The ceasefire announcement is in line with the millennium's proposed new order, hoped to be built around dialogue and diplomacy, collective security, multilateralism and globalisation, and not around violence. And yet the decision must have been taken with the knowledge that neither Pakistan nor the militant groups share the hopes of the new order. Their attitude remains rooted in the twisted interpretation of `jehad'.

We have been led to believe that the ceasefire is intended to establish a ``peace process'' for J&K. As Ambassador Gehad Mardi has pointed out in an incisive analysis of the West Asian situation, any ``peace process has two elements that are distinct yet generically inter-related''. Peace is a state of being, while ``process'' is a mechanism by which such a state could be reached. In the Kashmir situation, one can talk of the ``solution process'' since we talk of a solution. The process is variable while the solution has to be constant, and can be established only if the solution is clearly defined. The ``process'' is easily put in place if the parties to the dialogue are well defined.

When the ceasefire was announced, the government's intention seemed to be to open talks with the so-called representatives of the people of J&K, the Hurriyat Conference. This made sense since it was meant to lead to dialogue with Kashmiris within the Indian constitution.

The effort began to unravel when the Hurriyat and Pakistan's apologists sought to include in talks the government of Pakistan and the militant organisations based in Pakistan. By asking for prior consultation with them the Hurriyat leadership tried to be facilitators in addition to being a party to the dispute. This alarmed part of the Indian leadership which had submerged its differences to push forward the ceasefire proposal.

For 53 years, Indian representatives and spokesmen have assiduously maintained that J&K is an integral part of India, the only issue to be resolved being the return of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK); that our willingness to have a dialogue with Pakistan refers to settling the future of POK peacefully; that such talks have nothing to do with J&K's status as an integral part of India and that we need no mediators. In recent years, Pak-sponsored cross-border terrorism has evolved as a major issue and we have included this into the dialogue.

With Hurriyat trying to jockey itself into the twin positions of interlocutor and protagonist on the one hand and a mediator on the other, many questions arise. Has the Vajpayee government begun to dilute our over-50-year-old stand on Kashmir? Has it accepted the Hurriyat and Pakistani position that Kashmir is a ``disputed'' territory? Is it willing to accept Pakistan as an essential party to the ``final solution,'' and mediators like the Hurriyat for an Indo-Pak dialogue? Has it decided to sideline the elected government of J&K, the Ladakh Buddhist leadership and the Pandit and Sikh community of Kashmir by implicitly accepting Hurriyat as the sole interlocutors? And does the prime minister's ``Insaniyat'' transcend the Indian constitution as the guiding beacon for a solution?

The ceasefire announcement was made without much thought to what the government wanted to achieve as the final solution. It has been saved the embarrassment of clarifying the solution it is seeking by the predictably archaic Pakistani response and the overconfidence of the Hurriyat leadership. It has been allowed to get away with an important international diplomacy success a confused opposition and by the bankruptcy of foreign-policy ideas in the Congress.

It would do well not to rest on is fortuitous laurels. The Bush administration has made it clear that getting India to move forward on Kashmir is a continuing priority of US foreign policy. The government must clarify how it sees the ``solution process'' proceeding.

The Indian position, which has a complete political consensus on J&K being an integral part of India, requires that the talks with the representatives of J&K, led by the Hurriyat Conference, should begin immediately to solve all outstanding issues of administration, management, economic and social development, democracy and elections in Kashmir. It must also cover the thorny autonomy demands.

The protagonists in this dialogue are the Indian government and the representatives of the people of J&K. Pakistan has no place in it. The Hurriyat Conference leadership should be given every facility as major representatives of the people. It should also be made clear to them that their mediation is not needed for an Indo-Pak dialogue nor are prior consultations with the Musharraf regime or militants based in Pakistan for solving their grievances vis-a-vis the Indian government.

The second element of this ``solution process'' is dialogue with Pakistan on POK and the support to militants groups in J&K. It should be made clear that Pakistan is a party to only these two issues. For the international community, it should be evident that the major Indian concession is to extend the ceasefire and suspend the prior demand of cessation of Pakistani support for terrorism in Kashmir. As long as Pakistan sees the ceasefire as an outcome of India's weakness, and success of Pakistan's proxy war, no dialogue will ever succeed.

The parallel dialogue streams, one with Hurriyat Conference, the other with the Pakistan Government, would ultimately merge. That final solution - whether we insist on re-claiming POK and the northern territories of the erstwhile state of J&K, or whether we accept the Line of Actual Control as the international border - depends on the outcome of these two streams.

A continued unilateral ceasefire will cause further loss of life of Indian security forces and J&K's civilian population. This can only be justified if the ``solution process' is accompanied by total clarity and transparency in the objectives. The overwhelming reliance on the ceasefire as the only mechanism ignores the search for other mechanisms and has led the Indian people to believe that the process is itself the solution. Should it fail, the government should continue to look for other mechanisms and not withdraw into its shell to appease the hardliners.

Mr Shah is a former permanent representative to the UN