New Delhi's Ramzan peace offensive in Jammu and Kashmir has rolled down the icy slopes of the battle-scarred vale in lonely whispers. The laboured initiative -- which has warmed very few hearts and fired very few fertile minds -- has drawn equal amount of applause and flak from obliging peace doves and squint-eyed hawks.

Cease-fire is strictly a military term, which means temporary cessation of warfare by mutual agreement of the participants. Delhi's unilateral cease-fire has not stemmed out of political and military strength. It is more pseudo-political than military in nature. And though army chief General S Padmanabhan has advocated its continuation, his arguments have more political and administrative nuances than practical military considerations. He is not supposed to lose sight of the existence of those multi-layered parties in the Kashmir imbroglio, who have responded cacophonously rather than in a symphony. In fact, the unilateral cease-fire is not really unilateral.

Delhi's target parties, at whom the peace missile has been fired, are well identified. The Pakistani establishment is the prime participant in the proxy war against India. Its war tools are the Inter Services Intelligence and Taleban-style mujahideen organisations, which have declared jihad against Jahilyya India, a nation that has been characterised as tormentors of Islam and the Mohammadiya people of Jammu & Kashmir and in the rest of the country.

Mujahideen organisations -- like the Jais-e-Mohammad, Lashkar e Taiyba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Al-Badr-Mujahideen, Al-Umer Mujahideen and the Jamait-ul Mujahideen -- have emerged out of the ginning factory of the Pakistani establishment as tertiary growths of the Taleban movement and Pakistan's geo-strategic adventures in Afghanistan. Deployment of fanatically religious irregulars against India, particularly in Kashmir, is a well-honed tool of the Pakistani establishment.

These militant groups have merely changed sloughs and gathered more fighting teeth over the years. Fresh chiselling of these tools of jihad have been fashioned by the backroom witches in keeping with the experiences gathered in Afghanistan and other theatres of pan Islamic Jihad in Europe, Africa, America and the Pacific Rim.

The other proximately involved parties are the people of Jammu & Kashmir, the people of India at large and the Indian establishment. The National Conference, headed by Farooq Abdullah, has failed to emerge as the political voice of the people of the state. And while the All Party Hurriyat Conference cannot be considered the sole representative of the people of the embattled state, other political parties hardly represent the vital segments of the people directly affected by Pakistan's jihad thrusts. The attempt on Farooq Abdullah has almost maimed the political tools in the valley, and the political vacuum in Jammu & Kashmir has, in a strategic sense, rendered the cease-fire meaningless. The political import of the cease-fire is yet to take concrete shape.

The people of Kashmir have not turned their back on a political solution, as evidenced by the heavy turnout during the panchayat elections. But while such political behaviour may indicate their desire to seek a political solution, it does not conclusively prove that the people of the valley have accepted Delhi's unilateral cease-fire as the ultimate solution.

Several representative bodies, the intelligentsia and human rights activists have pointed out that the J&K police have observed the cease-fire more by violation than by observation. Some activists have even suggested that success of the cease-fire depends on scrupulous implementation of human rights, a chimera in a battle-scarred state where these rights are equally violated by the Pakistani proxy-warriors and the Indian security forces and the state police.

The Congress has spoken against extension of the cease-fire. But other political parties and the people in general care less over what happens in the misty vales of Kashmir. The ruling NDA, particularly the PM's coterie, feels the peace initiative will prompt the international community to pressurise Pakistan to put plugs on the jihad forces. But international pressure has not been able to compel Pakistan and its Afghan allies to put heat on Osama bin Laden. The Taleban regime, threatened by UN sanctions, continues to defy the international community.

Only daydreamers can expect that the new Bush administration will breathe fire on the shoulders of the Pakistani CEO. The cease-fire episode is far removed from the blazing guns of Kargil. Peace efforts are more complicated than waging wars.

It is internationally understood that the present CEO, General Pervez Musharraf, does preside over the affairs of a company called Pakistan. But the dreaded nexus between the ISI and the Talebanised Islamic forces rule the roost. It is an unbroken spectrum of religious bigotry that has engulfed the political and administrative fibres of Pakistan. This new form of Taleban thrust against India is part of a well-calibrated strategy. In these matters Pakistan has hardly cared for international pressures. It did not stop brutalising the Afghan arena, and it has no intention to halt to the jihad killing machines. The jihad will continue ceaselessly and spontaneously since the pan Islamist forces, which operate across the globe, have seized the movements.

The other important party to the cease-fire is the international community. The US and its strategic allies have appreciated New Delhi's bold peace initiative and have urged the contending parties to seek a political solution through talks. But nothing new has been added by the spin doctors in Washington and London, nor have they stridently called upon Pakistan to restrain its front paws, the Islamic jihad dastas (groups). Pakistan's limited strategic action of cooling down along the Line of Control and significant reduction in border shelling has been hailed in the western capitals as positive peace pointers.

No doubt this is a limited military development of shallow proportions. It is well understood that taking advantage of the limited de-escalation along the LoC, Pakistan has embarked upon multi-pronged strategies: refurbishing its defensive positions along the LoC and positions behind the immediate line of tactical operations; regrouping and recharting its border command posts and repairing the existing supply lines and facilitating jihadi infiltration into India with more sophisticated weapons.

As part of the same strategy it has called upon India to walk ahead of the cease-fire smokescreen and initiate tripartite talks, involving the representative bodies of the people of the disputed territory of Kashmir and the Pakistan establishment. The APHC has also parroted the tunes of Islamabad and their awaited visit to Pakistan is an indirect pointer that Delhi too does not rule out Pakistan's role in seeking a political solution to the problem.

But General Musharraf's latest assertion that there can be no compromise on Kashmir has added a new twist to the latest extension. The Pakistan foreign office's comment that the cease-fire should lead to a dialogue is nothing but a stale repetition of Islamabad's position, while the important militant bodies have described the cease-fire as meaningless and reiterated their resolve to continue their jihad against kafir India.

The war strategy of the jihadi groups was given a new shape in a meeting in Jeddah between January 3 to 5, in which Syed Salahauddin, the Hizbul Mujahideen chief and representatives of the Lashkar e Taiyba and Afghan Taleban militants took part. Besides discussing Osama bin Laden's security, the meeting discussed in detail the contours of the ceaseless jihad thrusts inside India. Jihad is not a war. It is a ceaseless campaign that is taken inside the heartland of the targeted Jahilyya territory by the Mohammadiya Fidayeen groups.

The concept of cease-fire does not figure in the military history of the jihadi warriors. It is an escalated version of Che Guevara's spontaneous revolution. The religious war, like the ideological revolution, is carried on spontaneously till the enemy is vanquished. From the point of view of the Islamic jihadi groups the cease-fire series of peace offensives by India carry little meaning. They have driven this point home with the Red Fort and Srinagar airport actions.

The peace offensive, as choreographed by the policy-makers in Delhi, is likely to achieve very limited political advantage. The political vacuum in the state and inability of the inefficient NC government to turn the tide in its favour has convincingly proved that Delhi can no more put all its eggs in a single basket.

The euphoria over popular participation in the panchayat elections is yet to crystallise into a viable political configuration. The APHC and its supporters continue to hang precariously between the credible Kashmiri aspirations and support to the Pakistani position. These aged leaders, who continue to live in a no man's land are used by Pakistan and are not trusted by the Kashmiri people.

The bleak political prospect is the most potent factor that may compound the adverse military and security challenges being posed by the Islamic mujahideen and jihadi fidayeen groups. Absence of a political leadership at the grassroot level is a serious damper to the peace overtures. Such empty offers and overtures without internal political and international strategic backing and razor-sharp security preparedness can invite serious security lapses much bigger than Kargil.

This message has not been lost on Delhi. The Cabinet Committee on Security has made it clear, though in a muted voice, that military offensive against the jihadi organisations will not be scaled down, and that security responses against Jais-e-Muhammad, Lashkar e Taiyba and Hizbul Mujahideen will continue at a heightened level.

The present Pakistani offensive in J&K is being spearheaded by the above-named Mujahideen and Fidayeen groups, which are capable of hitting Indian targets deep inside the heartland. Therefore, in strict strategic and tactical sense India's military responses to the proxy war will continue at the pre-cease-fire scale. It does not take India far ahead of the blurred cease-fire screen. The quagmire continues to plague the nation even in self-imposed peace initiative. The war continues in some form or other.

The Pakistani establishment is not known to behave rationally, as proved beyond doubt by the Kargil adventure, the overthrow of the Nawaz Sharif government and his exile from Pakistan. Anything bizarre can pass in the name of saving Pakistan for Islam and from the evil designs of Jahilyya India. Therefore, while India awaits positive responses from the military regime in Islamabad, it should not be misled by the peace cacophony of the professional peace doves.

Peace cannot be addressed without addressing the core issues involving Kashmir. Fulfillment of the unfinished agenda of the partition in Kashmir is the core issue to the Pakistan establishment. Jihad is the latest tool devised by its rulers to achieve that goal. Peace, despite India's unilateral cease-fire, appears to be a chimera. However, there is no harm in trying out an unjust peace over a just war, albeit temporarily, which India is committed to fight in Kashmir.

Maloy K Dhar retired as joint director, Intelligence Bureau in 1996. He has worked extensively in the troubled northeast, Punjab, Kashmir and Naxalite-affected areas.

Design: Dominic Xavier

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