07 October 2004	Thursday	21 Shaban 1425

The Peace process which was showing signs of faltering and becoming moribund has happily been revived and put on track.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshed M. Kasuri's visit may not lay claim to gigantic gains but even a cynic must recognize that the atmosphere of goodwill and peaceful pursuit of an honourable solution are clearly visible again.

All over the country the people of India showed keen interest in the confabulations and no opportunity for manifestation of appreciation was missed by them. An encouraging development in Pakistan is the appointment of Mr Shaukat Aziz as the new prime minister.

Like our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Aziz is a technocrat and an international banker of repute. His strength is that he owes no allegiance to any political party.

He is not therefore, shackled by the chains of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) nor indeed the ruling Muslim League. As a banker he knows more than anybody else that the strength of a country is triggered only by economic growth which in turn requires peace.

General Musharraf's speech before the UN General Assembly in New York gives a big boost to Indo-Pak peace process. In the wake of 9/11 he promptly decided to join the war against terrorism and become a faithful ally of the Americans in this war.

India must be grateful and appreciative of his commitment as well as difficulties and concerns. Manfully he is dismantling the madrasas, fighting terrorists, handing over some to the Americans, pursuing the Al Qaeda and keeping the Army ambitions under control.

Perhaps more relevant are his two other declarations which only a mature statesman can make; first, there is no military solution to our problems, three wars and the mobilization of 2002 have shown it; second, we desire a solution of Kashmir which is just and acceptable to India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.

He has said before he has nine such solutions to place on the negotiating table. To establish lasting peace we cannot expect any better than the Musharraf-Aziz duo. My experience in Kashmir convinces me that those who have wielded the gun and even personally taken innocent lives are not totally deaf to rational dialogue and a friendly approach.

The violence in Kashmir only postpones its final solution. Is it not worthwhile for all sides to have a treaty of friendship bringing all the elements of the various regions of the state together in peaceful conclave to hammer out a solution acceptable to all? This is the way of peace and democracy and the latest declaration of General Musharraf.

The dialogue will resume at the point where the Kashmir Committee had left it. It had been agreed that war and violence are totally abjured and that a peaceful solution must necessarily involve "give and take."

A logical corollary of this is that traditional extreme positions held and vigorously espoused by both India and Pakistan for decades have to be jettisoned for all time.

Constant invocation of the Simla Agreement, ruling out mediation and confining the dialogue within the limits of the Indian Constitution are useless irritants. So are plebiscite, religious composition of the population and making growth of friendship and normalcy conditional on sorting out the Kashmir problem first.

Nothing in the world is unconditionally good except goodwill, taught the German Immanuel Kant. Goodwill is a great solvent which makes the most insoluble problems easily soluble.

It had already been agreed that the solution would have to be acceptable to all the regions of the state such as Jammu and Ladakh and must involve the rehabilitation of displaced Pandits in complete security and honour.

The pole star of the negotiating teams will be the happiness and well being of the inhabitants. The state must not be exploited economically or otherwise by India or Pakistan as a conquered colony and its inhabitants must have the full use and benefit of its natural resources and potential wealth.

They must be guaranteed full and equal participation in governance which is what self determination means in modern international law. Some joint mechanism or outfit may be created to oversee the concrete realization of this dispensation. That may well turn out to be one of the nine solutions General Musharraf is concealing up his sleeve. -By arrangment with Asianage.