Opinion We need a more robust dialogue

It is true that the timing of the Home Secretary’s revelation that David Headley had told Indian officials that the ISI was behind 26/11 was curious. He said this in this newspaper’s Idea Exchange forum and it became the first official admission by the Indian government that it believed that the attack on Mumbai was planned and executed by the Pakistani government. This dramatically changes what happened from an act of terrorism into an act of war and the Indian public has a right to this information but for it to be revealed on the eve of the Islamabad talks has puzzled political pundits in Delhi all week. But,does this excuse Mr Krishna’s silence when the Home Secretary was compared to Sayeed? Does it not immediately debase the whole effort at dialogue that India has initiated despite what we now know about 26/11?

Is this dialogue worthwhile? Every time Pakistan’s Foreign Minister opens his mouth to talk about India he sounds as if he is making a hate speech. When the Indian Prime Minister first made his peace moves we saw Mr Qureshi mock him publicly. ‘We did not go on our knees to ask for this dialogue,India came to us.’ Then,even as our pathetically mild Foreign Minister was taking wing for Islamabad,the man he was setting off to talk to told reporters that he was in touch with Kashmiri groups who had asked him to discuss human rights violations in the Valley with the Indian minister and this is something he most certainly planned to do. He sounded as if the Indian Foreign Minister was coming only to be berated about Kashmir.

Mr Krishna for his part said he planned to talk about terrorism but he said this so half-heartedly that it was pointless. He then sat like a sad faced mouse as Pakistan’s Foreign Minister made it clear at their joint press conference that in his view,terrorism was something that affected both countries equally. This is complete rubbish. If Pakistan is under attack from the evil jihadi groups it created,this cannot be blamed on India. When it comes to jihadi terrorism on Indian soil it can with complete certainty be blamed on Pakistan,especially when it comes to 26/11. So what on earth are we talking about?

What is the point in talking to civilian officials in Islamabad if they are going to speak in such belligerent fashion? Now that we know from Headley that 26/11 was ‘fully’ planned and executed by Pakistani military intelligence should we not be talking directly to the Generals? Everyone knows that it is they who control foreign policy and that civilian officials like the Foreign Minister dare not open their mouths without permission from Army headquarters.

At the risk of sounding as belligerent as Shah Mahmood Qureshi,may I say that as an Indian it shamed me to see our Foreign Minister sitting silent while a senior official of his government was compared to a terrorist. It was humiliating and offensive and if Mr. Krishna cannot do better than the Prime Minister would do well in the supposedly imminent Cabinet reshuffle to shuffle him off into a backroom in the bowels of a less visible ministry. His record as Foreign Minister has always been less than satisfactory but his performance in Islamabad last week really took the biscuit.

Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter@tavleens