FORECASTING the future is, at best, an inexact art. And yet mankind has continued to exercise its intelligence and imagination in trying to fathom the riddles of time since the dawn of history.

From priests who read the entrails of animals to corporate executives who sit hunched over their computer screens, we are avidly trying to second-guess what tomorrow will bring. Witness the abiding popularity of horoscope columns in publications around the world.

Although “futurology” is a more respectable term than, say, “palmistry”, its seemingly scientific garb merely seeks to cloak its inherently vague nature. Basically, a futurologist takes past and present trends and extrapolates them into the future. But allowing for the vagaries caused by time, he projects “best”, “worst” and “likely” scenarios.

This is the sort of exercise London’s Guardian daily recently gave its correspondents in three of the most troubled areas in the world: Central Africa, the Middle East and Kashmir. These journalists were asked to tell readers how they saw the regions they wrote about in the year 2020.

According to Randeep Ramesh, the newspaper’s South Asia correspondent, the worst that could happen in the subcontinent is nothing short of a nuclear exchange. In this extreme scenario, the Indian Union would begin to unravel as the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, with their own languages and distinctive culture, would demand their own state.

This agitation from the more advanced southern states which have shot ahead thanks to their higher educational base and hi-tech industries, would be countered by an increasingly nationalistic Hindu backlash from the northern states. The result would be a dysfunctional, chaotic India that would be bellicose and aggressive in its foreign policy.

In Pakistan, “the modernizers will have lost out to the religious zealots by 2010... The military, in effect, will become the armed wing of the theocracy “ one armed with a nuclear bomb...” In this scenario, simmering provincial tensions would burst into the open, and a civil war would break out.

Water would be the flashpoint, with Pakistan’s water table falling and northwest India facing shortages. The two countries would abrogate the Indus Basin treaty by 2015. By then, Kashmir would “become a killing field, with Indian and Pakistan-backed fighters engaged in open warfare.” All this time-bomb would need is for somebody to press the button, and “the world will have seen its first case of mutually assured destruction.”

And the best that could happen? Ramesh thinks that “By 2020 no one will believe that 20 years before, Pakistan and India were poised in a nuclear stand-off over the restive Kashmir, which will have become the tranquil tourist haven of Kashmir Autonomous Region.”

In this optimistic scenario, South Asia would become a single economic area, and “...leaders in both countries would then opt for good governance and development... Trade will be the proving ground of the new relationship. If the energy-hungry metropolises of the subcontinent can be supplied by pipelines from Iran and Turkmenistan, then both countries will stand to benefit...”

As trade and tourism link the two erstwhile enemies in a strengthening web of profitable relationships, tensions will be defused in Kashmir. Here, American diplomacy and the end of Indian human rights violations and covert Pakistani involvement will usher in a settlement with power devolving from Islamabad and New Delhi to the capitals of the two parts of Kashmir. And in 2020, “a single Kashmir political entity could be a reality.”

What’s likely, according to Ramesh, is a blend of the two scenarios. Here, in the real world, Kashmir will be divided between India and Pakistan. And any Kashmiri opposition will be crushed by joint Indo-Pakistani operations. This pragmatic outcome would be the result of a growing realization that it is in the interest of both countries to stop bickering over Kashmir. (Why this obvious fact has not sunk in over the last half century is beyond me).

In this scenario, too, the South Asian economic union would be a driving force behind a re-thinking of priorities. Ramesh concludes by suggesting that “A less confrontational relationship between India and Pakistan will mean that by 2020 the shadow of conflict will no longer hang over South Asia.”

While Ramesh has pulled together current thinking about the evolving situation in South Asia, he has not revealed anything the rest of us are not already aware of. The rise of fundamentalist forces in Pakistan, and the danger posed by the “saffron brigades” to Indian secularism have been worrying sane persons on both sides of the border.

Similarly, the problems of underdevelopment and poor governance continue to haunt us. Water and energy shortages hamper both economies, as does the appalling state of the social and physical infrastructure. Clearly, both have much to lose by remaining frozen in their perpetual posture of hostility. Equally, they have much to gain by trading goods and services instead of artillery shells and invective. As both countries grope for a solution to the ongoing deadlock over Kashmir, it is clear that negotiators from both sides will need to bring more imagination and flexibility to the table. The recent failure to move the talks forward reveals the inherent futility in relying on the foreign office mandarins of Islamabad and New Delhi to cut the Gordian knot. Trained to repeat the failed formulas of the past, they are too conditioned and too frightened of veering from orthodox bargaining positions to be able to propose the major initiatives needed.

I suppose the fact that the two sides are engaged at all should be a source of hope. But looking at other regions where old rivalries have been put aside for the common good, one tends to get rather impatient with the failure of leadership in both countries. It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that putting the Kashmir issue to one side, and getting on with other aspects of a normal relationship is a win-win scenario.

How long are a billion-plus people to remain hostage to a single-point agenda? If we are to avoid Randeep Ramesh’s worst case scenario, we need the leaders and people of both countries to realize that 2020 is not that far away.