LAHORE, Feb 19: Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee couldn’t have chosen a better time of year to accept his Pakistani counterpart’s invitation to visit this country, especially Lahore, Nawaz Sharif’s hometown. For one thing, it is spring, a lovely season in Lahore – but Vajpayee has just missed the most joyous expression of celebrating this season.

‘Basant’ – the Punjabi celebration that welcomes spring with mustard-flower yellow and flying kites -- last Sunday (Feb 14) was one of the most enthusiastically celebrated ever, with even government departments jumping in and sponsoring events for the first time, ignoring the long-standing contention of religious extremists that this is an ‘un-Islamic’ festival and should be banned.

Among the many out of town guest who came to join the celebrations was former Indian cricket captain Bishen Singh Bedi and his wife, who were part of a World Punjabi Congress delegation.

But the basant mood still prevails. And the political weather seems never to have been better either. The keenly-watched cricket test match in India took place without any ‘untoward incident’ as the press puts it, despite the dark threats of the VHP.

Nawaz Sharif gave an interview a couple of weeks ago to Shekhar Gupta of Indian Express in which he exuded ‘Punjabi bonhomie’ and invited Vajpayee for a taste of Lahoree hospitality, confidently brushing aside any suggestion that the religious parties would disrupt the visit.

He is being put to the test rather sooner than many expected. Vajpayee was quick to respond – also via the press, and literally within days, the invitation had been accepted and arrangements were being made for the journey.

The much-talked about Lahore-Delhi bus service agreement has finally been signed after much preparation, including trial runs by officials of both countries. And it is on the inaugural run of the Delhi-Lahore bus that Vajpayee is expected to cross the Wagah border on Feb 20.

Until now, no road traffic between the two countries has been permitted, although rail and air links do exist. A notable exception was the visit to Pakistan four years ago of some 20 high-ranking Rimcollians - alumni of the Royal Indian Military College in Dehra Dun – ex-army officers whose visit here was facilitated by fellow alumnus, then Interior Minister Naseerullah Babar.

For ordinary mortals, if they can manage to obtain visas, it’s either the expensive half-hour plane journey or the tedious Lahore-Delhi train ride, for which trains have to be switched at borders where intensive customs and passport controls contribute to stretching the 300 km distance into at least 24 hours.

Last November, some 100 Indians who arrived at Amritsar on rented buses, had to walk across the border and board Pakistani buses (also rented), to participate in a Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy people-to-people meeting being held in Peshawar.

The Lahore-Delhi bus, for the first time, besides being a government vehicle, promises the sight of an Indian license plate on this side of the border, and vice versa. The smaller number of passengers means that the checking and border controls will be less long drawn out – even so, a journey which should take no more than 6-8 hours will end up lasting 12. Islamabad, at a comparative distance from Lahore, now takes no more than four hours to reach on the Motorway.

In fact, reflecting his impatience with the bureaucracy Sharif went so far in the Indian Express interview as so promise that all outstanding issues between the two countries could be resolved by himself and his fellow Indian prime minister as they rode together on the bus – although it is not likely that he will accompany Vajpayee back as earlier speculated.

Vajpayee’s forthcoming visit to Lahore after 20 years is also preceded by an unprecedented India-Pakistan Parliamentarians’ Conference organised by daily The News, at which if nothing else, politicians from either side of the border got to meet and exchange views.

"This kind of people-to-people contact is vital in reducing animosities," maintains Digant Oza, political editor in India of four Gujrati-language publications with a combined circulation of 300,000. "Who would have thought that Gohar Ayub (Pakistan’s hawkish former foreign minister, the son of late military dictator Gen. Ayub Khan) would be sitting with Indian parliamentarians and agreeing that peace is necessary in the region. But he had to say that, even if he didn’t mean it. And that is important."

Gohar Ayub had been quoted shortly before the conference as saying that "Indians and Pakistanis were like oil and water in a barrel, they just can’t mix."

Oza, who attended the Parliamentarians Conference along with several other Indian journalists, also quotes the example of an equally hawkish Indian parliamentarian who was heard shouting ‘Pakistan zindabad!’ (long live Pakistan) at the end of one session. "A week ago, one couldn’t even have conceived of this!" says a bemused Oza, scratching his grizzly beard.

But many were disappointed with the Indian parliamentarians’ cautious approach to the disputed valley of Kashmir, which echoed the official line – a far cry from the resolution adopted by various meetings of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy, which rejects the notion of Kashmir as a territorial dispute between two countries, and calls for the issue to be settled through dialogue, taking into account 'the rights and aspirations of the Kashmiri people'.

Meanwhile, preparations for Vajpayee’s visit are in full swing, with roads being repaired at the gates at Wagah being given a paint job. But not everyone is prepared to welcome the Indian premier. Three religious parties, including the Jamat-e-Islami, have held demonstrations against the visit, and announced a strike on Feb 20, defying the government’s request not to do so – a protest not joined by most of their fellow religious parties.

In a letter to President Rafiq Tarrar, Jamat-i-Islami (JI) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed has stated that the preparations to receive the Indian prime minister have "created concern among the patriotic people." Castigating the Sharif government for ‘betraying’ the Kashmir cause, he says that this course "will not only undermine Pakistan’s ideological identity but also its stand on the dispute."

On the other side of the political spectrum, left-wing Labour Party general secretary Farooq Tariq, who is a firm proponent of India-Pakistan ties, refuses to accept Vajpayee as a genuine representative of the Indian people.

"He is as much an oppressor of the Indian masses as Nawaz Sharif is of the Pakistanis, and as long as people like them are at the helm of affairs, it is not likely that ties between our countries will improve,’’ he says. ‘’The BJP, like the Pakistan Muslim League, is responsible for the economic and political exploitation of ordinary people."

But Tariq takes strong exception to the Jamat-e-Islami’s threat to forcibly halt all business activity in Lahore during Vajpayee’s visit. ‘’It is the JI’s democratic right to protest against the visit but we cannot accept it to force shops and businesses to shut down,’’ he says, adding that this behaviour is ‘indicative of facist tendencies’.

It is appropriate that Vajpayee’s first visit to Pakistan since 1979, when he was a foreign minister (?) should be to Lahore. As the writer of the weekly ‘Lahore Diary’ wrote recently in daily Dawn: "The city symbolises the sharply clashing and contradictory strains that govern our attitudes towards India. Lahore is where goodwill for India and Indians breaks out on the slightest pretext at the public level; it is also the home base of those groups and parties who are most determined to resist any normalisation of ties."

"It is Lahore which opened its arms to Indian cricket fans in 1954, just six years after the communal bloodbath in the Punjab. It is Lahore which bore the brunt of the Indian offensive in 1965 and whose poets and writers were swept by a wave of anti-Indian fervour."

"It is this city which has maintained a tenuous rail link with Delhi; and it is also the city where you most loudly hear protest from chauvinists about the proposed bus service between the two countries."

It remains to be seen which Lahore Vajpayee appeals to. Will the politicians be able to transcend their traditional standpoints and take a necessary and significant step towards peace in South Asia, especially now that both India and Pakistan have tested nuclear weapons.

It is this last factor that has in fact galvanised the beginnings of a ‘peace movement’ in both countries; several Indian delegates are expected at the massive Peace Conference next weekend in Karachi, an entirely non-government initiative. One of the major points being debated at the conference will be the issue of economics and security.

"Economic development is closely linked with the law and order situation in the country and peace in the region," as Nawaz Sharif has acknowledged. It should not be forgotten that he was elected not just on his economic manifesto but also on his pledge to promote peace with India.

Both he and Vajpayee are better equipped for the task than leaders of parties which are perceived as relatively more ‘progressive’ – had it been Benazir Bhutto in Sharif’s place today, the Feb 20 strike would have been endorsed by not three, but by three dozen religious parties, and then some.