March 1, 1999

As the bus carrying Atal Bihari Vajpayee rolled over the border into Pakistan, the two neighbouring countries crossed a time warp.

By Swapan Dasgupta and Harinder Baweja in Lahore

It took exactly 30 seconds for the deep golden luxury coach to roll across the two iron gates at Wagah that mark Sir Cyril Radcliffe's line, the divide between the two Punjabs and the border between India and Pakistan. Before the 100 or so schoolchildren waving the tricolour flags could break into an applause and before the colourfully-attired bhangra dancers could get into their stride, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in Pakistan on February 20 shaking Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's hand.

In 30 seconds Vajpayee crossed a time zone and gained 30 minutes. For the two countries, however, the gain was more tangible. India and Pakistan, which nine months ago seemed to be on the verge of triggering a nuclear arms race in South Asia, had crossed a time warp. Instead of barking at each other, they were embracing each other. The artillery, far from targeting each other, was letting off a 21-gun salute. It was, as Vajpayee said in his arrival statement, a "defining moment". A moment that could, given time, patience, statesmanship and a little bit of luck, go down in history as an event comparable to Richard Nixon's flight to China and Anwar Sadat's embrace of Menachem Begin.

The carnival atmosphere at Wagah -- separating what a luminous sign declared was "India the largest democracy on the earth" from the "other" -- was redolent with emotion and symbolism. The Pakistan Rangers and Indian Border Security Force coordinated their stomping of boots and yanking of gates, the bhangra dancers swayed in the two-metre no-man's-land after the Pakistani band had burst into an incongruous rendering of Cherry Paint and facing up to 39 TV cameras and 300 journalists filmstar Dev Anand quite forgot this was a prime ministerial visit not a preview of another Des Pardes. Vajpayee brought shawls for Begum Sharif and topped it up with a collection of laser discs of old Hindi films, including Mughal-e-Azam and Pakeezah. He even brought his daughter Namita dressed in a resplendent Orissa silk sari, son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya and grandaughter Niharika. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal brought a bagful of high-yielding wheat seeds and the villagers of Jati Umra, in India's Punjab, offered special prayers for the success of the visit.

It was heady, so heady that the 22-member Eminent Persons' Group (EPG), mostly Punjabi and Urdu speaking, on the inaugural Delhi-Lahore bus quite overlooked the downed shutters of traders observing a hartal called by the Jamaat-e-Islami. "We will not let Vajpayee walk the streets of Lahore," Jamaat chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad had warned. He nearly succeeded when his rampaging cadres smashed cars outside Lahore Fort, delayed the state banquet for Vajpayee by two hours and prevented ambassadors of nearly 20 countries from attending the function.

Not that the two prime ministers were impervious to the minefields in the path of a grand rapprochement. Vajpayee's itinerary was carefully planned to strike the right note in both countries. If the visit to the samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh -- whose kingdom, Rajiv Gandhi once reminded Khalistanis, was run from Lahore -- touched Sikhs back home, far more audacious was the morning visit to the 60-metre high Eiffel Tower-clone Minar-e-Pakistan. It was from that spot in 1940 that Fazlul Huq, with Mohammed Ali Jinnah by his side, moved the Pakistan Resolution at the All India Muslim League session. That was the end of united India. Now, a prime minister nurtured on a diet of Akhand Bharat was openly disavowing irredentism. Little wonder then that there is a feeling in the ruling Muslim League that an enduring settlement with India can only happen under a BJP regime.

Of course, there were limits to easing the burden of history. A planned visit to the Badshahi mosque built by Aurangzeb near Lahore Fort was shot down by the Indian side for two reasons. First because there was a hint that some Pakistanis would project it as Vajpayee's way of atoning for the Babri Masjid destruction. Second because that particular mosque has disconcerting associations for a section of the Sangh Parivar.

It was a small irritant that was easily glossed over in the euphoria of the moment. Sharif left no stone unturned to shower hospitality and demonstrate his sincerity. He got the three military chiefs to call on the visitor despite objections from some hotheads and even acknowledged, somewhat belatedly, the advisability of a Vajpayee meeting with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Departing from convention for the second time -- the first occasion was during a visit by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia -- the venue of the state banquet for Vajpayee was also shifted from the Governor's House -- where he was a state guest -- to Lahore Fort. Having remarked to Sharif on the previous occasion they met in New York, "aap ki cheeni khate hain, bahut meethi hai (I have tasted your sugar, it's very sweet)", he responded to the gesture with characteristic syrupiness. He even welcomed, in recognition of the host's compulsions, "sustained discussions on all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir".

It could hardly have been otherwise. For Vajpayee and his 16-member delegation the bus journey to Pakistan was a win-win affair. At one level he ingratiated himself with the votaries of Track-II diplomacy who went gush-gush over the delights of being in Lahore. That the EPG was included at the last minute following a special request from the Pakistani side last Tuesday is a matter of detail. But there was something more tangible. Vajpayee returned with a bagful of nuclear confidence-building measures (CBM), negotiated by Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra in the wee hours before the bus journey, that should impress upon a nervous West that India and Pakistan aren't going to start a nuclear war either by accident or design. Even if India couldn't accede to a formal agreement on a bilateral moratorium -- because there is a giant called China lurking across the Himalayas -- the two sides readily agreed to take each other into confidence on military exercises and further missile tests. Vajpayee and Sharif have laid the foundations of a common strategic restraint doctrine. This will have enormous bearing on India's continuing negotiations with the US.

Actually, Sharif and Vajpayee have adroitly succeeded in confusing the world's supercop. There is no doubt Washington put pressure on both sides to jaw-jaw their way into some understanding. But the magnitude of the offensive was sharply different. Says Friday Times editor Najam Sethi: "Sharif's compulsions are 70 per cent US, Vajpayee's is 30 per cent." Under the circumstances, Sharif has probably won himself a small respite from the West and can proceed with a little more reassurance on an economic bail-out package, whereas Vajpayee can afford to show a little more muscle in future CTBT negotiations. Says a senior Indian official: "The Americans won't be unhappy, but they won't be happy either. We've tacitly undermined their emerging third-party status." Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, for whom Sahrif had a special handshake at Wagah, said as much before proceeding for Pakistan."We don't need interpreters. We speak the same language."

American pressure is, however, just one of Sharif's worries. The more immediate problem is sugar-coating a grudging realisation that the status quo in Jammu and Kashmir isn't going to change in the immediate future. India and Pakistan may continue talking till the cows come home but azadi remains as much of a pipedream now as it was before Vajpayee crossed Wagah. Even if the Hurriyat Conference leadership is assured by Pakistani High Commissioner in Delhi Ashraf Jehangir Qazi that nothing really has changed. Sharif, for example, encouraged Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz to suggest in the course of official briefings preceding the visit that "settlement of the Kashmir issue will be accorded the highest priority".

Raising the "core" issue like a mantra is actually Sharif's way of ingratiating himself with both the army and the wider political establishment. Despite a more compliant chief, the army hasn't fully got over the humiliation of General Jehangir Karamat's resignation and the dismissal of the naval chief for corruption. Says a senior journalist: "The Jamaat has the tacit support of the army. It is the street-fighting wing of the Pakistani establishment."

That, in a sense, is half of Sharif's problems. He won the February 1997 election promising to improve relations with India. But to achieve that he has had to wage a dogged battle to put civilian authority on top. It doesn't help matters that he is confronted with a sharply divided establishment. Unlike Benazir who ensured that every contentious placard and banner on Kashmir was hidden from view when Rajiv came calling in 1988, Sharif is more inhibited. The pillars of Pakistani society may not like the crudeness of the Jamaat's methods or its exaggerated religious rhetoric but there is some endorsement of its limited agenda. The hawks in Pakistan have, for example, pretty successfully sold the pup that the Pokhran tests were a flop and that India will test again. Then there is also a belief in Pakistan that missile technology actually favours them over India and that Vajpayee's visit stems from a devious Brahmanical ploy to nullify that advantage.

It is in the face of these formidable hurdles that cricket diplomacy has worked wonders. Bal Thackeray's climbdown in the face of Vajpayee's insistence that the tour must proceed and the standing ovation Wasim Akram's men received in Chennai have put Indo-Pakistan relations on a new high. The bottle throwing in Calcutta did inject a sour note but, overall, Vajpayee has emerged as the great new hope -- the poet whose collection Jang na hone denge in Urdu was released with some fanfare last Friday. Says former Pakistan foreign secretary Tanvir Ahmad Khan: "Thackeray by taking a harsher position immediately made Vajpayee seem moderate and liberal. He released the anger that was locked up after L.K. Advani's hot pursuit statement last May after the nuclear tests." For most Pakistanis, apart from the voluble set around the bazaars, Thackeray is the Indian counterpart of Jamaat's Ahmad.

The juxtaposition serves a valuable end. The initial suspicions of a BJP Government that reached hysterical heights last may have disappeared. What has replaced it is high, unreal expectations of the type that greeted Lahore's very own I.K. Gujral's unexpected elevation as prime minister in 1997. Says Information Minister Mushahid Hussain, "Vajpayee has shown more moral courage than Gujral." In coming to the city of Kim with just the right mix of celebrities he certainly has. This has made him popular and the popularity is bound to rub off domestically.

For the moment, Sharif is also riding the crest of a changed mood. Kashmir has not been forgotten, as the innumerable JKLF placards dotting Lahore testify. Nor has Vajpayee forgotten ISI-inspired terrorism. Although reciprocating Sharif's hospitality, he has put the Home Ministry's white paper on hold. But these issues are no longer seen as insurmountable vetos. In the rarefied atmosphere of Aitchison College -- a sprawling public school where they offer A levels and the prep school principal is a true blue Briton -- the talk is of the school cricket team visiting India again.

The Aitchison boys represent the new generation, the generation for whom India is a neighbouring country but not their country. Just like Lahore is a city for those whose grandparents left their properties and made the painful trudge to the refugee camps in 1947. It's another generation united by a common go-getting attitude. They belong to a self-confident India and Pakistan who have transcended history and hate. In his own tentative way, Sharif captured the moment. Says his information minister: "India should consider itself lucky that Sharif is not a run-of-the-mill politician."

He may not be but he has to fight run-of-the-mill political battles. Just like Vajpayee has to in order to survive as prime minister of a fragile coalition. Now beleaguered at home, both prime ministers have reached out to the other. "We have," the Viceroy Lord Curzon wrote a century ago, "blundered into some of our greatest triumphs." As iron gates of the Wagah border closed on the bus, this is a thought that must have been engaging the minds of the new architects of a new beginning.

-- with Ramesh Vinayak at Wagah

From Breakdown to Détente & Entente Cordiale

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