakistan's ISI, Musharfaf knows these groups have a mind of their own and he wouldn't be able to control them, Trembaly explained.

She disagrees with Kapoor that there can't be a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue with Pakistan.

To her, the basis is the Line of Control, and she believes Musharraf can sign that deal. He has the backing of the army and the Pakistani people, she feels.

"He also wants to legitimise his regime and there can't be a better opportunity than to sign this deal with India on the basis of the Line of Control," Tremblay argued.

Kapoor disagrees that Musharraf would settle the Kashmir issue on the basis of the Line of Control. According to him, Pakistan wants the whole of the Kashmir Valley. Therefore, he believes there can't be any negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue, he says.

Kapoor, who has written extensively on India-Pakistan relations, including what he calls the Islamic bomb, said, "It is good to stay in touch and find out how Gen Pervez Musharraf's thinking is working as talk, talk is better than war, war."

He, however, discounted high expectations from the meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf. "There is no harm in finding out how the other person's mind is working," Kapoor suggested.

"Beyond that I am not sure there can be a negotiated solution of the Kashmir issue," he predicted.

On what could be the solution of disputes between the two countries, Kapoor said, "The line of actual control is the solution, but Pakistan is not ready to accept that due to internal politics. They want the whole of the valley."

The question which, this academic suggested, should be asked is not only about Kashmir but what are the aims of the Pakstani army and its ISI in Kashmir, in relation to India's northeast, where the ISI is enmeshed, and recently, the Pakistani navy was making port calls in Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Kapoor listed three major threads of India-Pakistan relations: Diplomatic, which is bilateral dialogue; active support and dangerous meddling of Pakistan in Indian border areas and its strong support to Bangladesh on the ground; Pakistan naval activities in the Bay of Bengal.

These threads also "dovetail into the Chinese", Kapoor said.

The Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting will cover only the first thread. That may not cover the other threads, especially the ISI's support for insurgency in the northeast and Bangladesh, its extensive network even in central Asia and Pakistani naval activities in the Bay of Bengal.

India and Pakistan are going back to the Lahore bus diplomacy. The first was pre-Kargil and the forthcoming meeting between the two leaders would be post-Kargil in which Musharraf will participate as an architect of the Kargil incursion, a fact he hasn't so far denied, said the Indo-Canadian academic.

We should all "care that India and Pakistan are suddenly 'talking about talking' about warmer relations, after a fierce frost," argues The Toronto Star, in a lead article 'India-Pakistan thaw'.

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