The near abroad

Never has Prime Minister Vajpayee been more categorical about his perception of Pakistan than he was on Monday. While accusing the country8217;s largest neighbour of having been directly responsible for the recent hijack of flight IC 814, he called upon the nations of the world to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. His anger can well be understood. From the Kargil intrusions to the numerous terrorist attacks in the Valley, Pakistan and Pakistani-trained militants have lost no opportunity to harm Indian interests. Many leads thrown up by the recent hijacking implicate Pakistan directly and the latest scandal emanating from Kathmandu, where a Pakistani embassy official was arrested for trading in counterfeit Indian currency, only provides further evidence of that country8217;s nefarious activities vis-a-vis India.

But just what is new about all this? Is it not an established fact that for Pakistan8217;s rulers, India is not just an enemy, it is a magnificent obsession? That they have spent these past 50 years and morespewing hate and cranking up a vicious international campaign against this country on Kashmir? Indeed, Pakistan has done all it could do to undermine India in the eyes of the world and even its own commentators have dealt at length upon this propensity. Here is Najam Sethi speaking in Delhi just a few short months ago: 8220;In a crucial sense, India remains a determining factor vis-a-vis Pakistan. The Pakistan state has come to be fashioned largely in response to perceived and propagated, real and imagined, threats to its national security from India. Its mentality and outlook are therefore of a historically besieged state8230;That is why Pakistan8217;s foreign policy runs its domestic policy rather than the other way round. That is why Pakistan is more a state nation than a nation state.8221; Sethi was, of course, referring to a Pakistan that had the fig leaf of a democratic dispensation. Today, nothing has changed apart from the fact that it is the men in jackboots who decide matters there.

How then must Indiarespond to the threat from Pakistan? With a clear conviction of the rightness of its cause and with a constant vigilance when it comes to defending its interests. Surely a nation of India8217;s size and strength can more than handle an obstreperous neighbour that many international commentators have long recognised as a failed state. India must, at no point, appear overwhelmed by Pakistan8217;s dark designs. While it should and must make its political stance clear at international fora, it must not appear to whinge and whine like a child alerting its mother to the presence of a local bully. While the Prime Minister8217;s recent display of emotion against Pakistan can be understood, his tone betrays a certain lack of self-possession.

The best course for this country would be to gather all the unassailable evidence it has of Pakistani complicity with acts of terrorism perpetrated within India, and place it before the world. Let the record speak for itself. The world has already expressed its outrage over the Kandaharhijacking. It should now decide how it wishes to punish the perpetrators of this crime.