Sometimes it is good to have a bad memory. Like in the present situation when only those will feel dismayed at the bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar who still remember that the last time vehicles plied on this road, in 1947, it was Pakistani tribesmen and other marauding raiders who were the ‘passengers.’ In more recent times, ‘shouters’ at some Srinagar bus stands lured passengers with cries of: ‘Sopore, Kupwore te apore,’ inviting prospective ‘freedom fighters’ to cross over to the terrorist training camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and return as Jehadis, mostly along this route. Whether the honoured visitors we are to expect from April 7 will be an improved version of earlier raiders, now called militants or terrorists or plain infiltrators, or genuinely ordinary and innocent people, only time will tell.

To demonstrate its dogged perseverance in relation to Kashmir, Pakistan has left most of the Rawalpindi-Kashmir road as it was. Even the old road signs. On the first of my visits to Islamabad, I was amused at what appeared to me a curious road name: ‘Kashmir Road’ (or is it Srinagar Road – I forget) only a short distance out of the Pakistani capital. The road sign, blackened by dust and grime, still stands, reflecting their fond obsession and vain hope of one day marching into Srinagar. And whenever I went up to Murree, the first major stop on this road, visions haunted me of how those ferocious Pakistani tribesmen would have gone up and down this road on their missions to pillage and destroy Jammu & Kashmir.

For the present, the most apt description, both of the road and, symbolically, the overall scenario, is a sub-heading in one of the Delhi newspapers which proclaimed: “Smooth drive on Indian side, potholes in PoK.” There is no escaping the fact that in their desperation to forge ‘people to people’ links, those who call the shots in New Delhi, the present ruling conglomerate as much as the former, don’t have the ghost of an idea of the minefield we are being blindly led into. As Taj Mohiuddin, a Congress Minister in the J&K Government, observed at a recent meeting in New Delhi, in a different context: “People in India, by and large, don’t understand Kashmiris or their psyche.” Absolutely correct; otherwise would they opt for such a potentially hazardous route even though the objective of improving relations with Pakistan is avowedly laudable?

The generous rhetoric fed to the public is that progress in the composite dialogue will lead to a new and peaceful India-Pakistan relationship. So be it – by all means continue the dialogue and discuss confidence building measures till cows come home, in the effort to transform the environment of mistrust into one of mutual confidence. But why put the country’s security, in particular the already tenuous situation in J&K, into jeopardy by opening a road that is notorious as the route of invasion and sly aggression? With terrorist training camps in the vicinity of Muzaffarabad very much in existence and functioning, one doesn’t have to be a spook of extraordinary competence to realise that the buses will be the most convenient funnel for more terrorists to cross over, and narcotics to be smuggled in, with no let or hindrance. The assertion by Lt.Gen. Hari Prasad, the GOC-in-C of the Northern Command, that the movement of incoming people would be under scanner and each visitor would be cleared after proper documentation, though meant as a reassurance, is in realty a measure of the concern felt in the security services.

Why is it that to many in this country, Pakistan’s logic sometimes seems to make more sense? Take, for instance, Islamabad’s reported insistence during the run up to the agreement that the bus service – and by implication, opportunity to travel across the LoC – be open only to Kashmiris. That would have been adequate to allow ‘divided Kashmiri families’ to meet their kith and kin on the other side, which is the supposed justification for starting the service. Hopefully such an arrangement would keep out the virulent Pathans and their ilk, or die-hard Punjabis, still nursing the humiliation of 1971, from availing of the bus service to carry on the type of activity they have been indulging in since the onset of militancy. But India wants the red carpet to be rolled out for even those who have nothing to do with Kashmir, thereby permitting entry of the very same elements it has desperately been trying to keep out.

Now we will have people from anywhere in Pakistan crossing the LoC and coming to Kashmir as innocent visitors looking for lost relatives – who may never have existed in the first place.  In fact Pakistani reports suggest that people are “hoping a 'soft border' will enable thousands of Kashmiri families to reunite,” – not just visit. In other words, all those who willingly crossed over to Pakistan in 1947 to wage war against India from the sanctuary of Pakistan and later “Azad Kashmir” can now return in the normal course. Will it be long before they take out ‘first class State Subject’ certificates and claim all rights guaranteed under India’s liberal and largely corrupt dispensation?  It is argued that there will be travel documents and photographs and all the rest of it, but in realty what are such pieces of paper between two Kashmiris – one seeking and the other giving all these vital documents to regularise a visitor’s permanent stay. If known terrorists can’t be identified and isolated once they lose themselves among the local population, will the ramshackle governmental machinery be able to locate, leave alone deport, ‘innocent visitors’ when they return ‘home’ and decide to stay on rather than return to their miserable lives in “Azad Kashmir.” One has only to point to lakhs of Bangladeshis who cross over into India and lose themselves among the common people, leaving not a trace but creating havoc by the sheer weight of their numbers. No wonder Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid sounded ecstatic when the announcement about reopening the road was made and reportedly prophesied: "When roads are opened, destiny comes closer."

The proposed bus service has been hailed as a people friendly move which will meet the ‘emotional needs of the Kashmiri people wrenched apart by nearly six decades of hostility.’ It might be pertinent, though politically incorrect in the present back-slapping friendliness mode, to ask who these Kashmiri people are. How many Kashmiris ever had relatives living in the present day ‘Azad Kashmir’ that they would break into a rauf at the prospect of meeting them? My recollection is that denizens of the valley considered it a major calamity if asked to proceed more than a few miles away from their hearths and homes and would hardly ever enter into matrimony with people from these far off areas. Even the type of Kashmiri spoken a few miles beyond is not the same that the valley people speak. So who suffered a wrench of parting and who is reuniting with whom

However, having entered that caveat, one has also to recognise the validity of the ongoing peace process, of which the bus service is an important part, and the fact that this course represents a very worthwhile opportunity after a long time. Apprehensions that nothing may come out of it have to be kept firmly pressed down, at least as long as there is life in peace process. No doubt Kashmiri Pandits have their grievances and fears but they alone are not Kashmir. Other Kashmiris, most of them anyway, are displaying considerable grit and determination as is reflected in the large turn out in the recent local bodies’ elections despite threats and warnings. Jehadis have been marginalised and infiltration has dropped drastically. It would be sheer cussedness to deny that a sea change has come about and the overall situation has shown improvement for the first time since the ouster of the ‘lion-cubs’ and their hegemony – an improvement that they themselves admit, if not exactly applaud. The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service is only a minor component of that overall change.

If the miracle of mutual trust between India and Pakistan comes about and peace permeates, there will be little cause for apprehension and fear. Those who remember all the false starts in the past, on the road to understanding, will readily concede that the on-going composite dialogue represents the best chance in two generations to end the Kashmir conflict. KPs have infinite patience and it will be no great effort on their part to wait some more hopefully, while closely watching the outcome of all the new measures. Since miracles are known to happen, options for an amicable solution of the Kashmir logjam may surface, options that no one can foresee at present.

One has also to be realistic. Painting rosy pictures and expressing one’s euphoria over the bus service, through fireworks in Srinagar, may be understandable but the truth is that the peace process itself is extremely fragile. To some it even appears as already getting frayed. There undoubtedly are serious differences and Pakistan will take a long time to get over its anti-India mind set. Notice the fact that almost simultaneously with the announcement of the bus service, Pakistan went to the World Bank over its perceived grievance over the Baglihar dam. Islamabad’s objection to the 450 MW hydel power project on the Chenab river is based on the apprehension that it would affect the flow of water into Pakistan. Interestingly, India had started work on the dam in 2000 and about 85 per cent has already been completed. It took the Pakistan government all of five years to raise an objection. Clearly it was an afterthought and an opportunity to pick up another stick to beat India with rather than any real concern for fair distribution of water.