(From left) Air Marshal Zafar A. Chaudhry, Admiral L. Ramdas, Lt Gen. Nasir Akhtar and Brigadier Rao Abid Hamid in New Delhi on Saturday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, Dec. 4: This morning Brigadier Rao Abid Hamid of the Pakistan Armoured Corps is in the Gandhi Museum Library here after a visit to Rajghat seeking comfort thought from friends.

This month three decades and three years ago he was looking at India through field glasses from the turret of a tank, ready to bark orders to the gunner: FIRE FIRE FIRE.

Palms resting on a cane, slow of gait and hard of hearing from all the shells he has fired, the retired officer is a cynical old man but still talks like his orders are the wishes of the world.

?We are pretending to search for peace. Perhaps our governments do not really want peace,? he says, the guttural voice a throaty equivalent of the creaking from tracked vehicles.

Age, time, experience, war weariness... whatever.

It must take as much guts to wage peace as it does to wage war. The brigadier is blunt with words. Perhaps that is the way it should be. Old soldiers wage peace the way you wage war. Passionately.

?Some of them call me a peacenik. That I am not. I am a peace warrior.?

For seven years, Brigadier Hamid, now no more the sprightly tank commander he was, is the coordinator of the Pakistan chapter of the India-Pakistan Soldiers? Initiative for Peace.

Of all the Track II activity around the Islamabad-Delhi bureaucratic parleys that go by the label ?composite dialogue?, the India-Pakistan Soldiers? Initiative for Peace is exceptional because among its members are men who trained guns at one another. Inspired by Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande, the outfit is steadily expanding its audience if only for its unique appeal ? men of war talking peace.

The Indian chapter is led by Admiral L. Ramdas, who retired as chief of the navy staff in 1993. A Pakistani delegation here is led by Air Marshal Zafar A. Chaudhry, chief of the Pakistan Air Force from 1972 to 1974.

?It has been said that we soldiers are best placed to make peace because we know what the vagaries of war are,? says Admiral Ramdas. Even if that is an idea that has a doubtful number of subscribers ? because it would make General Pervez Musharraf great at peacemaking ? it rings here in this hall in the Gandhi Museum Library for the audience comprises men who drove tanks, flew fighter aircraft and sailed warships hunting for the enemy and the enemy has been the next door neighbour.

Seated next to Ramdas is Lt General Nasir Akhtar, former commander of the Pakistan army?s Karachi Corps. Then there is Rear Admiral Hasam M. Ansari and Lt General Hamayun Khan Bagash; there is Major General Uzair Mohammad Khan and Major General Nawaz Chaudhry; there is Air Commodore Riaz and Colonel Ikram Ullah and Rear Admiral Hazan Ansari and Rear Admiral Khalid Wasey.

These are men who know that ?confidence-building measures? mean more than talks. ?I can tell you. It is feasible, it is no big deal. When I has force commander in Kashmir I can recall instances when I held flag meetings on the Line of Control with by counterpart in the Indian Army ? I think he was Brigadier Raj Singh at the time,? recalls Lt General Akhtar.

The officers are incensed by the long drawn out peace process. ?I believe the peace process must show immediate results, it must move faster,? says Lt General Akhtar. And they are angry that such issues as protocol should come in the way of necessary arrangements.

Brigadier Hamid, who is also a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a non-government organisation, has been campaigning for the release of Indian prisoners in Pakistan and Pakistani prisoners in India. He has been articulating the cause of fishermen from the Gujarat and Sindh coasts who get apprehended by either side for transgressing the maritime boundary.

?There are Indians who have been languishing in Pakistani jails for more than 28 years. Of course, the Pakistan government denies it. And it is sad that no authentic figure is given by the government on the number of such prisoners.?

When the delegation met Union home minister Shivraj Patil yesterday, Lt General Akhtar and Brigadier Hamid said there were over 400 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails, some of them in their teens. There are Pakistani fishermen in Indian jails for similar reasons.

Yet, Indian and Pakistani officials hold back a hotline arrangement on so flimsy a ground as ?protocol?.