If things don't improve before Foreign Ministers Singh and Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri meet on September 5-6, the dialogue process could unravel. To prevent this, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must personally take charge of it.

We cannot afford a failure of the first India-Pakistan comprehensive talks in more than 30 years. If the two were to resume their rivalry -- suspended since Prime Minister Vajpayee held out the "hand of friendship" to Pakistan last year -- it'll be more bitter than in the past.

India and Pakistan will then miss a handsome peace dividend. They will also torpedo their own citizens' interests.

This warning might sound alarmist. But it isn't. Indeed, for the first time since the two broke the ice on January 6, there's a jarring tone in their official statements.

President Pervez Musharraf demands "a reasonable timeframe" for resolving the Kashmir tangle. But Mr Singh has reminded him this isn't a "100-metre race". Gen Musharraf wants India to reciprocate Pakistan's "flexibility, sincerity, and courage" on Kashmir. But Mr Singh wants "flexibility" on the "timeframe" too.

In private briefings, Indian diplomats trash the "timeframe" demand, saying a 57-year-old problem can't be resolved within weeks. They also criticise Pakistan's undemocratic record in the Northern Areas of "Azad Kashmir".

Islamabad has turned apprehensive about simultaneous talks on the 2+6 formula and on CBMs. It wants to see progress on Kashmir first. Gen Musharraf recently told army officers: "While we are working both on dialogue and CBMs with India, Kashmir is the main dispute … Until there is progress towards its resolution, there can be no headway on CBMs…."

The proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus, then, is not around the corner. Indeed, even "technical" discussions on it aren't scheduled until September. Other CBMs are unlikely.

Three factors explain this stiffening of stance. First, the official perception of India's willingness to resolve the Kashmir issue has changed. Many Pakistani policy-makers feel uneasy about the new government in India.

They fear Dr Manmohan Singh isn't as committed to the peace process as was Mr Vajpayee -- a "tall leader", "a man of peace" uniquely sensitive to Pakistan. They see the Congress negatively --associated with Partition, soft-Hindutva, and a hard line on Kashmir.

This perception is mistaken. True, Mr Vajpayee invested a lot of energy into the dialogue. But just two years ago, he was threatening aar-paar ki ladai (battle to the finish) -- with 7 lakh troops at the border. Besides, the BJP believes not in "soft-Hindutva", but hard-boiled, aggressive, anti-Islamic communalism. This is integral to Mr Vajpayee's politics.

Pakistani policy-makers point to Mr Natwar Singh's pronouncement in May that the dialogue with Pakistan would be conducted within the Shimla Agreement framework. This was tactless, but Mr Singh himself says the two nations have gone beyond Shimla and even Lahore. In deference to Pakistani sensitivities, he didn't utter the S-word in Islamabad.

Second, Pakistani policy-makers prefer to deal with one power-centre, one individual. Nobody fits that description in post-NDA India. Is Dr Singh really in charge? Or is Sonia Gandhi?

This question underestimates the strong consensus in India on improving relations with Pakistan and the existence of multiple decision-making structures in its more institutionalised democracy.

According to another negative Pakistani perception, Dr Singh is a "technocrat" -- not a politician, who can take bold decisions on sensitive issues on which he might be vulnerable to a "selling-out" charge.

This underestimates Dr Singh's tenacity. Whatever one's view of his 1991 neo-liberal turn -- and I admit to a largely negative view -- it brought charges of "selling out" (even from the BJP). But that didn't deter Dr Singh. Besides, his political personality is still evolving.

Nostalgia for Mr Vajpayee is counterproductive. He may never come back.

Some Pakistanis are obsessed with the idea, rooted in the early 1970s' Washington-Beijing pact, that only the Right can take controversial decisions. This view is simplistic. Nixon's Right-wing proclivities and Mr Kissinger's diplomatic devious-

ness cannot explain the deal with China, which largely arose from Beijing's growing tensions with Moscow over the sharing of military technologies. The analogy doesn't apply to India-Pakistan.

A third, recent, irritant for Pakistanis was US deputy secretary Richard Armitage's statement that Pakistan must dismantle the infrastructure supporting terrorism. Pakistani observers believe it was made at India's behest and bears little relationship to reality: Pakistan has lost 400 troops in joint anti-al-Qaeda operations with the US. Indian officials admit there has been little cross-border infiltration since November (except in July).

Islamabad's policy-makers are reluctant to approve the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus until there's progress on Kashmir. Their fear is two-fold. If they allow passengers to carry national passports, as distinct from United Nations documents or special "for-Kashmiris-only" permits, they'd implicitly accept the LoC as the international border.

Once the bus starts rolling, they fear it'll further legitimise the LoC-as-international border, narrowing the range of possible Kashmir solutions. Pakistan even objects to including personnel from Indian Kashmir into the delegation for "technical discussions" on the bus although such officials are best qualified to conduct nuts-and-bolts talks.

Such apprehensions must be addressed.

As the dialogue enters a bumpy patch, neither side has done enough homework to evolve a policy on Kashmir. They must start this effort right now. Such policies must be acceptable to the domestic public -- and to the Kashmiri people.

India has a big stake in peace. So Dr Singh must set up formal and informal-level contacts with Gen Musharraf and demonstrate a strong commitment to the dialogue. He must appoint high-level interlocutors, who can start exploratory talks on Kashmir.

Most important, Dr Singh must personally take charge of the peace process.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.