One is disappointed, yes. But one is not surprised at all at the abrupt conclusion and termination of the Pervez Musharraf-Atal Bihari Vajpayee summit at Agra. There was a brief period of about two or three hours on the evening of Sunday, July 15, when optimistic expectations surged high because of indications about a joint statement being issued at the end of the summit and remarks by President Musharraf that the talks were useful and were going 'alright'. The minutiae of events in the chronological sequence of discussions at various levels and the exchange of draft documents have all been covered in detail both by the print and audio-visual media. The media coverage in fact distorted the objective perspective in which the summit discussions were held. The dubious virtues of the coverage were political illiteracy and an inclination towards hyperbole. But that is not the purpose of this article. The purpose is to bring out in precise and objective terms, to the maximum extent possible, the fact that the summit failed because Pervez Musharraf had decided in advance that it should fail if India did not accept his demands in toto. Lest one is accused of a jingoistic approach or of starting a 'blame-game', it is worthwhile recounting the pronouncements and also orientations of President Musharraf and the Pakistani government, particularly after he received the invitation of the Indian prime minister, Vajpayee, on May 24, 2001. In fact, it would be pertinent to go further back to Musharraf's repeated announcements that he is willing to meet Vajpayee at any time, on any date, at any place, to discuss India-Pakistan relations and to bring them back on track. His lengthy interview to M.J. Akbar, published in the Asian Age, was the first detailed articulation by him of his India policies. The second instance is an equally lengthy interview given to Dileep Padgaonkar, the executive editor of the Times of India, just a week before he came to Delhi and Agra. In both these interviews he clearly underlined the following points. His primary and overarching objective to have a meeting with Vajpayee was to discuss the Kashmir issue from his point of view. He clarified that while he is willing to discuss other issues affecting India-Pakistan relations, he will be willing to discuss these other issues in a substantive and meaningful manner only after a solution satisfactory to him is achieved on Kashmir. When queried about his views on terrorist violence and secessionism, his response was that he was opposed to violence and terrorism but that he did not consider the secessionist violence in Jammu and Kashmir as terrorism. In his view, it was a violent struggle for self-determination. That the jihad in Kashmir was justified. That it was a freedom struggle which Pakistan supports, politically, morally and diplomatically. At the same time, he indulged in obfuscation stating that Pakistan was not playing any role in the violence in Jammu and Kashmir and that this was an entirely indigenous phenomenon. He flatly denied Pakistan's sponsorship and support to various violent groups in terms of sanctuaries, supplies and training. When pressurized in these interviews to be specific about a solution which he may have in mind, he said that an acceptable solution can be based only on going back to holding a referendum or a plebiscite envisaged in the United Nations resolutions of 1947 and 1948. But he wanted these resolutions to be applied only selectively without implementing the provisions in these resolutions for vacation of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistani raiders and regular Pakistani armed forces. In an interview to Gulf News, just 48 hours before his arrival in Delhi, Musharraf stated that neither the Shimla agreement nor the Lahore declaration and accompanying documents have any relevance to the summit at Agra. These were the agreements which have not served any purpose, according to him. His foreign minister, and he himself of course, claimed that he was quoted out of context by the Indian media. That he was willing to take cognizance of the Shimla and Lahore agreements as benchmarks for the future of India-Pakistan relations. Addressing a women's delegation in Islamabad in the first week of July, he said that he desires a new status for the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir delinked from India. When his ladies' delegation asked him what he thought of Kashmir valley being given to Pakistan and Jammu and Ladakh remaining in India, his reported response was that there must not be any ill-informed suggestions on these lines. He told these ladies' delegates that there are Muslims in Ladakh and Kargil and in Jammu. They cannot be abandoned. So the whole state of Jammu and Kashmir has to be perhaps delinked from India to move towards a solution. Responding to speculation whether the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir could be a basis for a solution, he said a week before arriving in Delhi that the line of control is the problem. How it can be a solution - implying that he does not accept the relevance or sanctity of the line of control. He also kept harping on the point that he was the first head of government and state of Pakistan who has persuaded India to invite him to come and discuss only the Kashmir question. Under instructions from him his finance minister, Shaukat Aziz, and his commerce minister, Razzak Dawood, made public pronouncements in the second week of July that India-Pakistan cooperation can be structured only after the Kashmir problem is solved. Musharraf did not show any response to suggestions regarding nuclear risk reduction, in the context of nuclear weaponization of India and Pakistan. In fact, he re-affirmed the legitimacy of Pakistani nuclear weapons and missiles as a deterrence against India and linked it to the Kashmir issue. He also remained adamant about tripartite talks with Pakistan, the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference and India being participants to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. Although he agreed at individual suggestions that the contacts with the Hurriyat should be separately undertaken by India and Pakistan, he insisted that the Hurriyat should be acknowledged by India as the sole representative of Jammu and Kashmir, which is politically and factually unjustified. He then announced just three days before the summit that he is not bringing his finance minister and commerce minister, but only his foreign minister, Abdul Sattar, for the talks with the foreign secretary in the delegation, consisting of his personal staff and foreign office officials. These signals should have been sufficient for us to realize that he was coming for the summit with a narrow agenda and a single aim. That is either to proclaim to the world after the summit that India had accepted the Jammu and Kashmir issue as not just a very important item of discussion but the only and the most important item of discussion. And if he did not succeed, to proclaim to the world that despite the special effort that he had made to come to India, India remained obstinate and unreasonable. Leaving aside the cosmetic hype which surrounded his engagements in Delhi and Agra, he pushed through the one-sided agenda without any concern about its consequences. After giving initial indications that his meeting with the Hurriyat will depend on the government of India's views, not only was the Hurriyat invited to the tea party hosted by the Pakistan high commissioner, Asharaf Jehangir Qazi, but they had a 25-minute meeting with Musharraf in which he repeated the contents of the letter which he wrote them just before the summit, extending them full support and acknowledging them as the sole representatives of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In his banquet speech at the presidential banquet on the evening of July 14, he adopted an admonitory and hortatory tone urging India to solve the Kashmir problem. It should be mentioned in this con- text that he not only wanted Kashmir to be the sole item on the agenda but he also wanted a solution to the Kashmir problem within a definite time-frame (almost like an ultimatum). Then came the calculated theatrics aimed at aborting the summit meeting. He addressed a breakfast meeting of senior Indian and foreign editors on the morning of Monday, July 16, without telling them in advance that his address to them in the discussions would be filmed and broadcast by the Pakistan TV. It was a highly aggressive performance in which he emphasized that Pakistan cannot give up the primacy of Kashmir in the discussion agenda with India. He stated that he considered confidence-building measures irrelevant unless the fundamental confidence-building measure of a solution of the Kashmir problem is not implemented, a solution which should be acceptable to Pakistan. He went on to say that if India did not trust him, why did India invite him. He justified his aggression in Kargil as a response to India supporting the liberation struggle of Bangladesh and India occupying Siachen in 1984 (he ignored the fact that the Indian action in Siachen was a pre-emptive step against impending Pakistani moves in the area). No head of government or a senior government delegate holds an abrasive press conference justifying his negotiating stance in the middle of negotiations while they are still going on. Even if one agrees that Sushma Swaraj's press briefing on July 15, was somewhat one-sided, there was no need for Musharraf to address the press after the Pakistani delegation had responded to Swaraj's interview. Parallel to this exercise, tactical moves were made to prepare the groundwork for a Pakistani publicity and diplomatic offensive against India. The Pakistan foreign minister, Sattar, told the media that there is likelihood of a joint press statement while it was clear by Sunday night that there was going to be a deadlock. Simultaneously, Musharraf undertook a lengthy one-to-one discussion with Vajpayee to give the impression that he was struggling to forge a compromise, which in fact was not the case according to the information which one has. Musharraf's response to Vajpayee's invitation was predicated on wrong assumptions. He thought that India was vulnerable to external pressure; that the government and the security forces of India had reached levels of exhaustion where they would not be firm about responding to Pakistan-sponsored separatism and terrorism in India; he thought that the coalition led by Vajpayee is faction-ridden and that Vajpayee faces pressure from the opposition because of which he would not be able to take firm stand against Pakistani advocacies. He felt that in this context, he would wrest a compromise from India within the frame-work of the Pakistani agenda on Kashmir. He also felt that Vajpayee could not afford to see a failure of the summit organized at his initiative. Discussions on July 15 and 16 have proved that he was completely wrong in these assumptions. His alternative gameplan that if the summit failed, he would tell the world about his reasonableness and India's obstinacy has partially succeeded. This also suits the vested interests of his survival in power with the support of the armed forces and the Islam-pasand parties who do not wish peace or a realistic compromise on Kashmir. Although one is disappointed at the failure of the summit, in overall terms it might be good for India. We have given a clear message about our firmness in protecting our interests in face of tentative and uncertain prospects of peace with Pakistan. There is no need for India to be downcast or desperate. The author is former foreign secretary of India