The New Nation - Internet Edition

Aijaz Zaka Syed

Bernard Shaw would describe the US-UK relationship as 'two countries divided by a common language.' In the case of India and Pakistan, language has never been a source of conflict. There are more serious issues that unite and divide them.

Perhaps no two countries on the planet share a more complex relationship as these neighbors do. They have gone to three devastating wars and have for a decade lived under the cloud of nuclear conflagration. They obsess over each other and their entire military strategies and budgets are planned and executed keeping each other in sight.

At the same time, they also bond like no two other nations do. This might sound like a paradox but that's how the Indians and Pakistanis are. We are like that only! And it's not easy explaining this enigmatic equation to others.

Pakistan President Asif Zardari tried and largely managed to sum up this unique relationship when he told a distinguished gathering in New Delhi this week that "there's a bit of India in every Pakistani and a little bit of Pakistan in every India."

One has never been a huge fan of Zardari. And that rather nice punchline was not very original either. He borrowed it from his more talented and charismatic wife, the late Benazir Bhutto. And given the incredible chaos he's been presiding over for the past few months, one's apprehensions about him have only been proved. But one couldn't help admire Zardari's uncharacteristically disaster-free handling of the live videoconference with the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.

You could see Zardari had already bowled over his top-notch audience in Delhi and viewers around the world watching the event live with his warmth and talk of peace and reconciliation between the neighbors.

While the credit for the remarkable progress in Indo-Pak relations in recent times should go to Musharraf -- ironically a military dictator known for the Kargil surprise -- and former Indian PM Vajpayee, Zardari has become the first Pakistani leader to promise no-first-use of nukes and waive the so-called deterrent option against India. Going against precedents, Zardari did not harp on Kashmir. In fact, he did not for once utter the 'K' word during the Q&A session.

The man, who accidentally inherited power from his assassinated wife, refused to be drawn into a verbal duel with his audience on Kashmir. When quizzed about the ownership of the troubled Valley over which India and Pakistan have been squabbling since the Partition in 1947, Zardari quipped: "Kashmir belongs to Kashmiri people".

What's going on people? When did this tectonic shift come about in South Asia? Clearly, the world was too busy fighting the chaos unleashed by the neocon world order over the past few years to notice the change. But signs of change have been there for some time. Only we are waking up to them now.

In his first interview after taking over from Musharraf, Zardari told Wall Street Journal that he did not believe India was a threat to Pakistan surprising the establishment forces on both sides of the border. "India has never been a threat to Pakistan. We are not scared of Indian influence," he asserted.

Zardari also outraged separatist parties in Kashmir and his critics at home by describing Kashmiri rebels as "terrorists" in his chat with the Journal's foreign affairs columnist Bret Stephens.

I have no idea what led to this dramatic transformation in Pakistan's policy on India and Kashmir in particular. Even though the PPP was always seen as a secular and moderate party amenable to 'friendly' relations with India, it never crossed certain red lines on Kashmir and equation with New Delhi.

Pakistan's all-powerful army has long defined India as an existential threat to the Islamic republic.

In fact, India has long been the centre and focal point of the Pak military's whole defense strategy (and vice versa). And the "liberation of Kashmir" has been the cornerstone of Pakistan's India policy. This is something no political or military leader has ever dared to defy or question.

Which is why I think in offering 'no first use of nukes' against India and accepting Delhi's standard line on Kashmir -- building confidence before talking Kashmir -- and by seeking trade, rather than war, with the eastern neighbor, Zardari has broken away from his country's military establishment. He has turned Pakistan's foreign policy on its head. This is a watershed change, to say the least.

Whatever Zardari's past and his political credentials, in offering genuine friendship and peace to India and a better future for the people of South Asia, he has gone where no Pakistani or Indian leader has dared to go before. I am not sure if he has the Generals' backing in this remarkable change of course. But as a democratically elected president, he enjoys people's blessings in his initiatives.

India must not let this rare opportunity for lasting peace slip away. It must reciprocate and respond positively to these overtures from across the border. Because Zardari is speaking for hundreds of millions of Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris in calling for stronger people-to-people ties and economic relations and hassle-free travel between the two countries.

For far too long, politicians on both sides have exploited their people by keeping them from each other despite sharing a common past and common destiny.

Even today for Indians and Pakistanis, getting a visa to the other side is almost as difficult as getting a US green card. And to think until not long ago, they were part of a single, undivided country! You could travel from Peshawar to Calcutta to Dhaka, without any documents and borders anywhere.

Why don't we bring down this border, this meaningless line that divides people, separates families and has given us nothing but war, bloodshed and thousands of wasted lives? The so-called Line of Control in Kashmir has literally torn apart millions of families. How long will India and Pakistan remain handcuffed to history?

By doing away with the border -- especially in Kashmir -- and allowing their people to move freely in this beautiful land a la European Union, India and Pakistan could unleash the immense potential of their nations and gift them a more peaceful and prosperous tomorrow.

By rubbing away the line drawn in haste in the last gasps of the British empire by Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the South Asians could resolve the Kashmir question for good. God knows the Kashmiris have suffered enough for owning the paradise on earth.