He was speaking at the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy in a local hotel.
There are ways for restoration of peace in the region but all these lead to compromises. Leadership on both sides of the border would be dubbed as traitors if they tried to solve the problem based on compromises, he feared.
The forum was also attended by Indian delegates, comprising Irfan Engineer, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Dr P.M. Kamath and Yogesh V. Kamdar.
At the moment, Mr Bhandara added, both the countries lacked strong leadership to deliver a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem, adding that there was a need for strong governments in both the countries.
About the Indo-China agreement, he said both the countries had declared their border as a “tranquil line” after reaching an agreement on the level of military deployment on the border. After this agreement, he said, no border skirmish had ever been reported and it was being claimed that India and China were nearing another peace agreement. “Mr Vajpayee is leaving for Beijing in about two weeks in this regard,” he added.
The Indian delegates were of the view that both the countries considered Kashmir as a real estate. “Powerful vested interest exist in Pakistan and India which thrive on hatred and, therefore, there is a need to respond to these elements through people-to-people talks, seminars, meetings, articles, pamphlets, etc.”
They said that the persistent tense environment in the region was electrified after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee offered a hand of friendship to Pakistan. “The biggest obstruction which has always hampered the people of the two countries to think about their future is the obsession with their over 5000-year-old civilizations.
Both the peoples remained attached to the incident of Babri Mosques and now the Agra summit has become the biggest obsession, they remarked.
They said the readiness of both the countries to come to the negotiating table was an outcome of the arm-twisting exercised by the US.