What difference will Kashmir bus make?

By Aamer Ahmed Khan Muzaffarabad, Pakistani-administered Kashmir

Altaf Hussain Baig (l) and cousin, together at last

The tears have dried up and weariness is gradually setting in.

The morning after reaching Muzaffarabad aboard Thursday's historic bus from Srinagar, many of the passengers are trying to adjust to life without the adrenalin that carried then across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.

Some like Altaf Hussain Baig are still lapping up whatever media and official attention they can get.

"I wish last night would never end," he told the BBC News website. "We sat up till two o'clock in the morning, talking about the last 20 years."

This could well be a line from the travelogue he is planning to write.

Along with nearly 20 other passengers that still remain in Muzaffarabad, he was invited to a breakfast reception at the State Guest House by the prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

No idea

Others such as Sehrbi, from the district of Rajouri in Indian-administered Kashmir, would rather be home. It has been a hectic time for this woman in her seventies.

Crowds thronging the route

She says she had no idea that she would get "so much love and attention" on reaching here.

But she would rather spend the fortnight that her visa allows relaxing with her relatives than listening to politicians eking out every inch of political mileage they can get from an event that finds few parallels in the subcontinent's history.

But regardless of the mood, they are all aware of having made history.

One indication of that is the change in the context of what is being said to and around them - a change that seems to have come overnight.

Few are talking about tearful reunions and the long years of separation anymore. Instead, more and more are asking about what their journey means for the future.

If the bus service continues, more and more Kashmiris may find themselves willing to trade a bloody history for a peaceful future - irrespective of their constitutional status

The continuation of the bus service heads the list of questions surrounding this historic event. Despite the overwhelming consensus on the initiative, it does have its opponents.

"The bus service is a slow-acting poison for the freedom movement," says Amanullah Khan, head of the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front that wants Indian forces out of Kashmir.

The Front's political nemesis, the Jamaat-e-Islami, feels exactly the same even if its rhetoric is dressed in deeply religious language.

But these two forces - the Islamists and the secularists - are up against a mass of people who seem to have tired of the political debate.

Other options

For most of them, the bus has demonstrated that freedom does not rest only in a constitutional status. It has a much more real home in the freedom to travel across their land without any restrictions.

Sehrbi - not expecting so much 'love and attention'

And the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road is only one of the several avenues that can afford them this movement.

There are at least six other routes - covering most of undivided Kashmir from the frozen heights of Kargil in the north to the searing hot hills of Mirpur in the south.

"We used to get most of our supplies from Poonch (in Indian-administered Kashmir)," says Mohammed Siddiqi, a cloth merchant in Rawalakot.

"It is only 30 miles from here and takes an hour at the most."

The Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, the main supplier for traders in Rawalakot, is at least four hours away.

At present, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service is only available to Kashmiris.

"If it opens up to all Pakistanis, we can reach Srinagar from Islamabad in nine hours by road," says a hotel owner. "It takes those in Delhi nearly 24 hours to do so."

Such aspirations are nothing new, having been around for over 50 years, but they seem to have found a fresh lease on life with the bus service.

This may be bad news for the politicians on the Pakistani side who have built their careers on the rhetoric surrounding the freedom movement.

Many analysts now feel that if the bus service continues, more and more Kashmiris may find themselves willing to trade a bloody history for a peaceful future - irrespective of whether their constitutional status defines them as living in India, Pakistan, an independent Kashmir or whatever other solution the politicians may come up with.