DGMOs talk: a welcome development

Was there any Track-II or behind the scene diplomacy in the works despite India's protracted belligerence against its neighbour Pakistan? This question begs an answer because India agreed to lower tensions on the Line of Control (LoC) and the Working Boundary (WB) after Pakistan's DGMO successfully established a special hotline contact with his Indian counterpart, although 24th meeting of country's National Security Committee had strongly condemned India for its reign of terror earlier in the day. Both the countries are said to have agreed to restore ceasefire whose violations have left nearly 100, mostly civilians, dead in nearly 18 months on the Pakistani side. It has been widely noted that it was unprecedented for both sides to issue almost identical statements on the conversation, which unlike before did not accuse the other of wrongdoing. "Both DGMOs agreed to fully implement the ceasefire understanding of 2003 in letter and spirit forthwith and to ensure that henceforth the ceasefire will not be violated by both sides," the statements issued by both sides said. It needs to be noted that after the 2003 ceasefire agreement they almost came to a halt during the peace process in the years of 2004-2007. However, ceasefire violations started once again in 2008 when the peace process was derailed. The official statistics from India and Pakistan suggest 2017 was the worst year since the 2003 ceasefire as the violations crossed the 2000 mark for the first time. That agreement survived for such a long time despite the fact that there was nothing officially written between the two countries. The original 2003 agreement on having ceasefire along the LoC and WB was also reached during the hotline conversation of the DGMOs. It is a universally known fact that Pakistan has always been desirous for the formalization of the 2003 agreement while the Indian side had shown either reluctance or ambivalence to Pakistan's offer.
It was during his address to the 70th session of UN General Assembly in September 2015 that Nawaz Sharif proposed that Pakistan and India formalize and respect the 2003 understanding for a complete ceasefire on the LoC in Kashmir. Unfortunately, however, there had been no direct official response from the Indian side. The question therefore is: why is there a sudden change of heart? It is because India, which had been linking the formalization of the ceasefire or any sort of normalization with Pakistan to 'terrorism' as part of a grand strategy to pressure and isolate Pakistan, has reached the conclusion that the current phase of unrest in occupied Kashmir is largely indigenous in which Pakistan has little or no role. New Delhi has also understood that unprecedented use of brute force against Kashmiri protesters in the occupied J&K has not worked so far; it has in fact worsened the situation, so much so that even opposition parties are warning about the threat to India's territorial integrity. It increasingly appears that prime minister Narendra Modi, who will be seeking his second term in next year's general elections, has recognized the criticality of the situation that has already exposed the hollowness of his sub ka saath sub ka vikas slogan, alienating all minorities, including Muslims, across India.
Be that as it may, it is therefore heartening to note that both sides have now committed to showing restraint as both DGMOs have agreed that "in case of any issue, restraint will be exercised and the matter will be resolved through utilisation of existing mechanisms of hotline contacts and border flag meetings at local commander's level". In this newspaper's view, this development will surely augur well for the prospects of resumption of stalled peace process between the two nuclear rivals.