This is interesting.
First India wants Pakistan to send its Chief of ISI. Pakistani PM agrees and then back-tracks.
India then seeks 21 masterminds of terror from Pakistan. Till today Pakistan has not agreed. Rather it is seeking international protection against attack by India.
What does that tell me? In the first instance, Pakistan is dancing to the tune of its army, the only agency other than its fundamentalist maulvis who are anti-India.
The second is more interesting. The Congress government is desperately seeking to save face with the nation. It has already sacrificed Shivraj Patil, its Home Minister, (from whose residence, I quote Malvika Singh in the TOI, his son runs his own private business). But the weak civilian government of Pakistan, is not allowed to release some of the 21 that India seeks, including at least Dawood Ibrahim.
This is a great farce in the line with the history of the sub-continent where one tune has played true throughout the ages. That of domestic squabbles when faced with a serious enemy.
The enemy today, for both the countries, is fundamentalist Islamic/Pakistani Military sponsored terrorism. But Pakistan is unable to acknowledge that. For then its mullahs would raise hell with the illiterate Muslim people of both the countries. And its military would tell Mr. Ten Percent 'Enough is enough. Go elsewhere and let us, who have the real power to run this country, run it.'
On one level I am enjoying the show, while Pranab Mukherjee wipes the sweat off his brow and the delicate Sonia is vexed, taxing her limited intelligence to find a solution, and the great 'baba' who, like his grandma, thinks that the democracy of India is family fiefdom, mouths Bollywood style dialogues. And on another I am so frustrated. The solution is so easy, if one is to set political ambition aside and dedicate oneself to the interests of the country. There will never be a greater opportunity. Even the President elect of the defacto rulers of the world has said India has a right to self defence. Here I am not advocating a senseless war against Pakistan. I would just have the present masters of India's destiny to drive the world to take over the job of eliminating the terrorist networks controlled by both/either of the two forces that control them, that is the Pakistani military/Islamic fundamentalists under the banner of the United Nations lead by the USA.
For now, the question of can we do it will be forestalled by the question whether it is in the interest of the Congress.
