"Pakistan must punish the Mumbai attackers," continued to clamour the Indian delegation, led by Foreign Minister S M Krishna.
"We are not apologetic," responded Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and added that dialogue "must be substantive and result-oriented." Or, in other words, India cannot focus on the topics that are in its interest namely 2008 Mumbai attack, terrorism as it affects India alone, and Sir Creek; while delegating all topics of interest to Pakistan namely India's incremental violations of international laws that govern an upper riparian country, persistent human rights violations in Kashmir, RAW's complicity in attacks in Balochistan and Siachen to what the Indian Foreign Secretary stated would be the next stage of talks justified on a vague promise that talks on these subjects would be part of the composite dialogue's 'incremental' or 'phased approach.'
Indian attitude towards the restart of a composite dialogue with Pakistan, after a gap of 15 months, to many commentators must appear to be reminiscent of Israel's with respect to the stateless Palestinians. The imbalance of power between Israel and the Palestinians has tilted the world opinion not in favour of the weaker party, forced to live in the biggest slum in the world, namely Gaza and the West Bank, as one would have hoped; but, according to what the Muslim world regards as American recalcitrance and her double standards, the US has, in defiance of international law and opinion, consistently favoured the regional superpower, Israel. Thus even if one supports Israel's litany for the Palestinians to renounce terrorism and violence as a pre-condition to talks, yet a few are naive enough to think that this would eventually lead to two states in that region because it is simply not in Israel's interest to endorse such an objective; at least not unless Israel is directed to do so by the US willing to stop its own massive assistance to Israel each year.
Meanwhile, state terrorism as routinely carried out by the Israeli Defence Forces is supported by the full might of the Israeli government, its foreign lobbyists and an intense and effective propaganda campaign on the Western world's media. But at the heart of Israeli support remains the United States.
In South Asia, American policy is not that clearly defined or that consistent for that matter. In spite of other US interests in the region, India has emerged as a country where the US considers its long-term strategic interests lie - strategic not only from an economic perspective as India does have the largest middle class in the world that is able and willing to purchase American products and keep the wheels of the US industry well oiled but also strategic in the context that India is the largest democracy in the world and has adhered to the basic tenets of democracy throughout its post-1947 history, except for a brief period of emergency rule.
During the Soviet era, the Indians forged many lucrative deals that included buying Soviet oil and making payment in rupees, which the Soviets used to buy Indian products which, in turn, were then dumped in Soviet bloc countries. India's economic development has been slow and sustained and it began with drafting of five-year plans that were meticulously adhered to not only in terms of major initial outlay on infrastructure development.
Private sector development was slow at first, but through a stringent import policy and a judiciary free from the shackles of the executive, the Indian government laid the appropriate groundwork for its growth. India's reliance on foreign assistance has been traditionally low, therefore, it is much less susceptible to the possibility of aid freeze relative to Pakistan. At present, India is a member of the Group of 20 most economically powerful countries of the world and is seeking a permanent seat in the Security Council and, if successful, that would allow India veto power, which effectively would preclude the passage of any resolution, condemning the Indian hegemonistic actions in the region.
In contrast, Pakistan's relevance to the US interests has varied and has been based on changing the US perception of her interests in the region. Support for Pakistan was considered essential during the long Indian honeymoon with the Soviets as well as when the Soviets entered Afghanistan. The saga of the Fifth Fleet that never arrived in our support against India is also well documented. However, without going into the history of the ebb and flow of our relations with the US pre-9/11, it is fairly evident that post 9/11 our relevance to the US in terms of fighting the war on terror has been sustained so far.
However, the negatives with respect to our relations with the US are numerous. First, our democracy remains in its infancy and President Zardari has been unable to capitalise on the democracy dividend in spite of serious efforts to do so. The impediments to this cannot be dismissed as external to Pakistan or in other words while part of the problem does lie in the global recession and the large bailout packages that the Western governments have been forced to extend in support of their own economies, yet Pakistan's persistent poor governance record has compromised our ability to access foreign investment - public and private. Law and order and energy scarcity are other mitigating factors, but poor governance remains a major issue.
Second, the democratically elected President of our country remains under a cloud of suspicion that is rooted not in the Swiss case scam, but in information that has been presented to standing committees of the US House. This merely strengthens the US resolve to enhance audit of their assistance to Pakistan, thereby causing delay in reimbursement of part of our expenditure on the war on terror, much to Pakistan's annoyance.
Third, our economy remains subservient to heavy reliance on foreign aid and that remains a major US leverage. It is, perhaps, an indication of this subservience that the country's President agrees to meet the Vice President of the World Bank, an international bureaucrat whose counterpart is Salman Siddique, Secretary, Finance. Pakistan has continued to rely heavily on foreign assistance and we have after all been declared as a prolonged user of IMF assistance and have been on 20 to 25 IMF programmes.
And finally, the US remains suspicious of Pakistan's intent to eradicate the Afghan Taliban. This in itself is causing friction. The element of Indian presence in Afghanistan is a legitimate major source of concern to Pakistan's and this concern has never been appropriately dealt with by the US administration.
The foregoing does indicate India's strengths and our weaknesses as members of the international community. The question is what can India want from us that would be in her interest? The answer is in discussing the two subjects that the Indian Foreign Minister was mandated to discuss during his visit and no other. India would, of course, like to commence land trade with Afghanistan through opening of Wagah border as well. However, Afghanistan and the US are putting pressure on Pakistan to open Wagah border, a conduit, more likely to be successful than through Indo-Pakistan bilateral talks.
Surprisingly and perhaps for the first time ever, Pakistan's message was direct and dismissive of the Indian Foreign Minister's lack of mandate to talk on any other matter, a stance that was supported throughout the country. "We have a Mumbai attack almost every week," so stated Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, dismissing India's continued allegations against the ISI as the perpetrator of the Mumbai attack.
It is time that the Pakistan government takes such realistic steps that are in its interests. However, Pakistan has some serious catching up with India to do and we need to undertake massive reforms internally before we can hope to begin to make an impact on the international political scene on a scale currently enjoyed by India.