NEW DELHI: India's strong and uninhibited denunciation of Pakistan over its use of terrorism marks the complete repudiation of the UPA approach that avoided such direct rhetoric and sought to delink the dialogue process with progress on terror.
In an early meeting between then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a hard won stipulation that Pakistan will not support any terrorist activity on soil under its control was dropped from the official communique.
The unease of foreign ministry officials over the reference — gained after some tough bargaining at a meeting between former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Musharraf in January, 2004, — was ignored and the political directive prevailed.
The retreat over holding Pakistan accountable to the Vajpayee-Musharraf formulation went further when the general and Singh met in Havana thereafter where the two sides agreed to the controversial joint mechanism on terror. The Havana meeting gave a deeper burial to efforts to hold Pakistan accountable to its promise.
The 26/11 Mumbai attacks forced a change of tack and with the 2009 election fast approaching, senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee took to tough talk and India launched a global diplomatic blitz against Islamabad. But post-election, the Sharm-el Sheikh meeting saw India agree to the damaging insertion of a reference to Baluchistan in the statement.
In this context, the blunt assertion that Pakistan must "de-terrorize" itself and this, rather than "de-militarization" of Kashmir, would lead to better relations is a complete turnaround. The government, in the ill-fated NSA-level talks, had also insisted that terrorism would be the point of discussion.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Vikas Swaroop's tweets made it plain that after the aborted Delhi engagement, the Modi government was even less willing to give Pakistan any leeway. The diplomatic position is being complimented by heavy return of fire along the line of control and the border in Jammu and Kashmir.
The challenge remains on devising adequate responses to terror strikes launched from Pakistan as these have been under the "Mumbai threshold", posing a dilemma on whether armed retaliation was possible or even worthwhile. Pakistan has typically responded by holding out the threat of nuclear blackmail, which it feels is a sufficient deterrent to India's superiority in conventional forces.
