If Pakistan’s exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto keeps her date with New Delhi this weekend — she is billed to speak at the annual India Today conclave on Saturday night — New Delhi might find it hard to keep its lips sealed on the political crisis across our western frontiers.

Given the vastly improved relations with Islamabad over the last three years and the UPA government’s delicate negotiations with President Pervez Musharraf on Kashmir, India’s current silence on Pakistan seems golden. Diplomatic silence does not mean New Delhi is not looking at different political scenarios for Pakistan in what promises to be an eventful 2007. That Musharraf’s political stock should begin to crumble at home just when big bilateral breakthroughs appeared to be at hand, is part of an unending tragedy of Indo-Pak relations.

Bhutto, herself, is aware of one such moment which was lost in the late 1980s. Two youthful prime ministers of India and Pakistan, Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir, did seem to possess the will to overturn the conventional wisdom on Indo-Pak relations. They negotiated an end to the deadlock in Siachen, and looked at Kashmir with a fresh perspective. Before they could implement their ideas, the two leaders were ousted from power.

For the present though, Bhutto is aware of the current Indian political investment in Musharraf. Speaking to NDTV a few days ago, she asked “the people of India, who think that General Musharraf is the best man to do business with, to review that stance because stability in South Asia can come not only when there is democracy in India and Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan.”

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