India announced a dozen proposals to Pakistan during the third week of October including restoration of sports ties, air, road and rail links; a bus service from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad and a ferry service from Mumbai to Karachi; visas in more cities; and treatment for Pakistani children in India.

How does Pakistan view the new Indian proposals? Riaz Khokhar, the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, on the eve of announcing Pakistan’s response said that the Indian proposals were piecemeal and were not real issues. According to him India “could be doing it for public relations. These CBMs have created excitement in some world capitals. Some will be implemented while others were made by the Indians for propaganda purposes.” (The News, 30 October 2003)

Clearly, if the Indian initiatives were meant to build confidence, that seems not to be the case. Pakistan considers the Indian reasons behind the proposals as targeting the international audience. Nevertheless, Pakistan did respond to the proposals on 29 October 2003.

Pakistan’s response could be broadly divided into three – those that Pakistan has accepted in whole; some with riders and initiated some new.

What are the riders and what are the new proposals and why did Pakistan include them? The riders are primarily attached to Indian proposals relating to Kashmir and so are the new ones. The Indian proposal to initiate a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad was a surprise to Pakistan and put them in a tricky situation. No one expected that India would take this bold decision. For, Pakistan, it was politically and diplomatically a tough choice, for it is aware that any increased contact between the two Kashmirs is not in its interest. First, the Kashmiris would realize that the Indian side of Kashmir, despite all the accusations of human rights violations is freer than the “Azad” Kashmir; and better in terms of human and social development.

Second, Pakistan fears that movement of people of across the LoC would lead ultimately to making the status-quo permanent. India has been tacitly making a point that the conversion of the LoC into international border, in other words, converting the status-quo into permanent, is acceptable to it. There is an element of international support to the same, especially since the Kargil conflict. Pakistan’s efforts in Kashmir all along have been to alter the status-quo in its favour. Any movement of people across the LoC, Pakistan fears, would ultimately lead the international community to pressurize it, in favour of making the status-quo permanent. Worse, it may even be acceptable to Kashmiris, as long as they have no problem in crossing over the LoC. Not many Kashmiris outside Srinagar Valley today are dreaming of an independent Kashmir.

Clearly, a bus service between the two Kashmirs would not be in the interest of Pakistan. But how to reject it, if such a move would back-fire both inside Kashmir and at the international levels? In fact, India expected that Pakistan would reject it, so that it could score points. Now it is Pakistan’s turn to look in to how to score points, without rejecting the proposal? Pakistan came out with a brilliant counter proposal that since Kashmir is a disputed territory and so recognized by the UN, let the latter monitor the movement. Pakistan knew very well that India is against any outside role In Kashmir and hence would reject it.

Pakistan further proposed 100 scholarships to Kashmiris at graduate and post-graduate levels; and medical aid and assistance to victims of violence, rape and widows in Kashmir. The object of this sinister proposal is three fold. The first is to convey that that there are victims of violence and rape, as a result of what Pakistan calls “state terrorism in Kashmir.” Second is to internationalize the so-called “state-terrorism,” by letting the international humanitarian agencies identify such victims. Third is to force India to reject the proposal, so that Pakistan can score points, at all levels - inside Kashmir and Pakistan and outside. How to make a proposal in such a way that it would be rejected by the other? India and Pakistan seem to have mastered this dilemma into an art.