SAICHEN: CONFLICT WITHOUT END
The connection between India Pakistan plummeted to its lowest levels in the late 1980s as the militancy was stepped up in Kashmir by Pakistan. This is not to agree that there have been patches of collaboration when peace efforts were made, particularly during the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto in observe to the Siachen, conflict. However, in general, the connection has been hostile and bitter. After the murder of Rajiv Gandhi and overthrow of Benazir, peace efforts were struggling to take off until I. K. Gujaral and Nawaz Sharif took charge. Hopes were raised on mutually sides of the border that the two prime ministers, being Punjabis, would welcome each other improved. Both took initiatives to resume the delayed talks and showed their decide to remove the barriers from Indo-Pakistani ties. In India, headship changed hands normally from the mid 1990s onwards. Pakistan was a bit stable under Nawaz Sharif who had shown the interest in humanizing relations with India. But with the coming one of the Bhartiya Janata Party to power In India, doubts were bound to be expressed in Pakistan. Though Atal Behari Vajpayee lasted only 11 days as Prime Minister, his next tenure in 1998 proved otherwise. This time, leading a alliance government, Vajpayee was solid in proving his critics, both in India and Pakistan, wrong by making honest efforts to improve the connection. Vajpayee tried to work out his family and external agendas in tandem. On the one hand in May 1998, he gave consent to check five nuclear devices in Pokhran and step up the missile programme, and on the other, he comprehensive his hand of familiarity to Pakistan. In return, Pakistan responded by explosion its first ever nuclear machine in the Chagai hills and carrying out a succession of missile tests. Amidst these developments Vajpayee also made a momentous bus trip to Lahore through the Wagah border and signed the Lahore statement there with Nawaz Sharif.