GIVEN the tremendous hype that surrounded President Bush’s visit to Pakistan, there was a strong desire to go for an instant analysis, but this may not necessarily have been objective. Now that the leaders have spoken extensively, a fairly accurate and balanced assessment of the visit to Islamabad, and a brief comparison of it with that to New Delhi, can be made.

There is, of course, widespread joy and satisfaction in New Delhi and this is well-merited. At the same time, there is considerable disquiet and uncertainty in Islamabad and this, too, is understandable. But neither of these two reactions are surprising. A close reading of statements emanating from Washington and New Delhi in the past year, and especially since July 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George Bush concluded their far-reaching understandings, it was clear that the two countries had taken decisions that were not only remarkable in their scale and ambition, but that also represented a radical transformation in policies.

They were not only signalling an abandonment of long-held concepts and commitments, but also the coming together of two philosophies that they believe could transform the political landscape — not only of this region, but of virtually the entire Asian continent.

Most political analysts remained confined to the nuclear deal, speculating whether it would materialize, especially in time for the Bush visit. In the view of this writer, the nuclear deal, while extremely important and with far-reaching consequences for the global non-proliferation regime, has a significance far beyond the cooperation envisaged by it. It symbolizes the extent to which both Washington and New Delhi are willing to break with the past, abandon long-held positions and move into frontiers long forbidden to both. It is also a harbinger of things to come. Therefore, even a failure to conclude the agreement in time for the visit, would have been merely a temporary hiccup.

In one stroke, the nuclear deal reverses three decades of American prohibition on sales of nuclear equipment and fuel to India. It ends India’s global nuclear isolation and recognizes New Delhi’s ambition to emerge as a key economic and strategic power. Of course, the deal has to be approved by Congress and this is likely to be a long and contentious affair. But even if Congress rejects the agreement, although unlikely, it is not expected to significantly alter the momentum generated in US-India ties, because the nuclear deal is not an event, but the culmination of a process. The Nuclear Suppliers Group may pose some problems as well, but none of the major powers (barring China), are opposed to the deal.

A billion strong, with a rapidly growing economy, India is truly an important country. This is evident from the manner in which all major powers have been wooing it. When you add to this the fact that India is a secular, functioning democracy (however flawed) and is the only non-Muslim country in an increasingly volatile region, stretching from Morocco to Indonesia one can appreciate its attraction for the US, where Islam is increasingly being viewed as a major challenge to western civilization.

The Bush administration, for understandable reasons, avoided any reference to the “China factor” to justify the passion of its embrace of India. But it is well known that China has begun to cast a long shadow in Washington and, therefore, the belief that strategic relations with India provide a good insurance for US interests in the region. Even Condoleezza Rice, before assuming her official position in the administration, had written and spoken of how and why China needed to be contained.

Significantly, but not surprisingly, both Singh and Bush harped on the theme of “common values”, which is what creates bonds between peoples, in contrast to “common interests”, which is what brings governments together. When one couples these powerful factors, a formidable coalition is created.

Of course, it is true that the US-India relationship is not going to be a one way street. The Indians, too, will have to offer their part of the bargain, specially when it comes to the fulfilment of US policies in the Middle East, South East Asia and North Africa. After all, the US is engaged in an aggressive project to reshape the world, the contours of which were revealed in important US documents, such as the National Security Strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review and Mapping a Global Future.

It is obvious that the US wants to establish “full spectrum” global strategic domination and to prevent the emergence of a potential rival. To achieve this, the US wants to build a system of alliances and this is where India fits in. India has already begun to play ball, as evident from its support to Washington on the ballistic missile system, abrogation of the anti ballistic missile treaty, rejection of the climate treaty and most recently, on the IAEA votes on Iran.

Now as regards the Bush visit to Islamabad, President Musharraf described it as “positive”, claiming that Pakistan-US relations “were institutional, broad based, long-term and multifaceted.” But sadly there is scant evidence available to support this contention.

Admittedly, the joint statement was a fairly good and balanced document. It spoke of the two leaders affirming the long-term strategic partnership between their countries, though it stressed that this was primarily for addressing the threat of terrorism and extremism. The other issues such as economic growth, energy, defence, the social sector, science and technology were all mentioned, but made peripheral to this overriding requirement. Even the much anticipated investment agreement was not finalized in time.

But this comes as no surprise to those who have followed the history of Pakistan-US relations. To the dismay of Pakistanis, it has always been one-dimensional. If it was a partnership with the West during Cold War confrontation during the 1950s, it was the need to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s. Since 9/11, it has been Pakistan’s role and contribution in the global war on terror — certainly America’s priority number one — which has brought the two countries together. Of course, it is another matter that since the US occupation of Iraq and the carte blanche given to Israel to maintain its occupation of Palestinian territories, terrorism has not diminished. In fact, Iraq has become a massive breeding ground for terrorism.

The US administration has always claimed that the raison d’etre for its support to Pakistan remains this country’s commitment to the global war on terror. It must, therefore, have come as a deep disappointment, even a rude shock, to the Pakistani leadership to observe the not-too-subtle transformation in Bush’s assessment of our performance against terror. While his comments in Kabul and Delhi had already raised eyebrows in Pakistan, it was his remark at the press conference here that part of his “mission” in Islamabad was to ascertain Musharraf’s commitment to the war on terror which was truly amazing. Even though Bush tried to backtrack by confirming that the general was committed, the nature of the remark must have been highly disquieting to the Pakistani leadership. As if to test our commitment, Kabul then chose to unleash a barrage of anti-Pakistan propaganda in the wake of Bush visit.

Pakistan was right to raise the issue of the country’s energy needs. But instead of showing understanding for our predicament and offering alternatives, Bush chose to outrightly dismiss our plea, in a manner that was unnecessarily curt. “Pakistan and India are different countries, with different needs and different histories,” Bush asserted. And this coming immediately after he had agreed to trash existing American laws to favour India.

Admittedly, Bush’s remarks at the press conference, as well as the reference in the joint statement to “strong and transparent democratic institutions” and the need “to conduct free and fair elections to ensure sustainable democracy”, may have raised expectations in the opposition parties. Even the foreign media took this to mean that Bush was distancing himself from the Pakistani leader, but this is a misplaced hope. America will always be willing to give in on democracy when challenged by harsh ground realities. America may be a democracy but as a Bush adviser is reported by the New York Times to have commented, “we are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”.

The Bush visit was indeed a reality test for us for the US used the visit to confirm the death of its hyphenated policy in South Asia. US relations with Pakistan and India are no longer a zero sum game, the US proclaims with a callousness that only a super power can demonstrate. In that sense, it was not a pleasant experience for us. But it can nevertheless serve a useful purpose, provided we agree to remove the blinkers we have placed over our eyes.

What are Pakistan’s options in the wake of this clearly discernible shift in Washington’s policy in this region. Of course, we should stop comparing our selves to India, nor should we view US-India relations from the prism of Islamabad say our leaders and rightly so. But that is easier said than done. While we are certainly in no position to distance ourselves from the US, especially at this point in time, there is the need to reassess our commitments and obligations to Washington, certainly those that impinge on our independence and are resulting in internal turmoil. Relations with China are good, they need to be reinforced much more. New areas of cooperation with Russia and the EU should be explored. Similarly, the normalization process with India should be pursued. Other initiatives in the field of foreign policy need to be identified and pursued, but in the final analysis, it is not foreign policy that will determine our destiny. That responsibility lies in the domain of our domestic policies.

There is an air of growing uncertainty and confusion as to where we are headed. Even the erstwhile supporters of the government are constrained to admit that not all is well in the country. The regime has to abandon the marginalization of civil society and reach out to its political opponents, coopting them in a sincere effort to restore genuine democracy and the rule of law. The sidelining of mainstream political leaders, the widespread use of force against its own citizens, whether in Balochistan or Waziristan, may have led the regime to believe that it was invincible and the country strong and stable. But this is only a mirage which is covering up the bottomless pit into which we are headed. The country must be permitted to return to elected representatives, who are answerable to the electorate.

The writer is a former ambassador.

MUSLIMS in India were genuinely outraged by the cartoons of the Prophet (PBUH). Their anger against President Bush was also understandable after what he did to Iraq and threatened to do against Iran. But their protest did not have to be hysterical.

They did not have to come on the streets to ventilate their annoyance. This evoked a lot of misunderstanding — and fear. So much so, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to talk to some leaders of the community.

However, my reading is that the pent-up grievances of the Muslims found an expression in the protest. The community feels increasingly alienated and abandoned. The cartoons and Bush’s visit to India gave it an opportunity to underline the despair about the need for improvement in its status and stature. It had been anxious for some time to project its case in a manner which would not be considered communal and would still show the fire burning within.

The problem with such types of protest is that it gives a handle to the fundamentalists. And this is what happened. One band from among them killed some 25 innocent men and women at a Varanasi temple, and another announced a ‘yatra,’ the likes of which killed thousands in its wake last time. From among Muslim extremists, one UP minister announced a reward of Rs 51 crore to the person who would kill the cartoonist in Denmark. The one from the Hindutuva crowd promised crores of rupees to someone who would cut off the hands of Maqbool Fida Hussain who had painted Bharatmata in the nude.

The leaders of both communities have spoken against the incidents. But they have been silent over bigotries and fundamentalists. They are reluctant to do so lest they should forfeit their standing among their own community. But they are politicising the incidents in view of the forthcoming state elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. I do not know whether it is communalism which is rearing its head again or whether communalism has taken the shape of terrorism. Whatever it is, the fact remains that the country is more divided and more uneasy than before.

I do not think any one party can set things right. The exaggerated rhetoric of one-sided campaigns has already tainted the atmosphere. Leaders should be conscious of people’s dislike for communal politics, particularly in the countryside. The BJP has still not recovered from the electorate’s abhorrence of its ideology at the last general elections.

The National Integration Council, where the different parties are represented, should meet more often to assess the various happenings. It should try to find out why there is more desperation in the air and less opposition to the cult of the bomb. It would be a facile inference if the council were to come to the conclusion that the state was soft. More restrictive laws or more companies of police do not necessarily curb terrorism. The BJP’s criticism that the POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) should not have been dropped is not convincing because the law did more harm than the MISA during the emergency.

In fact, the challenge to the country is parochialism which some political parties have adopted as their creed. This has to be faced. Nations worth their salt have to show determination to defend their ethos. This is a quality — and faith — which is distinctive from the subjective or emotional response. Pluralism is our ethos, an ideal. This guided us during our national struggle and we even consecrated the ideology, secularism, in the constitution we adopted after witnessing the genocide in the name of religion during the partition in August 1947. A country with 80 per cent Hindus decided not to be a Hindu rashtra but a secular, democratic polity. Those who are not reconciled to it are the ones who have been fighting against India’s ethos since independence.

So strong was the wind of pluralism for many years after freedom that the party which would appeal in the name of religion was swept off like dry leaves. The Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor, did not even cross the double-digit figure in a parliamentary election. The Muslim League, a byname in the ‘40s in UP, Bihar, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, did not win even a single seat in these states after independence.

It was a welcome sight which falsified the sceptics who said that communalism was doomed to stay in India. Lately — the watershed is the genocide in Gujarat under BJP chief minister Narendra Modi — the shadows of communalism are lengthening. Political parties are thinking in terms of the vote bank. Some states are worse than the other. UP, for example, has become the epicentre of parochialism. Yet, Varanasi has given an appropriate reply to the bomb blasts by holding concerts of bhakti and sufi music. Even the high priest of the temple where the blast took place has paid no attention to the purpose of fundamentalists to create communal riots.

In contrast, the action by police was shoddy and panicky. Within 12 hours of the incident, they killed a person whom chief minister Mulayam Singh said was a Pakistani but who turned out to be a criminal from Madhya Pradesh. The hullabaloo about catching the culprits came to naught because there was none to match the much-published sketches the police had drawn.

Before the Varanasi blasts, I was at a gathering of Muslim youth. They were talking about the distance between them and the Hindu youth. “Tell us, how do we span the gulf?” they asked me. “How can we participate in nation-building activities when they do not trust us?” They have a point because they find the two communities — Hindus and Muslims — living separately, not only socially but also mentally. But there is no political party except the BJP which is going to the youth, although to poison their mind.

What has enabled the two communities to live closely for centuries is their healthy attitude towards one another. The sense of tolerance and the spirit of accommodation have provided them with the glue to stick together. That glue is drying up. I wish the communists and the Congress could do something about it instead of talking at each other all the time.

They may find an answer in what the 23-year-old Bhagat Singh said before his execution by the British at Lahore 75 years ago on March 23. He wondered why those who agitated side by side during the non-cooperation movement in the 1920s had turned into enemies. It was strange that they participated in the agitation and yet remained strangers. Religious, political or personal considerations brought them together. But at heart, they remained biased and bigoted, only Hindus and Muslims.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.