By taking the difficult mental leap on how to negotiate with China and Pakistan, Mr. Vajpayee has reduced the political risk for his successors in handling the boundary dispute and the Kashmir question.

IT IS not often that a government at the end of its term tries risky diplomatic ventures on issues of great national significance. But that precisely is what the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is doing. Barely six months ago, he launched India on the path of negotiating the sensitive boundary question with China. Last week in Islamabad, he opened the doors for historic talks with Pakistan on the Kashmir question. The National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, who negotiated the deal in Islamabad, has rushed immediately to Beijing for the second round of talks on the boundary dispute with China.

One can certainly question the political assumption that underlies these two negotiations — that Mr. Vajpayee is going to lead his party and coalition to victory. A week is a long time in politics; and general elections always have an element of unpredictability. But there is no denying the boldness of the moves that Mr. Vajpayee has made. The Prime Minister has been driven by the conviction that India's relations with both China and Pakistan can be transformed. And that he can put his individual stamp to these processes. Nothing else explains Mr. Vajpayee's decision to run what traditionalists might call the "fool's errand" on the boundary dispute with China and the Kashmir question with Pakistan.

No one would have blamed Mr. Vajpayee for not trying to resolve these two great national security challenges, inherited from the founding fathers of the Republic. Mr. Vajpayee, like most of his predecessors, could easily have taken shelter under the two resolutions of Parliament — in 1962 and 1994. The first demanded that China return every square inch of the territory "lost" in 1962. The second proclaimed that the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir "belongs" to India.

Any attempt to resolve these two questions involves a significant departure from the long-stated positions held by the Government and the chattering classes. Yet Mr. Vajpayee has chosen to risk a negotiation. And the word from e South Block is that the Government will not allow the electoral calendar to come in the way of these talks. They will continue as if there is no imminent political change. While the risks of these talks with China and Pakistan are great, so are the rewards.

If Mr. Vajpayee can succeed in either of these two negotiations, he would go down as a statesman and peacemaker. But there is more at stake than Mr. Vajpayee's personal reputation. If successful, either of these two negotiations could radically alter the strategic condition of India. If both these gambles end on a happy note, India could be liberated from the past obsessions on territoriality and take its rightful place in the world.

If there is one way to describe India's central strategic challenge after Independence, it was the three-front problem. Flanked by the two wings of Pakistan on the east and the west, India also had to handle the Chinese on the north. The very construction of the Indian map was hobbled by this problem and further aggravated by adversarial relations with both China and Pakistan. Just as India became a free nation, China too entered the modern world. A rising China and an emerging India, with their new-found nationalism and the imperatives of territorial consolidation inevitably clashed at the Himalayas. Meanwhile to the south of the Himalayas, the subcontinent was partitioned and India found itself in a prolonged confrontation with Pakistan. Kashmir turned out to be emblematic of the bitter legacy of Partition.

India's military, political and diplomatic energies were consumed for decades by this challenge. The break-up of Pakistan in the 1971 war reduced the three-front problem to a two-front one. But it did not in the end resolve the problem of coping with two adversaries who were locked in an all-weather friendship. To make it worse, China and Pakistan also tied up with the United States in the second phase of the Cold War. India then constructed a partnership with the Soviet Union.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left India exposed once again. But the steady improvement of Indo-U.S. relations in the 1990s and the proclamation of a strategic partnership under the Bush administration eased the problem a little; however, it did not let India out of the box. Playing the great power game was fine, but it was not enough to transform India's two-front problem. India had to deal with this on its own steam and find an exit.

Should India try and solve the problem with Pakistan first or China? Mr. Vajpayee's answer has been "let's attack on both fronts" — in a diplomatic sense.

India's attempts to befriend China in the 1950s were interpreted by some Western analysts as a framework to avoid the three-front problem and as a means to neutralise Pakistan. When India reached out to the West for assistance in dealing with China after the 1962 debacle, the advice from the Anglo-American powers was to make up with Pakistan. In other words, their demand was to settle with Pakistan before dealing with China. This was the context in which India negotiated with Pakistan on the Kashmir dispute. The most substantive discussions ever between India and Pakistan took place between their Foreign Ministers, Swaran Singh and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, during 1963-64. But these negotiations came to nought and the two countries drifted to a war in 1965.

Meanwhile, India's relations with China remained frozen amidst an enduring sense of bitterness in New Delhi. There was no way India could make a move to transform the relations with China despite the establishment of diplomatic ties in the late 1970s. The then Foreign Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, understood the problem and made a brave effort to change the dynamic with Pakistan in 1979. Indira Gandhi towards the end of her life began to see the no-win situation India had caught itself in. She opened border negotiations with China in the early 1980s, but there was a hard to swallow lump in the throat.

A lot of credit goes to Rajiv Gandhi who for a moment appeared poised to attack the two-front problem. His 1988 visit to Beijing broke the mould of India's obdurate China policy. He opened the doors for normalisation of bilateral relations and addressing the boundary dispute in a realistic manner. Rajiv Gandhi had also explored the brief opportunities that presented themselves in the late 1980s to embark on a journey of peace with Pakistan. His initiatives on the two-front problem came too late to be conclusive.

Mr. Vajpayee's moves to restructure the relations with China and Pakistan too have come towards the end of his political term. The betting at this moment is that unlike Rajiv Gandhi, Mr. Vajpayee has a better chance of coming back to power. Irrespective of what happens in the elections, Mr. Vajpayee has introduced a new flexibility in India's position on both these difficult questions. By taking the difficult mental leap on how to negotiate with China and Pakistan, Mr. Vajpayee has reduced the political risk for his successors in handling the boundary dispute and the Kashmir question.

On the boundary issue, Mr. Vajpayee signalled this in his address to the combined commanders conference last November. Pointing to the strategic importance of settling the boundary dispute with China, he urged the nation to prepare itself for "pragmatic decisions". As he underlined the gains from such a settlement, including the release of India's military and financial resources, he was informing the nation that New Delhi was ready to give up many of its past territorial claims as part of a sensible deal with China. On the eve of his visit to Islamabad, Mr. Vajpayee underlined India's new readiness for a serious negotiation on Kashmir. He also indicated India's willingness to go beyond the stated positions of the past, when he conceded that territorial status quo along the Line of Control will not be acceptable to Pakistan.

We need not be detained here by the debate on the nature of the settlements that India might eventually arrive at in its talks with China and Pakistan. They will be part of a very hard bargain. But the very decision to get there reflects a new political maturity and a determination to break out of the strategic trap that circumstances set for India at the time of Independence. The Kashmir dispute with Pakistan and the boundary problem with China formed a chain and a ball on each of India's feet. India is now ready to free itself.