THE holy warriors, mindless champions of jihad, are at one end of the spectrum; the Track Two peaceniks, who dance the bhangra at the sight of Indian border guards and otherwise babble of peace at all costs, at the other end. There is, however, no divine ordinance which lays down that Indo-Pak relations should be a zero-sum game, a choice of absolutes: war or peace, bitter hostility or headlong retreat.

There are real points of contention between the two countries and given these, a kind of rivalry or competition between them will exist for the foreseeable future. Nor is there anything wrong with this. The Berlin Wall fell in the West. In the sub-continent the Iron Curtain or, since this is the sub-continent, the Reed Curtain is still very much in place. So it is not particularly helpful to draw analogies from afar and apply them to our neighbourhood.

When western ideologues, as relentless in their proselytizing as the Christian missionaries of the 19th century, say this is the era of cooperation and not confrontation they should be looked in the eye and asked, "Pray, for whom?" Europe - minus the Balkans and Russia - beats the drums of cooperation because it no longer has the Soviet Empire to contend with, that dinosaur having crashed to earth under its own weight. There are, however, historical knots elsewhere which remain to be untied. The new missionaries of globalization and international cooperation should be reminded of this unfinished business. Of what use is globalization to the embattled Palestinians? To the human flotsam caught in the wars of Africa? To the despairing people of Kashmir?

Plutarch said long ago that conquerors were always lovers of peace: they liked to enter your cities unopposed. Israel is a lover of peace: it would like the Palestinians to accept meekly the terms of conquest imposed upon them. The comparison with India-in-Kashmir I would not like to make because coupling Israel and India in the same breath is grist to the mills of the hate-India lobby in Pakistan. There is already too much dust (and resulting confusion) swirling in the atmosphere. We can all do without contrived or manufactured hatred.

But as an aside, let us bear witness to the new imperialism. The cold war was an affair of West and East. But the Rome and Carthage of the 20th century imposed their mutual hostility upon the rest of the planet. Now that the nature of the game has changed, a new set of values, without regard to individual differences, is again being imposed from above. The gospel changes; the commandments undergo a revision. But the fury of the reigning prophets remains the same.

India and Pakistan must settle their differences by themselves, on their own terms, and not as a result of outside prodding. India is right in this, and Pakistan wrong. The Pakistani craving for outside mediation or any other forms of intervention in the settlement of the Kashmir dispute is evidence of weakness and intellectual confusion. For it is tantamount to saying that on our own we are helpless and must count on the favour of friends for a favourable outcome in Kashmir.

There are two problems with this approach. Firstly, if our own means be insufficient, why should the world (or the US) give us a free lunch in Kashmir? Weakness on the ground cannot be turned to victory at the negotiating table. Secondly, if someone else brokers a deal the terms of it will still favour the stronger party. The Camp David and Oslo Accords are not exercises in justice. They hold up a mirror to reality and as such they come with qualifications attached. Egypt got back the Sinai as a result of the Camp David Accords but in return agreed to castration at American hands. It still has a powerful military but this military can fight Libya or Sudan, not Israel. Camp David saw to this.

Pakistan's on-off fascination with the idea of outside intervention in Kashmir is thus based on naive foundations. It is also reflective of adolescent diplomacy. Just because we feel something will go down ill in India we raise it as a policy option.

True, the UN resolutions on which our Kashmir case rests are emblems of multilateralism. Nor is there any reason for us to ditch this concept. But at the same time it would not hurt us to remember that if ever a halfway solution of the Kashmir issue is struck it will be through the collective wisdom of India and Pakistan, not through any outside agency. The Simla Accord was meant to be a victor's document but its insistence on bilateralism as the vehicle for settling Indo-Pakistan disputes is not misplaced. Only a fool would extrapolate from this that we should stop airing our concerns on Kashmir to a worldwide audience. But public relations is one thing, working towards a solution quite another.

Sure, size and economic clout give India the advantage at any bilateral table. How to correct this inherent imbalance? This was Pakistan's strategic problem in the wake of defeat in the '71 war and the Simla Accord which soon followed. For close on 17 years - that is, from 1972 to 1989 - Pakistan stopped making even ritualistic noises about Kashmir. That was India's historic chance to settle with the Kashmiri people and bring them closer into the Indian Union. But it bungled the opportunity and is paying the price of failure ever since. When India ruefully contemplates the wreck of its efforts in Kashmir, it should take time out from blaming Pakistan (and the ISI) and ponder a bit over its own lapses.

India's loss was Pakistan's gain. The moment Kashmiri Muslims rose against Indian rule, the scales of bilateralism, hitherto tilted against Pakistan, were restored to a semblance of balance. From the shadows where the Kashmir dispute had lain for full 17 years it emerged once more into the light. A strategic error once committed cannot be corrected by piecemeal measures. India has responded to the freedom uprising in Kashmir by force and repression and not the tools of imagination. Therein lies its continuing failure. As for Pakistan, it has merely manipulated the lever placed into its hands by a combination of Indian folly and Kashmiri discontent. In its crucible of dirty tricks it did not forge the lever in the first place.

The fact that the roots of the Kashmir uprising lie within Kashmir also accounts for the ultimate failure of the propaganda blitz mounted by India over the issue of "cross-border terrorism". It brought India handsome dividends, and Pakistan no small embarrassment, while it lasted. But it could not erase the facts on the ground. Heaping embarrassment on Pakistan could not by itself put an end to the armed struggle. Hence the change of tack which is less a concession to Pakistan than an acknowledgement of reality.

None of this is cause for Pakistan to gloat over. Whatever India's compulsions, it is in Pakistan's interests too to walk, in Mr Vajpayee's evocative phrase, the high road of peace. Resources poured into militarization and such follies as the sub-continent's nuclear race are resources taken away from social and economic development. We need quiet and tension-free borders much as India does. Will the Kashmir uprising last into eternity? What if it peters out? What will balance the bilateral scales then?

For a true equilibrium in the subcontinent, our universities and colleges must hold their own against India's; our scholars should be of the highest quality; our research institutions the envy of the East; our maestros the finest exponents of subcontinental music; our skill at technology the best in the region; our agriculture the feeding source of countries near and far; and Lahore's famed Hira Mandi, now sadly going to pot, the hottest international destination between Singapore and the Suez Canal.

With inner strength comes outward grace. On Kashmir we must stand firm without feeling the need to protest too much, the very consciousness of fortitude allowing us to speak with a softer tongue. In this context, there is no harm in admitting that the Indian invitation to General Musharraf was more sensitively worded than our response which had the wooden imprint of the foreign office all over it. When will we learn the more subtle use of words?

The challenge for both countries is to realize their limitations. Pakistan cannot win Kashmir by force, India cannot browbeat Pakistan through a mix of swagger and misplaced snobbery. In any true negotiations both sides will have to give something, retreat a bit from their dog-eared positions. Not that a solution to their problems is around the corner. It is foolish even to think on these lines. But both countries will have registered a major advance if they can learn the art of conversing with each other without making a sticking-point of every quibble or comma.

The scope for miracles when Musharraf and Vajpayee meet is thus out. But if the two leaders can lay the basis of a politer discourse in the subcontinent - a discourse free of the hectoring and finger-pointing which seems part of our common inheritance they will have done their bit by history.