Our problem is not just American foreign policy in the region but our own foreign policy, which is namby-pamby to the point of being non-existent. For a start, our Ministry of External Affairs seems to be linguistically challenged, so when Saeed was released all we could do was use words like ‘regrettable’ and ‘unfortunate’ to state our case. When will we realise that if we want to be heard, we need our Prime Minister to state loudly and clearly that we cannot and will not talk to Pakistan as long as it refuses to bring well-known terrorists to justice.

It is now more than six months since Mumbai was attacked and there is no sign of Pakistan either handing over those who were responsible or trying them. Unless this happens, what is there for us to have a dialogue about? We would do better instead to strengthen our defences. This newspaper has over the past weeks produced detailed analysis of what went wrong on 26/11. Everything failed. The police, the commandos, our intelligence agencies, our coastal defense. Everything. And, so far, there are no signs that anything has been done to rectify this shameful state of affairs. What are we waiting for? Another Indian city to be attacked? If this happens and the response is as hopeless as it was on November 26, 2008, the honeymoon with our new government will come to an abrupt and ugly end.