To begin with it was to be President Zardari's private visit to the Indian city of Ajmer to pay homage to Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. He was to be there along with his three children and personal staff, and return home the same day. Then he received an invitation from Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for lunch at his residence in New Delhi and to have a one on one brief tete-a-tete, and so the event acquired the semblance of a quasi-official visit. And when foreign minister Hina Khar's name was seen missing from the list of the presidential entourage while Interior Minister Rehman Malik was to go, the people wondered if the president's visit has any connection with the American bounty on Hafiz Saeed. But as the relaxed President Zardari and cautiously optimistic Prime Minister Singh emerged from the meeting and spoke to the media, an air of positivism began blowing across the tension-ridden South Asian landscape.
Prime Minister Singh, who had earlier declined his Pakistani counterpart's invitation to visit Pakistan - he had asked 'what for' - accepted his guest's offer without any caveats. It is certainly a welcome development, long in waiting by the people of both sides of the border, and a clear sign of thawing of the ice that beset the bilateral relationship. Maybe there are some who would ask what President offered as quid pro quo that changed Singh's mind. Of course an answer to this is awaited. But we believe that peace finally for the millions of Pakistanis and Indians, is the long cherished idea whose time has come.
The tragic incident at the icy heights of Siachin only a few days before the two leaders met in New Delhi inevitably brings to the fore the imperative of obtaining peace and tranquillity in South Asia. The visit of President Zardari to New Delhi was neither expected nor did it result in any breakthrough, but it did create the atmospherics that are vitally needed to create conditions for productive and result-oriented engagement between the two governments. No doubt no single swallow can make a summer, but its daring does suggest that spring has turned the corner.
Given the emerging challenges, some negative and others helpful, the demand of the bilateral interlocutors to be pragmatic and practical by converting hostility into friendship. Of course, what divides the two sides is far bigger in size and does have strategic relevance for the two but there too are some identifiable areas where their agreement exist. For instance, a framework for a Composite Dialogue is there listing the basic issues. It should be reactivated. Then there are also a number of subject-specific bilateral forums to tackle issues like water, terrorism, people-to-people contacts, activation of regional consulates and exchange of prisoners which should be given due attention. Although the Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai did not lose much time to pour cold water on his prime minister's enthusiasm by asserting that the two leaders 'discussed the problem of terrorism' - as if that was the only issue that came under purview - it was not a very encouraging sign. What is required of the bureaucrats is that the issues be taken up independent of the movement and progress on the others. It is going to be tedious and slow in showing results, but then it is only way out of the quagmire of animosity thickened by decades of mutual distrust and suspicions.