When General Pervez Musharraf landed in Delhi, ostensibly to watch cricket, he had a choice of tactics when it came to negotiating with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the diplomatic field. The Pakistan President could have launched into an essay as devastating as Shahid Afridi's 45-ball hundred in Kanpur. But he had played that kind of innings in Agra in 2001 when A.B. Vajpayee was prime minister and had gone back the loser. Five years later, with the experience of many such tests, Musharraf adopted a style more akin to that of Pakistan's captain Inzamam-ul-Haq. Some of the bluntness and aggression remained but there was a willingness to go the distance and play with a finesse that charmed India.

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MEETING OF MINDS: Musharraf with Manmohan

This time round the General was handsomely rewarded. There was a joint statement at the end of the visit that outlined a slew of initiatives that would inject into the peace process a new sense of urgency. It included a major Indian proposal to soften borders by having greater interaction across the loc, by starting more bus services and even trade links between the two Kashmirs. For Musharraf, there was the commitment from India to address the Kashmir issue "in a sincere, purposeful and forward-looking manner for a final settlement". Shorn of the jargon, it signalled India's willingness to put Kashmir on the front-burner of the negotiation process.

A good augury was the rapport and the trust Musharraf and Manmohan seemed to have developed. Despite several meetings the personal chemistry between Vajpayee and the General was, according to an insider, "near zero". Naturally garrulous, Musharraf could rarely understand the former prime minister's long silences and felt like an errant schoolboy in front of the wise old man of Indian politics. In contrast, Manmohan and Musharraf share a refreshing bluntness and candour in their dealings. Manmohan's honesty, sincerity and scholarly approach appear to have convinced Musharraf that the new dispensation ruling India was capable of coming up with bold proposals. "We have the gravest responsibility to ensure that the peace process does not go off-track. I got a clear sense that we both understand this very well and that is our hope," Musharraf told a close aide soon after his one-on-one meeting with Manmohan. On his part, Manmohan said of Musharraf: "He was frank, forthright and forward looking. We have a leader we can do business with." Yet, even as the General winged his way to Manila before returning to Islamabad, the big question being asked in India is: Has the General really changed on key issues?

Has he changed on Kashmir?
YES    NO    MAYBE

If the answer is an unequivocal yes it is largely because Musharraf surprised everyone even before he landed by endorsing the Indian approach of having "soft borders" on the loc. In his meeting with Manmohan, he talked of not just buses plying but also trucks, indicating that Pakistan was willing to look at permitting trade between the two Kashmirs. He even agreed to have meeting points on the loc for divided families apart from allowing pilgrimages and cultural interaction. This was a definite shift from the earlier cautious approach by Pakistan, with neither Musharraf nor his Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz going to Muzaffarabad to see off the first bus service. With Manmohan and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi flagging off the bus from Srinagar, despite the attack on the Tourist Reception Centre the day before, India had for once read the mood of the Kashmiris right. The joyful scenes of reunion seemed to have changed the mindset of Pakistan's leaders.

FLIPFLOP ON KASHMIR

"If we have to hold a dialogue with India, it will have to be on the Kashmir dispute first." JANUARY 10, 2000 "There cannot be a rigid time frame to sort out Kashmir. But it can't be indefinite too." APRIL 18, 2005

By allowing greater social and economic interaction between the two Kashmirs, both Manmohan and Musharraf were boldly entering uncharted territory. They hold a shared belief that soft borders would build on the trust factor between the two countries and help them in dealing with the so-called "core issue" of Kashmir. But the criticism from Pakistan's hardliners came in fast and furious. "Unless Kashmir, which is the real bone of contention, is resolved, the peace process cannot be sustained," wrote The Nation, a hawkish Punjab-based newspaper. Pakistan's religious alliance, the MMA, lambasted the summit in Delhi as a "national humiliation". Part of the problem, they say, is that despite joint statements and lofty descriptions of Jammu and Kashmir discussions moving towards "a final settlement", President Musharraf has little to show in real terms.

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AGAINST ODDS: Terrorists tried to mar the Srinagar bus service

Nor has Islamabad's suggestion to involve the leaders of the two factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) in the talks process evoked a positive response from Delhi. Some of the Kashmiri leaders who met Musharraf in Delhi too pointed out that the talks between the two countries continued to skirt the most contentious areas in the Kashmir dispute. "You are moving too fast, without any quid pro quos, and there is an impression that Delhi is being bailed out," Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, told Musharraf. Hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, chairman of one faction of the APHC, was pugnacious, and got Musharraf's goat by questioning the very basis of the engagement with India. "The opposition would never give me credit for anything; they cannot bear that I have laid the foundation for what everyone thought was impossible," a visibly irritated Musharraf told the Pakistani media.

And predictably so, because for the Pakistan President too much is at stake in sustaining the dialogue even if he frankly admits that progress on Kashmir remains low on the list of public diplomacy gains. "He truly believes that Pakistan's biggest diplomatic challenge in the post-9/11 world is to refashion its image as a responsible member of the international community which uses dialogue as means to settle border disputes," says a close aide of Musharraf. The General candidly admitted in Delhi: "The military option is not an option any more. Now is the time for conflict resolution." Also, the General has calculated that engagement with India is the best way to address the image issue. A western diplomat in Islamabad observes: "By not linking the dialogue with India to the settlement of the Kashmir issue he has at once won acclaim abroad and lessened regional tensions. That is quite remarkable for a general in uniform whose chief scientist has admitted to running a global network of nuclear proliferation." No doubt.

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