The two-day Home Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, held in Delhi, on July 4-5, which focussed on terrorism and drug trafficking, took place in the backdrop of an increased cross-border infiltration in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). While pro-forma diplomatic platitudes were naturally voiced in the joint statement released at the end of what is increasingly becoming a practiced ritual, there was little sense of any forward movement.
The ingress from Pakistan has reportedly seen a significant increase from April 2007. In April, some 82 infiltration attempts were recorded, three times more than the figure for the same month in 2006. And 64 attempts were made in May 2007, almost the same as last year. Besides 376 people, including 105 civilians and 54 soldiers, have died in terrorist violence in 2007 (till July 2) in J&K. While fatalities this year remain significantly lower than those for the same period last year, when 545 persons were killed, a spurt in infiltration has stirred a sense of rising crisis. 
With a multiplicity of fronts opening up internally, President Pervez Musharraf is increasingly being painted into a corner. Further, the hiatus between rival positions on Kashmir is unbridgeable, and it is unsurprising, consequently, that the two sides are yet to commence substantive discussions on this issue; despite the fact that restoration of communication links, people-to-people exchanges and a range of confidence building measures (CBMs) have largely been successful.
Losing lustre
The hype surrounding the India-Pakistan peace process is gradually losing lustre. Over the past years, the peace process has gone through many watersheds, including people-to-people contacts and CBMs, but the shadow of Pakistan-inspired violence over J&K, and increasingly, though still occasionally, in other parts of India, persists. The various CBMs, do not, in any manner, change the stated positions of either country on the status of J&K. The peace process is tactical and it is obvious that the extremist intent has not been altered on the ground, though there has been some diminution of terrorist capabilities. This is disturbing as, increasingly, while the political discourse shapes itself along expected incremental lines, sustained and calibrated levels of terrorist violence are getting deeply intertwined within the larger rubric of the peace process.
While there has been a progressive decline in violence in J&K since 2001, an end to the bloodshed seems as unlikely as it was at any given point since the dramatic escalation of the militancy in 1989-90. Indeed, it may become progressively difficult, in the foreseeable future, to carry on the dialogue process amidst a situation of sustained and calibrated violence.
Even as Pakistan complains bitterly about the “slow pace of progress” towards the goals it seeks to secure on the negotiating table, having failed to achieve these through a vicious campaign of violence over 17 years, the peace process remains, in substantial measure, tactical rather than substantive; with Pakistan in particular treating negotiations as a parallel instrument to terrorism to exert pressure on India. There is a likelihood of an eventual breakdown, transient or permanent.
The way ahead
The future of the peace process in such a situation of sustained violence and subversion can only be uncertain. Despite Musharraf's repeated commitments not to let Pakistani soil be used for terrorism, little has been done, and there is overwhelming evidence of a continued state support of – or, minimally, tolerance of high levels of activities by – a number of terrorist groups.
The bottom-line is that, even though the varied CBMs currently operational between the two countries have strengthened the processes of “emotional enlistment,” they do not, in any measure, alter India’s and Pakistan's stated positions on the Kashmir issue. (The writer is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi )