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By Sudip Mazumdar
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Shortly after Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee won a second term in office, telephones started jangling at his tree-lined bungalow in New Delhi. One of the callers was Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. The Pakistani congratulated Vajpayee, saying that the election was "a vote of trust and confidence" and "a tribute to [Vajpayee's] personal qualities of leadership." Nawaz urged Vajpayee to revive the stalled peace process started last February, when Vajpayee went on a historic bus ride to Lahore. Vajpayee thanked Nawaz and underlined the need for peace in South Asia, too.
The friendly line may have been cut. Just four days after the phone call, a pall fell over Vajpayee's swearing-in ceremony as Nawaz was held incommunicado in his Islamabad home. Army Chief Musharraf Parvez, the general who has declared himself Pakistan's chief executive, hasn't exactly gone out of his way to make a good impression on Vajpayee. When the Indian leader stepped off the bus on Pakistani soil last February, Nawaz and other officials greeted him warmly. But Musharraf was absent. So were the naval and air force chiefs. "It looked to me pretty odd that Musharraf wasn't there," says a passenger on the bus ride. The generals were busy entertaining a delegation from China. That evening, Musharraf showed up at a reception for Vajpayee and shook hands stiffly with the Indian leader. Says a Vajpayee aide: "It seemed that Musharraf was not very comfortable."
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The Indians fear that a Musharraf-led Pakistani regime could spark more violence in Kashmir. They point out that even as Nawaz was talking peace, Musharraf was planning the invasion of Kargil. "The Pakistani Army tried to scuttle the Lahore peace process," says a top Indian official. Indian intelligence has reported dissatisfaction in the Pakistani military over what many generals felt was a "humiliating defeat" caused by Nawaz's withdrawing from Kargil mountaintops in Kashmir under pressure from Washington. Indian troops in Kashmir have been placed on alert. "I think the Army would take some time to consolidate its position," says Lt. Gen. V. R. Raghavan, a former director general of military operations in India. " But to divert attention from its own problems, they may try to create more trouble inside Kashmir."
India's leaders scrambled to downplay the coup. "We are concerned," says External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh. "But there is no cause for alarm or anxiety." Vajpayee reaffirmed India's commitment to friendly ties with Pakistan. On the ground the turmoil hasn't scared off travelers on the Delhi-Lahore bus service launched by Vajpayee. On the day of the coup, the buses reached their destinations, Delhi and Lahore, safely. According to the Indian officials who run the service from the Delhi side, all the seats are booked for the next two weeks. It may take longer to set the diplomatic wheels in motion again.
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