October 27, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 30, 1424

NEW DELHI: Fresh Indian overtures to achieve peace with Pakistan are a last-ditch effort to overcome the hardline obduracy and bureaucratic nit-picking on both sides that are snarling the process, analysts said.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee put forward several proposals last week, including the resumption of a bus service across the disputed territory of Kashmir, and offered to hold talks with Kashmiri opposition leaders seeking the region’s independence.

“This was long overdue. We had to move and push the process forward both internally and externally,” said C. Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor at Indian newspaper The Hindu.

Vajpayee announced in April what he said would be the last bid for peace with nuclear-armed rival Pakistan during his lifetime. But hardliners on both sides, bureaucracy at the two foreign ministries and fresh guerrilla attacks in Kashmir have left the peace process floundering.

Most of the dozen Indian proposals made last week are neither new nor path-breaking: talks over restarting air and rail services, increased cross-border bus services and resumption of bilateral cricket contests, among others.

But they offer a fresh opening for Pakistan to grasp after ties plunged to such depths that India told Pakistan last month Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri was not welcome after he announced plans to visit New Delhi.

YIELDING GROUND?: Pakistan has yet to respond to the proposals but said they would receive serious consideration.

Former Indian foreign secretary S.K. Singh, who has also been ambassador to Pakistan, said India needed to “offer to mend fences constantly and consistently” so that Pakistan would not lose face by accepting India’s hand of friendship.

At the same time, the Indian government’s surprise offer to hold talks with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference fulfils a longstanding demand of the people of the strife-torn region.

But analysts said Vajpayee’s government risked allowing the hardline faction — seen by the government as a proxy of Pakistan — to gain strength if it continued to shun talks with the moderates.

“By agreeing to acknowledge the Hurriyat, the government has put the ball in the Hurriyat’s court,” said Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of India’s Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis.

The move would force the alliance to prove it was representative of Kashmiris and engage in a political dialogue with the government rather than adopt obstructionist tactics, he said.

The Hurriyat, while welcoming the call for talks, has sought time to hold consultations before agreeing to come to the table.

But Vajpayee does not have too much time between leading his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in state polls in early December and a general election due in late 2004.

Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes indicated as much on Saturday when he said the latest bid to revive the peace process would be the government’s final effort to save it.

A snub from Pakistan and the Hurriyat, or major rebel attacks, could once again stymie efforts to end one of the world’s longest-running and most dangerous cross-border feuds.

“Everything is predicated upon the response of the various parties involved,” said Bhaskar. “There are a lot of banana peels on Vajpayee’s path to peace.”—Reuters