New peace initiatives with Pakistan should prove a vote-winner for India's ruling Hindu nationalists in expected early parliamentary elections, analysts said.
"War and peace with Pakistan both pay rich dividends in Indian elections," said political analyst Yashwant Deshmukh. "In 1999, they [the ruling party] won through the gun. In 2004, they are using doves to drum up support."
In 1999, a coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won an absolute majority in polls held soon after Indian troops drove Pakistan-backed infiltrators from the icy Kargil heights of disputed Kashmir.
The campaign preceding the elections was filled with anti-Pakistan rhetoric and bellicose statements.
This year, amid intense talk of advancing parliament polls to as early as late March from October when the government's mandate expires, relations between two South Asian nuclear rivals have improved dramatically.
Last week, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf decided to resume formal peace talks next month when they met on the sidelines of a regional summit in Islamabad.
The agreement came less than two years after the two countries almost went to war over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, trigger of two of the three conflicts between the neighbors since they became independent from Britain in 1947.
Pakistan also promised at the Islamabad meeting that it would not allow its soil to be used as a springboard for anti-Indian attacks by militants opposed to New Delhi's rule in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The changed mood in India toward Pakistan was reflected in a weekend speech by Vajpayee to a crowd of 100,000 in southern Hyderabad city.
"We hope the agreement reached in Islamabad will be fully implemented and a new chapter opened," Vajpayee said. "I am confident that this new year has come with the message of peace. We want peace on the borders and we also want peace within the country."
Analysts feel the upbeat tone in relations with Pakistan combines well with a generally upbeat mood in the country, fuelled by a booming economy.
"Peace with Pakistan fits very well with the `feel good' factor. If you talk about terrorism and things like that, it would leave a sour taste. So it's `feel good' on both fronts -- domestic and foreign," Deshmukh said.
"Tension with Pakistan is contradictory to the feel-good factor. They don't go hand-in-hand," Deshmukh said.
Another analyst, Mahesh Rangarajan, said the BJP is undergoing an image makeover in which Pakistan-baiting has no role.
"It would be very difficult now for the Congress [the main opposition party] to attack the BJP in the election campaign as an irresponsible and a war-mongering party," Rangarajan said.
"Foreign policy successes tend to make a leader domestically strong. The Islamabad story reinforces Vajpayee's image at home."
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