Pakistan's assertion that Kashmir is the 'core issue' is as much a cliche as India's statement that it is ready for 'a serious dialogue' with Islamabad. In fact, it is worth  assessing whether Kashmir is a symptom or a disease. The two would have found some other reason to stay distant because they have not yet overcome the religious differences, which led to the partition of the subcontinent in the first instance. The hiatus may widen with the BJP- led coalition in New Delhi ... The rulers or political parties have been at pains to run down secularism in India (and) insisting on describing it as a Hindu country, whatever its credentials or claims ...

.. How do the two countries, if arrayed as Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, find a solution to the problem of Jammu and Kashmir, which demands a secular approach, transcending religion? There have been serious suggestions from Pakistan to divide the State on the basis of Hindu and Muslim, the formula used at the time of partition ... Such proposals have never taken into consideration the harm this will do the Indian polity as well as the Muslim population in the country. Now ... the result can be still more disastrous ..

If at all there is any serious effort towards a settlement, it has to move away from the scenario of religion, the Hindu and the Muslim syndrome. It has done great harm to the subcontinent. But the tragedy is that while Pakistan has remained stuck in parochial thinking, India has somewhat lost the lustre of secularism. The BJP has been able to arouse fears among many Hindus that they are facing the danger of losing their identity. It is no use going into the morality of means and methods. The fact is that the party has won one-third of the Lok Sabha's 540 seats on its own symbol ... I shudder to imagine the two religiously fundamentalist countries growling at each other, with the instruments of destruction at their command.

Since there is no contact between India and Pakistan except at the level of officialdom, the two countries have developed a culture of suspicion and one-upmanship ... For years, both have not allowed even an exchange of newspapers, books or, for that matter, any information, not to take of normal traffic or trade. The two countries have lived from 50 years behind the high walls of hatred. It is no wonder that the post-partition generation on both sides is a strange combination of ignorance, hatred and chauvinism.

In fact, they have tied themselves in so many knots that they cannot loosen them easily. National mindset makes any departure from their earlier stand more and more difficult than before. This is not the question of a particular government or a prime minister. This relates to the entire crop of politicians, bureaucrats, mediamen and others. Over the years, they have come to adopt an attitude, more or less a second habit, which underlines distance and differences, not conciliation or cooperation. Still, everything is attributed to Kashmir, at least in Pakistan. This is not true because the cleavage over Kashmir has been there since August 1947, when the two countries became independent. But relations between them have never touched such a low that they have now. True, there was no harmony but there was no hostility either. Now even the word Pakistan in India or India in Pakistan generally arouses emotions which are far from normal. There is a fiendish satisfaction over the failings and calamities of the other. Still there are no two people in the world who are so alike and so linked. The dispute over Kashmir comes in handy to cover-up their antagonism. Fires raging in the name of religion are still burning fiercely.

For Pakistan, India is a Hindu country which has not yet reconciled to the Muslim-majority areas constituting an independent Islamic country of their own ... For New Delhi, Pakistan is a rough Muslim state, which has not relaxed its efforts to destablise India. Whether through the ISI or the assistance of other Muslim countries. Islamabad is trying to divide India into many countries so that its enormous size does not work to the disadvantage of Pakistan. Religion, as the Pakistani ideologues must have realised, does not provide ethos to a country. The breakaway of Bangladesh and domestic unrest like the one prevailing in Karachi are a lesson. By playing the Muslim card, Pakistan has strengthened communal forces in India. Were it to plug the same line, it might support the BJP's thesis for the restoration of Hindu pride and glory in politics. This would only support Hindu fundamentalism.

Pakistan might have the satisfaction that it had ... proved that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations. But how does it help in spanning the distance between the two? For religious fanatics, there are no shades; there is only black and white. They cannot even brook the approach of tolerance, of feeling that perhaps ,others might also have come share of the truth. But there is no go from such an approach to have " a meaningful dialogue", the phrase used by Pakistan. If Islamabad sees the point, it may break the deadlock. That means that the ground has to be prepared from where the nettle of communalism must be uprooted. Kashmir is important not because it is a Muslim-majority area but because it has the key to normalisation between the two countries. That kind of attitude will mean that all outstanding problems are the core issues. That Kashmir should be discussed goes without saying. In fact, New Delhi is committed to doing so under the Simla agreement for finding a final settlement.

... Initial noises made both by Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif have subsided, although both had promised to go an extra mile. In the background of Agni and Ghauri and the option to make the bomb, the extra mile needs to be covered sooner than later.

My impression, during a recent visit to Pakistan, is that the Nawaz Sharif government will feel satisfied if only a separate group is constituted to resume talks on Kashmir. He has no time-frame in mind ... It will amount to stalling the process if no separate group is constituted on Kashmir, although it may look like placating Pakistan ...                                                                                                                           (Source: The Hindustan Times, 11 April, 1998)