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ShareThree months after the embarrassing faux pas at Sharm-el-Sheikh, when India appeared to have made some gratuitous concessions to Pakistan, Manmohan Singh has seized the initiative by coming up with a nuanced formulation on improving relations with the neighbour.
Like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Singh has made a direct overture to Pakistan for peaceful negotiations while at the same time making it clear that Islamabad has to ensure that anti-India terror groups stop operating from Pakistani soil.
Two other points about this offer are worth noting: one, it was made in a speech in Kashmir and secondly, he said this while Congress president Sonia Gandhi was sitting next to him. The political message cannot be ignored, given that there was a wide divergence of views between the government and the party after Sharm-el-Shaikh.
Coming as it does at a time when Pakistan is passing through daily convulsions of Taliban-led terror attacks, it might appear that neither the Pakistani leaders nor the people are in a position to discuss the Kashmir question. Some of the hidebound hardliners in Islamabad are sure to carp on Kashmir being the core issue between India and Pakistan. But they have to understand -- the scene is changing and changing drastically.
At the same time, the offer has to be seen in context. Singh has made it clear that it is about bringing peace in Kashmir by ending terror since public sentiment was for peace and peaceful resolution of power. He has made a pointed reference to the successful participation of the state's citizenry in recent elections to the assembly and to Parliament.
That indicates the decreasing influence of the secessionists who are still stuck in the past.
The Indian state owes to the people of Jammu and Kashmir development. The minuscule minority in the state which insists on involving Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue are getting marginalised. The younger generation is looking forward to economic opportunities and not looking back to dead disputes of the past. Here the railway line that the prime minister has inaugurated in the state will be of great help.
By promoting the idea of people to people contact across the LoC, especially for greater trade, travel and humanitarian causes, Singh has extended a welcoming hand to Pakistan and brought about a change in the discourse.
