NO OTHER CHOICE ESSAY ENGLISH
The spirit of the moment at times is more important than the actual outcome of events that seek to change history. The minutiae of the Lahore declaration and the related documents apart, the significance of Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Pakistan is certainly much more than symbolic.
What was achieved at Lahore by the two Prime Ministers cannot be underestimated even by those given to chronic cynicism. Mr Vajpayee and Mr Nawaz Sharif may not have resolved any outstanding dispute but they have ventured out to bring down by some levels barriers of suspicion and bitterness.
In itself it is not a mean achievement. Followed up with sincerity and a sense of mission, not only durable peace can be ensured on the subcontinent but also friendship between the two countries. Both Prime Minister have had their reasons for undertaking an unusual route for beginning the dialogue.
Mr Vajpayee has a sense of history and wants to achieve something in his tenure which cannot be too long, considering that his party does not enjoy a majority in Parliament. Why not do something early enough for which he would be remembered?
Nuclear explosions in May and peace-making with Pakistan nine months later, for instance. Mr Vajpayee perhaps has come to believe that the quality of a tenure is more important than the length of it.
There is also a sense of visual in his approach, there cannot be more dramatic events than the nuclear blasts at Pokhran or crossing the Wagah border in a bus to be received by Nawaz Sharif for going deep in to the nation's memory.
Mr Vajpayee had his own compulsions at home to do something in the foreign policy sphere. As Prime Minister he cannot be enjoying dealing with moody allies who are all the time threatening to pull out of the coalition government.
Nor can be be relishing the pulls and pressures the Sangh parivar has been exercising on him to deny him the feel of being a Prime Minister. Many a decision has been thrust upon him; many a policy decided him had to be rolled back, reflecting on his government and leadership.
Hemmed in from different sides, Mr Vajpayee tried to carve out a space for action for himself- at Pokhran in May and by crossing the Wagah border in February. Mr Nawaz Sharif had his own compulsions. Although he enjoys an
overwhelming majority in the National Assembly, he is no less besieged knowing fully well that a Prime Minister in Pakistan does not have a free hand in experimenting with an India policy. It was easier for Mr Vajpayee to cross the border with a band and Bhangra than for Mr Nawaz Sharif to have received him.
Even if Mr Vajpayee has the Thackerays and Ashok Singhals at home to contend with, Mr Vajpayee understood the mood of most of the people in India who have neither time nor the inclination to live in tension with Pakistan.
Mr Nawaz Sharif's task was more difficult. He has the fundamentalists, the fanatics, the Jamat-e-Islami and the like who have over the years built their constituencies on hatred for India. He has had always to contend with armed forces and the ISI which have been raised keeping none else bu. India in focus of their attention.
In India it is fringe elements who would oppose a bid for peace with Pakistan, in Pakistan there are too many people who would be out to scuttle any move Mr Nawaz Sharif might make towards peace with India.
No wonder 25 people were killed in the Rajouri sector on the eve of Mr Vajpayee's visit to Pakistan, or there were protests and some violence in Lahore the day he was there. Spoilers were at work. There were also no differences within the Vajpayee government on the attempt to promote peace with Pakistan.
The Indian Army is not opposed to it, nor can it be in India where, unlike in Pakistan, the principle of supremacy of the civilian government to lay down a policy is well-established. Mr Nawaz Sharif is playing on a more difficult turf but, like Mr Vajpayee, he too wants to do something to remember during his tenure, long or short.
Mr Nawaz Sharif has had other compulsions to start a dialogue with India. Pakistan is caught badly in an economic crisis. Inflation is high, and the country is too deep in debt to be able to breathe freely. An opening with India can help not only in doing buying and selling with India, but also by creating a better impression with well-wishers in the West to get help aid and investment.
Apart from the futility of living with tension or the leaders' keenness to do something which the two countries can cherish, the nuclear blasts by both India and Pakistan have significantly changed the situation forcing them to have another look at old mindsets.
I nothing else the nuclear blasts at Pokhran and Chagai have brought home to the two countries the point that they can no longer afford to settle their argument by a war. Simply, it can destroy both countries.
Nuclear explosions have given a sense of security to Pakistan, possibly a feeling of parity in deterrence to the country which for no reason has never felt secure in 50 years. From India's point of view, Pakistan enjoying a sense of security from India is itself a gain.
Many in Pakistan have tended to believe wrongly of course that India wants to undo the partition of the subcontinent. This could be in Mr Vajpayee's mind when he brushed aside the advice that he should not visit Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore where a resolution was passed in 1940 for the creation of Pakistan hat a leader of a party which not long ago believed in Akhand Bharat should at the same spot assure his bosts that India wanted a stable and prosperous Pakistan is more significant in spirit than the contents of the Labore declaration.
What ever the inspirations or compulsions, the declaration is a gain for both India and Pakistan. It tends to rule out war from the subcontinent which has seen a war every few years. It has laid a basis for a specific nuclrar dialogue between the two new nuclear nations beginning with steps to avoid accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons, and informing each other of missile testing.
These are plus signs which could not be foreseen before the two countries carried out their nuclear blasts at Pokhran and Chagai. In addition, there is a promise of meaningful negotiations on known IndoPakistan disputes, including the tricky Kashmir question on which the Pakistani mind is obsessively fixed.
War is never a solution, mature nations tackle their problems through talks and diplomacy. The Lahore talks have not provided solutions of the problems, but only a basis for negotiations to resolve their disputes.
Hopefully, Mr Vajpayee and Mr Nawaz Sharif, or their successors, will follow up the ideas exchanged at Lahore and not only for avoiding war- which ought to be banished from the subcontinent - but also for living in peace and friendship. The two nations have, after all, no other choice.