How Long Can India Take It??

Oped piece in Washington Post talks about India’s patience. I think this is a very relevant point. Somehow and for some reason, Dr. Singh’s Government is not only been shamelessly meddlesome in the institutions that were hitherto the pride of the country but also been fairly meek when it comes to dealing with Pakistani Government!! It has been the constant refrain and logic from the Congress Government where they have always equated the response of Indian Muslims with India’s relations with Islamic countires that had been the bane of the Indian Republic! If it wasn’t for the Vajpayee Government Israel would remain a word spoken in whispers befitting secrets of state in the diplomatic circles!! Why? Because we cannot alienate the Indian Muslims and the Islamic countries.

This is even worse than directing violence against the Indian Muslims – you are setting them up for alienation. First they will feel it is logical too – whether they agree or not. And worse the other communities feel that this is so as a reality stand!! Both the scenarios have been proven incorrect! But Congress has NOT learnt its lesson.

We need to stand up and just give a nice earful to Musharraf and his Army folks. To say that Musharraf and Paki Army is divorced from the militants is nonsense!!

What hasn’t happened is arguably even more impressive. Despite an attack on a religious complex in Ayodhya last July, again by militants based in Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that the dialogue would continue.

But — and here’s the crux of the matter — how long can India, Indians and the Singh government withstand the constant pressure from militant groups before they have to react? By any measure of international diplomacy, they’ve already been extraordinarily patient; compare their restraint with Israel’s response to the kidnapping of its soldier or to the U.S. and Japanese responses to North Korea’s missile tests.

Now is a moment when Pakistan really needs to respond. It wants to be taken seriously as an important player on the international scene. It has repeatedly asked the United States for a nuclear energy deal similar to the one we are working on with India. But until Pakistan — and this means not only President Pervez Musharraf but also the military, the people and the political parties, including the religious party, the MMA — gets serious about shutting down, arresting and otherwise dismantling the militant groups that operate from its territory, it cannot expect to be treated as a responsible player in the region. Pakistan is working on it, but it could do so much more.