While more than one-fifth of the humankind inhabiting the India-Pakistan subcontinent want their rulers to stop their sabre-rattling and attend to their socio-economic plight the two governments have drifted into a logjam from which they cannot easily extricate themselves.

The most critical issue at the moment is not only the danger of cross-border exchange of fire developing into a more serious conflagration but also the signs that both sides are relishing the horrible prospect. One can only hope that the Indian army chief realises the ominous implications of his reported statement about his country’s readiness to launch a brief strike. Likewise, one hopes that the Pakistani non-official commentator understands the meaning of his boast that India should be prepared for a full-scale and longer conflict. Neither of them can be accused of caring for the best interest of the people of the two closest South Asian neighbours.

Day after day Indian forces are asked to give the Pakistanis a karara jawab and Pakistanis claim to be delivering to the Indians mun-tor jawab, as if the confrontation between the two countries is no better than a brawl between teenaged street bullies.

This rhetoric of war has obviously sprung out of the huge increase in violations of line of control and the international boundary between India and Pakistan witnessed over the last eight weeks or so. It has been reported that as against eight ceasefire violations during the first six months of the current year, Pakistan complained of 70 violations during July and August and reported loss of 22 lives. India has accused Pakistan of a slightly smaller number of violations and the loss of 15 lives.

The danger that these ceasefire violations could spark a bigger clash of arms has been recognised all along. Also clear has been the need to stop the blame game and start restoring order along the lines of control. Little surprise then that the second point in the 5-point Ufa agreement between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan called for an "early meeting of DG BSF and DG Pakistan Rangers followed by that of DGMOs."

The first BSF-Rangers meeting is scheduled for Wednesday (September 09, 2015). If peace is to be saved, the two sides must develop a mechanism for monitoring of order along the line of control. Failure of these talks will be a warning that peace in the region is at a heavy discount.

The second issue between India and Pakistan is an hitherto fruitless sparring on the issue of terrorism. The Modi Sarkar is apparently determined to exploit the problems Pakistan has created for itself by failing to convince the world of its brief. Islamabad is countering India’s complaints of harbouring terrorists (that India wants to try or wants tried properly by Pakistan) by telling the British and the Americans of India’s finger in its troubles in Balochistan and elsewhere. There is some talk of taking these complaints to the United Nations too.

However solid the case regarding Indian sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan may be, it is unlikely to convince the world that Islamabad is coming to the world forum with clean hands. The only way Pakistan can improve its bargaining position with India is to convince the world that it has found a way to clean up all of the country’s terrorist breeding grounds. And so long as India and Pakistan perceive terrorism as a means to needle one another for security-related gains, the threat of war will persist.

The third issue is Pakistan’s effort to bind Modi down to a policy of composite talks that include Kashmir.

It is quite clear that the Modi Sarkar is determined to avoid talks on Kashmir until it has overcome the latest uprising in the Kashmir Valley (by educated pro-freedom youth) and has completed the process of achieving exclusive BJP dominance in Jammu. Thus, India can ignore the past and object to Pakistan representatives’ meeting with the Hurriyat leaders and it can take exception to a reference to Kashmir on the agenda for the meeting of National Security Advisers.

However, Pakistan should not fail to learn from the way it contributed to the collapse of the Ufa agreement.

On his return from Ufa Nawaz Sharif discovered that he was being pilloried by the hawks under his wing for having signed an accord unfavourable to Pakistan. To appease these critics, the government of Pakistan took a long time to accept the Indian invitation for the NSA’s meeting and then introduced a reference to Kashmir in the agenda it proposed to Delhi. Somewhere along the line Islamabad chose to ignore the past and declined to invite the speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting which was to be hosted in Islamabad (the CPA meeting was shifted to New York).

During this shadow-boxing Pakistan relied on the preamble to the Ufa declaration, assumed that the reference to preparation to "discuss all outstanding issues" included Kashmir, while India took shelter under its exclusion from the 5-point operative part. By now our policy-makers must have realised that India is not going to allow the issue of Kashmir to be brought up through any tactical manoeuvre and they have to find a way to pursue normalisation with India in the given situation.

We are thus back in the situation before the idea of a composite dialogue was accepted by both New Delhi and Islamabad. The most essential requirement now is to keep the process of talks going without shouting "Kashmir first" and yet without giving up the principled stand that Kashmir is an issue between the people of Kashmir on one side and India and Pakistan on the other.

The subcontinent will not be able to grow out of clouds of war and destruction if no normalisation is to be allowed until Kashmir is resolved. This is a path to an endless war of attrition. The alternative is ceaseless work to promote an understating between India and Pakistan that alone can facilitate a settlement in Kashmir in accordance with the will of the people of that benighted territory.