Somewhat disappointingly, the Foreign Secretary level talks between India and Pakistan ended in another stalemate with both sides agreeing to have another round of talks within their "composite dialogue" and meet again in mid-2005 to review progress. Meanwhile, the two Foreign Ministers and Prime Ministers will meet again in Dhaka during the next SAARC summit. All these meetings, despite their bonhomie, cannot obscure the fact that India and Pakistan are far from reaching any agreement on the major issues that divide them like Siachen, Sir Creek, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project, trade and economic cooperation, terrorism and drug trafficking, and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields. They remain far apart also on the two major issues framing their composite dialogue viz. peace and security and Kashmir. The Baglihar project in Jammu and Kashmir should also be added to this list.

Some minimal progress had occurred in the technical level talks on nuclear CBMs held in May 2004, when it was decided to establish a hotline between their Foreign Secretaries, and enter an agreement to provide advance notification of ballistic missile tests--a draft agreement was provided by the Indian side to their counterparts. But, there has been no further progress in the second round of talks. Furthermore, a large number of CBMs-98 at last count--have been suggested, comprising a mixed bag of military CBMs, political measures, communication links, people-to-people contacts and increased economic cooperation. All these varied suggestions, however, have only added to the logjam, while throwing up into high relief the fact that the political will to make the compromises to finesse these contentious issues and emplace CBMs is missing in both leaderships.

Only the slightest reflection would reveal that the differences that remain to be bridged on these several disputes and issues are trivial. For instance, India is willing to withdraw from the Siachen glacier provided its current line of occupation is recorded in maps and/ or the ground. This is unacceptable to Pakistan. These differences, incidentally, have continued since 1988. Similarly, Pakistan does not want any travel documents for travel by the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar highway, which is unacceptable to India; a permit system is the latest innovation suggested to get over this problem, instead of a visa. What the several rounds of discussions have highlighted is that India wants to broad-base the India-Pakistan dialogue by bringing more issues onto the bilateral agenda, while Pakistan has hammered away that Kashmir being the central issue in contention it must be resolved to move the relationship forward. No clear ideas have been expressed by either country on what are the options available to resolve the Kashmir issue apart from rhetorical declamations by India that settled borders cannot be redrawn, and by Pakistan that the will of the people must be ascertained without defining the area where this exercise should be held.

Lest this bleak picture seem overdrawn the silver lining should be noticed. Apropos, the ceasefire along the LoC, later extended to Siachen, has held up for more than a year. Despite contradictory statements by Indians in authority there is little doubt that cross-border terrorism, Pakistan prefers to call this infiltration, has greatly reduced, but not ended. Repeated declarations have been made by Pakistan that it will not allow its territory to be used by terrorists. There is a new momentum to people-to-people contacts with ordinary citizens, visiting each other's country in large numbers, which bespeaks a relaxed visa regime in both countries. The peace process has engendered a dialogue at various levels of the two Governments, underlining the principle enunciated by Winston Churchill that "jaw, jaw" is better than "war, war." The question does arise, however, whether jaw-ing could aimlessly continue forever, despite the political will to take appropriate political decisions being missing and the negotiators doing little more than parroting old arguments and shibboleths.

The time has come for India and Pakistan to seriously consider inviting external intervention to resolve their disputes. This has traditionally been resisted by India, which has defied bilateralism into a mantra. But the question remains that if bilateralism does not work, why not give external mediation, by whatever euphemism termed, a chance. It is not that India has not invited and welcomed external intervention in the past. Quite recently, it was perfectly agreeable, during the Kargil conflict, to let President Clinton coerce Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to withdraw the Pakistani infiltrators. Then again, some part of the reason for the massive mobilisation of Indian troops to the border in December 2001, that lasted right up to October 2002, was to prevail on the United States to pressure Pakistan and stop cross-border terrorism/infiltration. India's adherence to the principle of bilateralism has, in truth, become somewhat ragged with the passage of time.