SOME Pakistani television channels have called me up seeking my comments on the effect of Senator Barack Hussein Obama’s election as the US president on India-Pakistan relations.

The same question has been raised by the Indian media. The first is downcast and the second exudes confidence since it assumes that India and America are ‘natural allies’.

However, the Indian reaction to Obama’s telephone call to President Asif Ali Zardari is subdued. The general impression is that Pakistan has been singled out, along with five other countries, because it is an ally in the Afghan war.

What amuses me is the obsession in the two countries or, for that matter, in South Asia about the way America looks towards them.

They strain every nerve to catch Washington’s eye — one, to score a point on how close that country is to America than the other, and, two, to make America feel that its benevolent attention mattered to the country in its internal and external affairs.

Such thinking, speaking dispassionately, smacks of colonial slavish mentality which we have not been able to shake off even after six decades of independence. Incidentally, Bangladesh’s regret is over the defeat of Senator McCain who adopted a Bangladeshi girl.

If the US elections have proved anything beyond doubt it is that people are their own masters. They have no holy cows and they are not afraid to face any challenge.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are sovereign countries and their strength or weakness is from within, not without. They do not have to kowtow before any foreign country, however powerful.

Washington cannot impose anything on them if they do not offer their neck. Yet the manner in which they behave gives the impression as if they are banana republics, tiptoeing for favours.

Obama has made certain observations on matters relating to India and Pakistan. Before the polls, Obama was critical of Pakistan for ‘using’ the US assistance to train and arm terrorists for infiltration into India. Indeed, India has been at the receiving end and it still is. But these terrorists have now trained their guns on Pakistan itself.

India’s resolve to have a joint mechanism is the reply to combat terrorism together. M.K. Narayanan and Mahmud Durrani, the national security advisers of India and Pakistan respectively, have held a two-day meeting in Delhi to discuss the nuts and bolts of the mechanism.

Both have been positive in their observations. This is one example to show that we are our own masters.

I did not like former prime minister Nawaz Sharif travelling all the way to Washington and using President Bill Clinton’s services for withdrawing the repulsed Pakistani forces from Kargil. Nawaz Sharif knew Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee well. He should have talked to Vajpayee on the hotline and settled the matter then and there.

Clinton did the same thing indirectly. He had Vajpayee on the phone in the presence of Nawaz Sharif, conveying that Pakistan wanted free passage to withdraw its troop from the Kargil heights.

Obama’s remark on Kashmir in a press interview, which was given in October but published now, has created a stir. He has said that he wanted to “devote serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy in there to figure out a plausible approach”.

Clinton’s name figured as the envoy. Obama’s statement is an unnecessary diversion when New Delhi and Islamabad are engaged in bilateral talks to sort out Kashmir and other problems souring relations between the two countries. Both had signed an agreement at Simla as far back as in 1972 to iron out differences bilaterally, without resorting to arms. And they have stuck to it.

A composite dialogue has been going on and some progress has been made. The fifth round of meetings is due this month. The two countries would have probably reached a fruitful stage if the valley had not acquired a religious colour after the controversial handing over of land in the valley to the Amarnath Shrine Board.

India’s precondition for any settlement on Kashmir is that it cannot demarcate borders on the basis of religion. Obama would only aggravate the situation by focusing his attention on Kashmir or appointing an envoy like Clinton who is pro-India.

The reported nomination of Ahmed Rashid as an adviser on Afghanistan to the American forces in Kabul is a welcome development. He is liberal and has many friends in India. His advice would be sober and not smack of a high-and-mighty attitude. His knowledge of Afghanistan is intimate. But why has he been given the responsibility for Kashmir as well?

I have not been able to understand the linkage between Kashmir and Afghanistan. The first problem is as old as the Partition while the second came up after 1980 when America created a Taliban force to bleed the Soviet Union to death.

Even if the time factor is forgotten, combining the two will be like mixing chalk with cheese. The Taliban aspire to convert Afghanistan into a fundamentalist state. The Kashmiris, whatever their grievance against India, want Hindu-majority Jammu to be part of their state.

If this is so the Kashmir they have in mind cannot be anything but liberal. Rashid told an Indian newspaper recently that the Taliban attacking American and European forces were operating from Pakistani soil. He suspected the hand of some elements in authority in Islamabad behind the activities of the Taliban.

Yet the bombing by America of Islamabad’s federally administered area is a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani is justified in warning Washington to either halt the missile attacks inside Pakistan or face the failure of efforts to end militancy.

Zardari is said to have conveyed the same thing to Obama during their telephonic conversation.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.