SO, some of the confusion about Kashmir stands dissipated. A few things are revealed more clearly: for one the indigenous nature of the Kashmir uprising. India's willingness to talk to the Hizbul Mujahideen is tacit admission of the fact that the Hizb belongs to Kashmir and is not a creation of the ISI. Otherwise, would India be willing to talk to the ISI on Kashmir?

Whether anything comes of the Hizb announcement of a unilateral ceasefire - and I am convinced that India eventually will see to it that nothing does - it has, at a stroke, laid the ghosts of "cross-border terrorism" to rest. India will still go on shouting about cross-border interference but after acknowledging, if only by implication, the Kashmiri roots of the Hizb, it becomes difficult to pin the blame for every armed encounter in occupied Kashmir on the ubiquitous shoulders of the Pakistan army.

Those accusing the Hizb of rashness are not grasping this point. Kargil was a mortal blow to the Kashmiri resistance, obscuring its achievements and giving India a propaganda advantage it milked this past year for all it was worth. Now at last, whether we recognize this or not, the tables have been turned. By having made a peace offer which India has accepted, the psychological advantage has shifted to the Resistance. The onus is on India now to come up with a matching response. Even the Amarnath massacre and the other killings in Kashmir in the last few days, unfortunate as all these sad events are, have drawn attention to the indigenous nature of Kashmir's troubles.

Spread over four decades, a long enough time by any calculation, India had the chance to bring Kashmir into the Indian mainstream. But it failed. Instead of reaching out to the people it nurtured quislings like Farooq Abdullah. If Farooq is not hailed as their deliverer by the people of Kashmir, is Pakistan to blame? Pakistan tried to manufacture unrest in Kashmir in 1965 (Operation Grand Slam and then Gibraltar) and for its pains got a full-scale war it had not bargained for. There is nothing foreign about the Kashmiri uprising since 1989. The ISI could not have manufactured it even if it had the resources of the CIA ten times over. Kargil obscured this fundamental reality. The Hizb initiative now restores it in its true colours. If the Hizb has done this on its own, it deserves a medal for sharp diplomacy. If Pakistan is involved, then GHQ has shown an intelligence it has rarely shown in the past. If the Americans have anything to do with it, they deserve our thanks.

What is Qazi Hussain Ahmed so miffed about? That after his American tour he will be taken for an American puppet? Or that the Hizb announced their decision without consulting the Jamaat-i-Islami politburo? That's the trouble with us Pakistanis. We can never let things be but must try to impress our crude stamp upon them. We did this in Afghanistan: trying to remote control the Afghan resistance. Had we allowed a true, unified leadership to emerge from the chaos of the Afghan war, that unfortunate country might have been spared many of its subsequent troubles. We should not be walking the same path in Kashmir. If the Chinese had listened to Stalin, they would never have got their revolution. The Kashmiris will never achieve their aim if they allow themselves to be pushed around by outsiders. Qazi Hussain Ahmed should get over his sulks. The Hizb announcement is the best thing to have happened to the Kashmiri resistance for a long time.

Will anything come of it? I am sure not. India is a big country but because it is still trying to climb up the greasy pole of world stardom, and because one half of it is stuck in the bullock age even as the other half tries to create a path for itself across the skies, it lacks the imagination to think big. Its mentality is still that of the village chaudhri who wants no diminution in his authority because he thinks that any concession, no matter how trifling, is an invitation to the peasant to rise in revolt. India therefore is incapable of meeting the Kashmiris halfway. If the past is any guide, it will try to exploit the Hizb initiative for short-term gains, to weaken and fragment the Kashmiri resistance. If India cannot stomach autonomy for its quisling, Farooq Abdullah, how can it accept tripartite talks which put the future of Kashmir on the discussion table? And how can anything less satisfy the Hizbul Mujahideen and the other lights of the Kashmiri resistance?

This initiative therefore is destined to wither away. The people of Kashmir are destined to suffer some more because they are caught between the high mountains and implacable forces. And also because the subcontinent lacks the genius of statesmanship. We are clever people but often too clever-by-half. Oily and subtle pandits, fractious and hair-splitting mullahs, volatile Bengalis: these are the dominant subcontinental types. From these types are not fashioned the instruments of statesmanship.

If the Congress leadership had been wise, the subcontinent would not have split up. After all, the Muslims were not a priori separatists and as late as 1946 were ready to go along with the Cabinet Mission plan which foresaw a united India. But a nationalism based on narrow religious symbolism drove them to call for a separate homeland. If the Pakistani leadership had been wise, East Pakistan would not have become Bangladesh. With tact and imagination on India's part, Kashmir would not be the bleeding wound that it is.

With what false arguments is not the Kashmir cause assailed? Forget about Kashmir, we are told, and concentrate on development as if Kashmir is the difference between perdition and the promised land. Suppose, becoming subcontinental Arafats, we gave up on Kashmir. Would corruption disappear from our land and would our governing elite undergo a conversion on the road to Damascus? Kashmir does not stop us from giving a proper education to our kids or from cleaning our hospitals. It is not because of Kashmir that our affairs are in such a mess.

What has the end of the intifida brought the Palestinians? The institutionalization of greed and corruption in the Palestinian Authority. What has peace brought Egypt? A certain amount of American dollars, not progress in the real sense of the word. In the hands of a corrupt ruling class wealth and resources, what to talk of a peace dividend, are soon wasted. For proof look no further than Nigeria, Indonesia and the oil-rich Arab states.

Even so, let us not forget the schizophrenia of which the people of Pakistan are such unsuspecting victims. Ours is a land with a split personality, with an elite and a governing class whose concerns are aeons away from the heartbeats of the masses. The Pakistanis who favour and support the Kashmiri resistance are 'native' Pakistanis, not the pseudo-westernized elite which hogs the corridors of power. 'Native' Pakistanis go in for hopeless causes. Many Pakistanis have died in Kashmir. How many of these from the drooling classes?

There was this news item two days ago about a ceremony at the headquarters of the Anti-Narcotics Force at which a Ms Sison from the US embassy (the Charge d'Affaires) was handing out good performance certificates and cash awards, ranging from Rs 25,000 to a lakh, to officials of the force. Tough-looking men in army and police uniforms gratefully took their awards from Ms Sison (from her picture a fetching face). In attendance at the ceremony were high-ranking army and police officers.

What business is it of the US embassy to be awarding prizes and money to (in other words, infiltrating) a department of the Pakistan government? By cracking down on narcotics are we doing a favour to the US government? In big matters the US kicks us around the way it pleases. If memories are short on this score, Bill Clinton's lecture to Pakistan need only be remembered. But in small matters we cannot help licking up to the Americans.

In this as in other instances our split personality is at work: the wretched of the country ready to lay down their lives for distant causes; senior officials of the government conducting themselves in a manner which shows up the servility and inferiority complex of our governing class. The commitment to Kashmir preserves some of our self-respect. Take that away and all we will be left with is the batman mentality which distinguishes our national behaviour.