"History has been made," declared a visibly jubilant President-General Musharraf after the issuance of the joint Indo-Pak statement on the sidelines of the 12th Saarc summit. He was right. History has indeed been made but not perhaps in the sense he seemed to imply.

For what Pakistan has agreed is to bid a last farewell to jihad in Kashmir: the final curtains drawn on the blood and iron of 15 years of history.

Any doubts on this score should disappear with these words from the Joint Statement: "Prime Minister (Atal Behari) Vajpayee said that in order to take forward and sustain the dialogue process, violence, hostility and terrorism must be prevented. President (Pervez) Musharraf reassured Prime Minister Vajpayee that he will not permit any territory under Pakistan's control to be used to support terrorism in any manner."

No reference to brutality and repression in occupied Kashmir, only the damning acknowledgement, even if implied, that support for terrorism was coming from Pakistan. For all the care taken of Pakistani concerns, this could have been a statement drafted in the office of Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee's National Security Adviser.

For 15 years we defined the uprising in occupied Kashmir as an indigenous freedom struggle. Now a Pakistani ruler has put that struggle squarely in the locker of terrorism. We should forgive the Kashmiris if they feel a bit like the Taliban whom we once supported and then threw to the wolves. If they utter the dread word "sellout", what do we say?

Historic compromises can be forgiven if you get something in return. What is Pakistan getting? Merely a resumption of a "composite dialogue". No wonder Pakistan's quasi-military government is frantically trying to spread the impression that the mere announcement of talks somehow heralds a breakthrough.

Time was when Pakistan scoffed at the notion of mere talks, convinced that in Indian hands this was an instrument of delay to put Kashmir on the backburner. Thanks to military diplomacy, we are now reduced to the position of appearing ecstatic just at the prospect of talks, regardless of where they lead or what an arduous trek through the Himalayas they promise to be.

Gen Musharraf says he was disappointed after Agra but is now a happy man. If memory serves, the mood in the Pakistani camp was triumphant after Agra, as if Pakistan by harping on Kashmir had somehow scored a victory over India. Chastened, we now seem grateful for small mercies.

Coming to the all-important question of whether a peaceful relationship with India is good for Pakistan, a thousand times, yes. Was jihad in Kashmir a sustainable and sensible policy? A thousand times, no. Then isn't Gen Musharraf on the right course, doing the right thing?

He is. The only thing is he could have embarked on this journey much sooner and with less loss of face for Pakistan. What Pakistan has undergone under his stewardship is the ordeal of the hundred onions: getting the worst of all worlds and doing the right thing not under own steam but under external pressure. The conclusions he has now been forced to draw should have been drawn voluntarily soon after September 11, without wasting the intervening two years in puerile posturing.

Pakistan was better placed to talk to India in February 1999 when Vajpayee made his bus trip to Lahore. Although jihadi activity in occupied Kashmir was going on, in the Lahore Declaration signed by Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan came under no pressure to make any unilateral commitment about not supporting terrorism. What was agreed to in Lahore could have been the basis of a fresh start, but the mood generated then was soon destroyed by Kargil.

Agra was an opportunity to bury Kargil and lay the basis for another start. After all, to overcome the distrust of Kargil it was in Pakistan's interest to go the extra mile to win some kind of agreement for the resumption of a dialogue. But Agra was sacrificed to our grandstanding on Kashmir.

In the wake of September 11, Musharraf and his generals thought that by allying themselves with the Americans they were outsmarting India and protecting Kashmir policy (aka jihad). They stood disabused of this notion when following the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001 America put pressure on Pakistan to end jihad in Kashmir.

Appearing on television in January 2002, Musharraf vowed to curb religious extremism. But the Americans weren't satisfied and through such interlocutors as Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage kept up the pressure.

In June Musharraf had to make another speech condemning religious extremism. But even then indications suggested that the military government thought it could have it both ways: ride with the Americans and run with the jihadis.

By 2003 this policy had become unsustainable. It was making no one happy: not the Americans, not the Indians, not the jihadis. We had boxed ourselves into a corner and there seemed to be no way out. When Vajpayee announced his peace initiative in Srinagar on April 18, more a statement of intent than anything concrete, Pakistan responded with an almost audible sigh of relief.

Since then India has retained the initiative on the diplomatic front. In the run-up to the Saarc summit the concessions came from Pakistan: ceasefire along the Line of Control and Musharraf's declaration that Pakistan was ready to set aside the UN resolutions as a basis for a Kashmir settlement.

Playing the triumphant prima donna, India first made a great mystery about whether Vajpayee would come to the summit at all. Then it played James Bond with the notion of whether Vajpayee would meet Musharraf in a one-to-one meeting. So successful was this Indian ploy that when Vajpayee eventually got to making a call on Musharraf the media treated it as a huge event, as if the very act of agreeing to such a meeting was a great concession from the Indian side.

It is safe to assume that for domestic and external reasons the Indians wanted a resumption of the 'composite dialogue' as badly as we did. Whether Vajpayee wants to go down in history as a peacemaker, his peace stance towards Pakistan has reinforced his image at home as a statesman. It has also generated a "feel good" factor across India, strengthening the BJP's chances in the general elections this year.

Ostensibly then there was no need for Pakistan to panic. But everything about the Pakistani posture prior to and even during the summit suggested as if Pakistan would go into a swoon if India didn't agree to the resumption of talks. Thus it's hardly surprising that even in the Joint Statement Pakistan has ended up making huge concession: the commitment not to support "terrorism". You don't need a hi-tech computer to figure out what this means.

Is the irony lost on anyone that when the Pakistan military flexed its muscles in Kargil in 1999, it handed the BJP an election victory and now when it is playing the peace card it is all set to contribute to another BJP victory? At this rate the BJP would be eager to see the Pakistan military in power forever.

Pakistan should have been for peace with India long ago. Musharraf, instead of being gung-ho about India when he seized power, should have tried to repair the relationship damaged because of his very own baby, Kargil. But he was riding a high horse then and sporting a tough look. Now of course from supping with the lions we have come down to drinking tepid water with the goats. And the smile on Indian faces is wider than it has ever been this side of 1971.

We have seen our military heroes make war. We have now seen them make peace. It is a moot point what is more petrifying: their talent for war or their peace strategy?