And India has been again caught in a familiar foreign policy stance: pusillanimous napping. It is not in India’s interest, for peace in the subcontinent, that the Kosovo precedent be recognised in the form it has. Make no mistake: this precedent has all kinds of unsavoury implications for the subcontinent. It is absolutely extraordinary that India has taken so long to respond to an event of such importance. Whether this is sheer indecision, or yet another instance where we dare not openly come out against the Americans, remains to be determined. But even if we resign ourselves to the birth of a new nation, we ought to worry about the manner in which it has been engineered.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research

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