India will not talk to Pakistan as long as its government continues to nurture and shield those who attack India. Why is it so hard for us to say this? Why is it so hard for us to tell the visiting American Secretary of State that it is not possible to speak to people who talk about fighting against Islamist terrorism but openly support an Islamist reptile like Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed. Pakistan’s war against its jihadis is mercenary and fraudulent. It is being fought to get that $1.5 billion that the American government has promised to give it and for no other reason.

Nothing makes this clearer than the release of the repulsive Sayeed the day before our Prime Minister was due to meet the Prime Minister of Pakistan in Egypt last week. It should have been at this point that Dr Manmohan Singh announced his inability to have even two minutes of conversation with Mr Yousaf Raza Geelani but he chose not to. He sat meekly through a long meeting with the Pakistani Prime Minister and then acquiesced to a joint statement that implied that India was supporting terrorism in Balochistan.

Ever since the attack on Mumbai I have been hearing from Pakistani friends a half-hearted justification for Mumbai on the grounds that ‘you also are doing things in Balochistan’. Whenever I have heard this, I have pointed out that if India had the ability to get up to some serious subversive activity in Pakistan, we would be decimating Islamists, not promoting their activities. Any fool should be able to see that it is in India’s interests for the Pakistani state (such as it is) to remain in control of its nuclear weapons and not let them slip into the hands of bearded fanatics bred on a hatred of ‘Hindu India’.

... contd.