August 10, 1998

India says Pakistan's focus on Kashmir is neurotic and its proposals smack of fantasy. Pakistan declares talks are a waste of time and the Vajpayee-Sharif dialogue adds up to zero.

By Harinder Baweja and Zahid Hussain

The tension in the air was similar to that of a hospital's intensive care unit as senior diplomats from both countries restlessly paced the narrow corridor outside the regal Longdon Room at the Taj Samudra hotel in Colombo. At exactly 5 p.m. on July 29, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, dressed in a white kurta and sleeveless jacket, strode in and shook hands with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. In keeping with his sombre mood, Sharif had donned a black bandgala. The next 15 minutes saw the usual forced smiles and gratuitous handshakes as the leaders were introduced to delegates from both countries.

It was only when the two men, who had only weeks before dramatically altered the political landscape in South Asia, shooed the delegates out and sat down for a tete-a-tete that they broke the ice. Till then, they had communicated through statements, letters and threats. They knew that contrary to the agenda, the 10th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit was being held under the broad shadow of the highly billed Vajpayee-Sharif talks. There were great expectations internationally that these two leaders, with recently acquired nuclear pips on their shoulders, had the credibility to achieve a breakthrough in the relations that had been deadlocked over Kashmir for years.

Pakistan played the host for the Colombo talks in keeping with the tradition of calling on each other in turns, established by former Indian prime minister I.K. Gujral and Sharif. India having hosted the last meeting, it was Pakistan's turn now. As a courtesy, Sharif had the Indian flag placed on the left side of the table because Vajpayee wanted to be seated facing the sun. With even the waiters being asked to leave, there was nothing for the leaders to chew on but their conversation. They were to meet for half an hour. But when the talks went on for 50 minutes, it appeared to be a good sign.

That was confirmed when the door opened and the two foreign secretaries, India's K. Raghunath and Pakistan's Shamshad Ahmad, were asked to step in and work out the modalities of how to kickstart the stalled talks. The foreign secretary-level dialogue, which was resumed last year after a deadlock of three years, ran into rough weather after the second round in Islamabad. While Pakistan accused India of resiling on the agreement to discuss Kashmir, India said it would do so along with subjects such as Siachen, trade and peace and security.

"There certainly seemed to be a loosening of tensions. Vajpayee came out with the impression that Sharif was genuinely eager to mend fences," said a senior member of the Indian delegation after the meeting. At the press conference soon after, Vajpayee said he had had "a very good meeting". And Sharif called him "a good man", a term he had used to describe Gujral after his first meeting with him in Male last year. But the bonhomie was clearly missing.

That should have set off the alarm bells among the Indian delegates. Before the talks had begun, diplomats had chalked out several scenarios about the outcome -- none of them very optimistic. The best case: The two prime ministers hit it off well and foreign secretary-level talks continue for a face-saving period before Pakistan pulls out. The worst case: They don't get along and official-level talks break down in Colombo itself. After the two leaders met, many members of the Indian team believed the best had happened. Within a day, they were to find out just how badly they had miscalculated.

The two sides were still talking about talking. But not in the language or the tone that the Indians wanted or imagined. On his return from the holiday resort of Bentota, the retreat for the six SAARC leaders, Sharif told The Island, a Colombo daily, that the outcome of his talks with Vajpayee added up to "zero". If that wasn't harsh enough, he went on to declare that the talks between the two countries had broken down: "Yes. It is a stalemate. We did not want to hold talks for the sake of talks but for the talks to succeed. We are not here to waste each other's time."

Ironically, the Indian delegation was still maintaining that talks had not broken down and the two foreign secretaries were to meet again the next morning. Only when the Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Tariq Altaf called a press conference and confirmed that the talks had indeed failed did the Indians react. Said Altaf: "At the heart of the problem lies the rigid and inflexible position which India continues to maintain in its refusal to address the issues of peace and security and the Jammu and Kashmir dispute."

In a tough response, the usually reticent and cautious Raghunath retorted: "An obsessive focus on a single issue or a one-point agenda is as neurotic for individuals as for nation states." Referring to the confidence-building measures (CBMs) which Pakistan has suggested to bring about a relaxation of tensions in Kashmir, he said, "The foundations have to be based on realism, not fantasy."

Although the two sides maintained they were "in touch" through "diplomatic channels" and Vajpayee and Sharif are said to have agreed to meet at the NAM summit in Durban later this month, it was clear that relations between the two countries had reached a dangerous low. More worrying was the assessment by several foreign policy experts that India had allowed Pakistan to seize the initiative. Says former foreign secretary J.N. Dixit: "In a dialogue, two factors are key: substance and public perception. Clearly, we could not have made much progress on substance but in terms of perception, India seems to have botched it by not being proactive." Dixit's proposition: India should have challenged Pakistan and agreed to have a dialogue on Kashmir.

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