India’s diplomacy with relation to Pakistan can best be summed up by Shakespeare’s

maxim: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. India may tout itself as an
emerging superpower, but it presents all the appearance of a lumbering whale being
made to jump through hoops, at will, by the minnow Pakistan.

In recent months, the litmus test of India relations with Pakistan has been the
26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai; and Pakistan’s response to them. On the face of
it, India has a watertight case. Even Pakistan has been forced to acknowledge that
the perpetrators were Pakistani citizens and that they were controlled by handlers
who are still in Pakistan. Yet, eight months after the attacks, India has been
unable to force a resolution to this issue. Although India is the injured party,
it is acting like the defendant in a murder trial, forced to prove her innocence
before being pronounced guilty.

Pakistan is the clear ringleader in this farcical dialogue. Although it is obvious

who the perpetrators and masterminds of 26/11 are, Pakistan keeps asking India for
more “evidence” – which it subsequently ignores – and our country meekly complies.
It is as if we are intent on appeasing the aggressors (shades of Neville
Chamberlain and Munich). In every aspect – military, economy and size – India is
clearly superior. Yet it is allowing Pakistan to barter as an equal partner. That
is the real tragedy and shame of this imbroglio.

The release of the Lashkar-e-Toiba chief, Hafez Saeed, “on technical grounds”
after his farcical arrest and detention clearly indicates that Pakistan has never
had the slightest intention of bringing the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice.
Pakistan covers up its duplicity by issuing sanctimonious and hypocritical
statements about its determination to fight terrorism; and all India can do is
seethe in impotent rage. To make matters worse, India’s new foreign minister,
S.M.Krishna, is clearly out of his depth. He could almost be a clone of the
equally ineffective former home minister, Shivraj Patil. His “outrage” at Saeed’s
release took the form of a bland statement asking Pakistan to create a “favourable
atmosphere” for further dialogue. Have any of Pakistan’s past actions held out the
hope that it was interested in creating a favourable atmosphere? Is the honourable
gentleman living in some sort of neverland?

Of course, Pakistan’s boldness is augmented by the powerful backing of the United

States. It has cleverly achieved that by placing the Americans over a barrel. The
country’s strategic location ensures that it is indispensable to the American
effort in Afghanistan – and it is fully capitalizing on this. America, in turn, is
playing into their hands by pressurizing India to maintain the status quo at any
cost.

So what can India do? For one thing, it can start asserting the clout it
possesses, but has been reluctant to use. It is time India makes it plain to
Pakistan and the United States that its patience has been fully exhausted. India
should issue an ultimatum to Pakistan to book and punish the guilty of
26/11forthwith, failing which it will put its armed forces on high alert. The
threat of Pakistan being compelled to withdraw the bulk of its military from the
Afghan border and transfer them to the Eastern front will rattle the Americans so
much that they will finally put pressure on Pakistan to do the right thing.

India is a large and powerful country. It is time it started acting like one.