India and Pakistan have just concluded a three-day border dialogue aimed at defusing tensions and ending ceasefire violations along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir as well as along the international border. This was the first high-level contact between the two since the National Security Adviser (NSA)-level talks scheduled in Delhi last month were cancelled due to disputes over the agenda. That the talks are being held after a gap of over one-and-a-half years shows the fragile nature of the Indo-Pak peace process. The foreign secretary-level talks in August last year were called off because Pakistan had invited the leaders of Kashmir's separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference for a meeting prior to the talks. This was very unfortunate because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, by inviting his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif for his inaugural in May 2014, had given rise to hopes of a new beginning in New Delhi's relations with its neighbor to the west. But there was soon a return to mutual allegations and worse. Last month, there was heavy gunfire and mortars almost daily across the LoC. All this was preceded by inflammatory rhetoric from both sides of the divide. During his recent visit to Dhaka, Modi indiscreetly boasted about India's role in the breakup of Pakistan leading to the birth of Bangladesh. Earlier, a junior minister in Modi's cabinet, referring to the Indian Army's cross-border strikes in Myanmar targeting militants, threatened such operations against perceived threats whenever and wherever it deemed fit. Pakistan was not far behind. In provocative remarks on the eve of Indo-Pak security talks, Pakistan's National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz said Modi wants to dictate terms for dialogue with Islamabad. He also alleged that Modi contested elections on an anti-Pakistan platform. Special Assistant to Prime Minister Sharif on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi told China's state-run Global Times that New Delhi was making things difficult by setting “preconditions” for talks. In July this year, a senior Pakistani official said his country was ready to use nuclear weapons against India. The international community was naturally alarmed. After all, the two countries are nuclear-armed and have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir, the bone of contention between the two. The last one, over Kargil, was fought just as the Lahore declaration, signed by Sharif and his Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999, held out the promise of a major breakthrough in bilateral relations. This means that there are any number of people in both countries who have a vested interest in keeping tension high. They will do anything to derail the peace process. So the first step toward peace should be to isolate such elements and refrain from doing or saying anything that might give them an opportunity to incite passions. The second is to resolve sensitive issues like ceasefire violations and infiltration along the border by quickly getting in touch with each other by email and mobile, as India and Pakistan decided on Friday. But the most important step is to establish patterns of cooperation in areas like trade, disaster relief, water management, energy, people-to-people contacts, etc. This will create an atmosphere in which contentious issues like Kashmir and terrorism can be discussed without acrimony and bitterness. When India cancelled talks between the foreign secretaries in retaliation for Pakistani meetings with Kashmiri separatist organizations, Sharif sent a box of the “choicest Pakistani mangoes” to Modi in a bid to patch things up. There is always the danger that border violations, if pursued over a prolonged period, may lead to a rise in tensions that even mango diplomacy cannot lower.
