Agra Summit and Beyond a collection of essays, interviews and personal remembrances of the Agra summit, undoubtedly an important event in Indo-Pak relations, in the recent years. Khalid Mahmood covers the road to Agra and the events that took place during the summit meeting in a chronological sequence on who said what and on which date. His essay also covers major opinions published in leading dailies. Tavleen Singh’s essay was a personal recollection of the Agra events and the general history of Kashmir from a journalist’s perspective. An important observation that Tavleen makes is: ‘The journalists in Agra were some of the finest in the subcontinent but were, inadvertently, taking exactly the positions their governments had.’ This is an important issue, not only related to the Agra Summit, but every major development, especially when it comes to J&K. Especially, when the development is negative, such as a terrorist attack or cross-border terrorism, the media in both countries become highly jingoistic, thus inadvertently becoming a tool for the hawks to bash the other side further.
Tavleen concludes that there are two roads ahead: Peace without redrawing borders, which is the Indian perspective, based on the belief that cross-border terrorism will die a natural death. ‘If it does not and the violence in the Valley continues to remain beyond the control of the Indian government, then an international solution will have to be sought at some point.’