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India and Pakistan: Bus Diplomacy The start of the first commercial bus service between India and Pakistan in 51 years signalled a new resolve between the two countries to build stronger ties rather than risk future war. By GSReport Start Date: 2/25/99 India and Pakistan were born as separate independent nations in 1947, carved from British India after prolonged negotiations failed to resolve longstanding fears and enmity between the predominantly Hindu population of India and the predominantly Muslim population of Pakistan. Since then, India and Pakistan have fought three wars and innumerable border skirmishes, many of which have centered on the disputed border region of Kashmir. In mid-1998, defying international will, both India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. The tests aroused immediate global indignation and caused the United States, Japan and several other nations to impose sanctions on both countries. India and Pakistan have also both tested missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to each other's major cities. However, it now appears that leaders in both India and Pakistan have realized that a future war, with the added threat of nuclear weapons, is unthinkable. Since the nuclear tests, both nations have taken decisive steps to lower tensions and build bridges. The latest and most promising phase of the new peace process occurred in mid-February, 1999. For the first time in the 51 years since independence, a commercial bus service was established between the two countries. And, in a highly symbolic gesture, India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee road on the first bus across the India-Pakistan border on Saturday, February 20, for a meeting with Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the border city of Lahore. It was the first time in 10 years, and only the third time ever, that an Indian Prime Minister had set foot in Pakistan. The day-long meeting between the two leaders began with an embrace and ended with strong statements of mutual desire for greater cooperation and understanding between Indians and Pakistanis. Vajpayee and Sharif jointly pledged to take steps to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war, stop interfering in each other's affairs, and increase political, trade and other contacts. "My regret is that we have spent so much time in mutual bitterness," Vajpayee said in a prepared speech at a banquet in his honor at the Lahore Fort. "It is unworthy of the two nations the size of India and Pakistan to have wasted so much time in mutual ill-will." Pakistan's Sharif said, "The time is not so far away when we, Pakistan and India, will be able to live as the United States and Canada," that is, as two friendly neighbors. In a speech marking this year's opening session of India's Parliament on February 22, Indian President K.R. Narayanan praised the weekend meeting and added another pledge, saying that India would never be the first to use nuclear weapons and would work toward global disarmament. Excelsior, Michael Lindemann's new novel (written under the pen name Michael Paul), depicts a wholly plausible near future in which human cloning is both widespread and widely abused; terrorists have access to target-specific biological weapons; recreational space travel is commonplace; and mounting pressures of global climate change, environmental decline, population growth and civil unrest inspire radical new approaches to urban security. Built by Frontier on a Macintosh on 6/17/00; 11:58:00 AM. Web Comments - Produced by Larry Lowe Served 2147 times since 2/25/99.

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