Slim signs of cool off in Kashmir

India is hoping its aggressive stance against "cross-border terrorism" reaps international dividends in coming days, as British and American officials seek to cool its tense stand-off with Pakistan.

And in an address to the nation yesterday, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan did not want war with India. "Pakistan will not be the one to initiate war. We want peace in the region," he said.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will visit Islamabad and Delhi this week, with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage scheduled to arrive in the region next week. Their trips show just how seriously the West is taking this million-troop face-off between South Asia's nuclear-armed neighbors.

Recent appeals by President Bush for "war against terror" ally General Musharraf to crack down on Pakistani militants have been music to the ears of the Indian administration. It has eagerly seized on the post-Sept. 11 language of "cross-border terrorism" to seek just such support against what it says is a "proxy war" by Pakistan-backed militants in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Commodore Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Delhi-based Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, says India has used tough rhetoric along with high-stakes military maneuvering to "try to convey the scale of the problem" to Washington and the world.

The Dec. 13 suicide attack on India's parliament, which India blamed on Pakistan-backed militants, was the country's "mini-Sept. 11," says Commodore Bhaskar. "[People realized] this country is already at war, a proxy war."

US pressure has already seen Musharraf promise to rein in infiltrators, including imposing bans on three militant outfits. India, however, complains that words are not being followed by actions.

But the probability of war between India and Pakistan at this stage is low, says Bhaskar, unless there is some "very unexpected wild card."

This cannot be entirely ruled out after the May 14 attack on an Army base in Kashmir in which more than 30 people were killed. The massacre spurred Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to talk of a "decisive battle."

On the streets of Kashmir's largest city, Srinagar, there is, however, no sense of panic. Stops and searches are already routine, with soldiers stationed on every major street corner.

The underlying source of bitterness is a promise by India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to allow the population of India's only Muslim-dominated state to vote on whether to accede to India, or to Pakistan, or pursue an independent state. No such plebiscite has ever taken place.

In the intervening years, India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the area, and more than 35,000 people have been killed since a large-scale anti- Indian rebellion began in 1989.

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