For close to a year, official moves have tended to place a premium on interfacing with organisations and individuals on both sides of the divide in Kashmir-- jehadis mostly--whose stated aim is to effect a second Partition of the subcontinent this time in Jammu and Kashmir. Traditional entities participating in the country's established political process in Kashmir have naturally felt left out as a consequences. Since Pakistan's past--and the past of its relations with India--have a close bearing on the context in Kashmir, the current effusion in diplomatic as well as back-channel traffic in respect of India and Pakistan seeds to be weighed in the light of experience.

Despairing of a 'solution' emerging from the battlefield, in recent years Pakistan has embarked on 'a war of a thousand cuts'--to use the expressive formulation coined by Islamabad's military establishment and its cohorts--in order to bleed this country into surrendering Kashmir through sustained low-intensity conflict. The Indian response has been one of 'a thousand dressings', as senior official once privately put it.

However, bumbling this may have appeared to be, it was adequate enough in its own humble way. It obliged all the macho meant the helm in Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq downward, to seek dialogue and face-saving accommodation with this country even as they abelted terrorist jehad against it.

In the main, this was because the Pakistani State had itself begun to suffer grievously from 'aggression fatigue'. Thus, instead of making Indian pay an unacceptability high price for retaining Kashmir (which came about through a happy configuration of history, cultural linkages and the attempt to weave the political thread of democracy), in course of time Islamabad itself came to feel the heat of trying to keep New Delhi on the run.

Pakistan's dilemma was, indeed, acute. On the one hand, a State founded on a purely communal basis found it impossible not to push for Muslim Kashmir's integration with itself. This meant disregarding the historical terms of Partition, namely, that only territories of British India, and on of the Princely States such as Jammu and Kashmir, were to be divided on the sectarian religious principle. But, equally, it was impossible for this urge to reach fruition, given Pakistan's long-term economic, social and political crises which even today threaten to unravel its fundamental organising principles.

General Pervez Musharraf inherits Pakistan's frightening dilemmas in as great a measure as any of his recent predecessors did. Indeed, he may be worse off than them in some respect, although, to be fair, this situation is not all of his own making. By now Pakistan's political institutions look comatose. Its economy literally breathes from day to day, and gasps for foreign aid.

Much of its civil society has plunged into medieval chaos, thanks to the pervasive jehadi stranglehold on the system. Modernizing influences have long had their day, and the impetus of democracy has all but run aground. Even the Pakistan army, that pride of institutions, has had its vitals eaten into by an over-exposure to politics, and through the sustained diet of the 'holy warrior' ideology.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Pakistan is sitting on a tinder box. At the best of times it has found itself unable or unwilling to honour Kashmir or border (ceasefire line/LoC) related agreements made with India. The record speaks for itself. Just look at the events leading up to the 1965 fighting, the Simla Pact, the Lahore agreement, and the Kargil intrusion--not to mention the breaching in 1947 of the Standstill Agreement made with Maharaja Hari Singh.

In the circumstances, how realistic is it to expect that today's Pakistan is any better placed to observe agreements that may be made following the dialogue that it so loudly seeks? 

Pakistan's reason for not adhering to commitments is quite simply this--it would not counterance anything less than the detaching of Kashmir from India, whatever may be the Valley's subsequent fate. Given this background, there can be little assurance that General Musharraf, presiding over an especially messy situation, can make a steady interlocutor, even if his intentions are deemed to be peaceable.

In the circumstances, it is nothing if not extraordinary that the Indian government should have invested so much in the relationship with Pakistan--via direct or indirect talks with the multifarious mujahideen groups and through the agency of US based personalities of Pakistan or Kashmir origin. It is also noteworthy that the contacts were established when the members of Kargil had barely died down, and were kept up even as the government officially declared right through this period that dialogue with Pakistan cannot commence unless cross-border terrorism was ended.

What is more, whenever the unofficial interaction--which cannot occur without official sanction--seemed to be at risk of floundering on account of stepped-up terrorist violence and killings, it was sought to be boosted by appropriate pronouncements from the top. This turned out to be the case with Prime Minister Vajpayee's musings wherein he promised to meet the Pakistan dictator anywhere, any time, if jehadi terror ceased.

This once again revived hopes of official dialogue being opened, possibly in the not too distant future. The pattern so far is clearly indicative of an inexplicableanxiety on India's part that the momentum of back-channel contacts not be lost. The recent massacre of the Sikhs in the Valley appears to have done little to stem this sentiment. When transparency is a casualty, it is difficult to fathom the government's objectives.

But whatever its aims in dealing with terrorist groups and their political representatives--or indeed Pakistan officially--it needs to be clearly understood that the fulcrum of these exchanges is the Pakistani belief that if there is any giving to be done, it must be done by India (though this is not openly asserted). The exchanges would automatically collapse if India were to make it internationally clear that it does not plan to part with anymore territory than it already has in 1947-48, signified by the establishing of Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

The alternative of accepting the LoC as the international boundary was adumbrated at Simla, though neither side is as yet in a position to openly canvass the idea. But Kargil has decisively shown that this is not a solution palatable to Pakistan. Ordinarily, for India, then, this should have been a moment to mark time or to be developing practicable negotiating positions without fanfare, rather than engage in advertising dialogue-oriented gestures.

Internally, within Jammu and Kashmir, India can easily hold its own as the incredible support for the panchayat elections recently showed. But despite this hugely favourable factor working in its favour, the political class is deeply worried that the government has given in to entertaining some astounding ideas on the back-channel networks.

These are said to include variants to the so-called Chenab solution'. One of these visualizes the combining of all Muslim-majority areas of Jammu and Kashmir on the India side, including, the Shia-dominated Kargil district, with Pakistan's northern areas (the old Gilgit Agency), and setting up this entity as an independent state with soft borders with both India and Pakistan. Whatever the direction of the back-chennelwork, the government owes it to the country to disclaim endorsement of any proposals to sort out the Kashmir issue that may involve another partition.