If the Americans were our only problem, it would be no great matter. The new word for being kicked around by the US is pragmatism. Which seems near kin to realism and even wisdom.

We've our incompetence to contend with, a regular theme of our history. As if that wasn't enough, look at this: Indian democracy triumphs and we feel humiliated.

Every villager in Pakistan knows the story of the farmer who went to a village festival (mela) and there lost his blanket. Looking everywhere for it and not finding it, he said the whole purpose of the mela was to steal his blanket.

Pakistanis can be forgiven for thinking that the whole purpose of holding the Indian elections was to heap scorn on Pakistan. There was nothing unusual about Atal Behari Vajpayee conceding defeat when it became obvious that his party was trailing the Congress. This is what happens in every parliamentary democracy and this was not the first time it was happening in India.

But for Pakistanis this normal exercise was thoroughly amazing. Conditioned to the marvels of military rule, the idea of a peaceful transfer of power after an election, no one crying foul and everyone accepting the result, seemed so alien and unbelievable. They were not slow to express their wonder.

As if this first shock to Pakistani sensibilities wasn't enough, a second was administered when Mrs Sonia Gandhi declined the prime ministership, passing the mantle instead to Manmohan Singh (honoured son of Chakwal). It doesn't happen this way in India and it certainly doesn't in Pakistan.

Consider the grace and dignity Mrs Sonia Gandhi has shown. Consider her measured words, no empty rhetoric (Ms Bhutto please note), no verbosity. Compare this with the desire for eternal power evident in Islamabad and it is tempting to conclude that the Pakistani political class and leadership are simply incapable of getting it right about the country's affairs.

Like all his military predecessors Gen Musharraf thinks he is saving Pakistan. A bit of Sonian renunciation, or call it Sonian wisdom, should do him a world of good.

The political situation here is so poised that if Musharraf overcomes his fears and settles for democracy, the genuine thing rather than the fake currency we have to soil our hands with, he stands to gain the most.

In the Muslim League the Sharifs will be pitted against the Chaudries. On the national scene the PPP will be pitted against the Muslim League, the clerics of the MMA out on a limb of their own. Umpiring this scene of discord, and playing off one player against the other, will be the president, democratic credentials established, moral authority enhanced.

But to act like Sonia Gandhi you probably have to be Sonia Gandhi. Or you must come from a small town in Italy. Vision is one thing in which no lessons can be given.

But credit the Indian elections for doing another thing: exposing the BJP's ugly face. Just when Indian democracy was being praised, the likes of Sushma Swaraj and Uma Bharti got busy to remind everyone of the hatred and bigotry the BJP and its godfather organizations, the RSS and the Sangh Parivar, have injected into Indian politics.

Lest anyone be carried away by Vajpayee's great statesmanship, he said not a word when the BJP's vitriolic brigade launched vicious personal attacks on Mrs Sonia Gandhi. Nor did he tell his party that it was wrong in declaring its intent not to attend Mrs Gandhi's swearing-in were she to become prime minister.

Nor was this very much out of character. When Narendra Modi, the Himmler of Gujarat, was orchestrating the massacre of Muslims following the Godhra incident, Mr Vajpayee said not a word even then. It's now said he cried in private. Well, well...

Recall, please, that this Sushma Swaraj was the first person to try to scuttle the Agra summit in July 2001 when she breezily declared that President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee had not discussed the Kashmir issue. Which was like showing a red rag to the Pakistani side.

Musharraf later went to great lengths to explain that he and Vajpayee had almost agreed to a joint statement but that their efforts were wrecked by BJP hardliners. The BJP's antics after the Congress's electoral success provide a clue to this mystery. If this is what the vitriol brigade is capable of vis-a-vis Sonia Gandhi, what wouldn't it have done to sabotage an equitable agreement with Pakistan?

Ah, but the BJP was for peace with Pakistan. So it was but in fits and starts and very much on its own terms. After Agra the Vajpayee government went into reverse mode.

After the attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001 - blamed on Pakistan without a shred of evidence - it slipped quickly into confrontationist mode, snapping communication links, downgrading diplomatic ties and, to crown everything, moving troops to battle stations on the border.

Pakistan's military rulers found themselves in a quandary. They had convinced themselves that the new relationship forged with the US in the wake of the Sep 11 attacks was Pakistan's defence insurance against India.

With the United States and India both focused on 'terrorism' - never mind that their 'terrorists' were different - Pakistan found itself under US pressure to address Indian concerns regarding 'cross-border terrorism' in Kashmir.

This was the time to play cool. But feeling the heat, Musharraf announced steps against "religious extremism" in a much-heralded and later much-hailed speech in January 2002, religious extremism being his coded way of referring to Kashmiri militancy.

Pakistan had fought wars with India and suffered defeat at its hands. But even in defeat it had remained defiant. This was the first time in its history that one of its leaders was succumbing to pressure exerted overtly by America but orchestrated indirectly by India. In June 2001 Musharraf gave another speech denouncing "religious extremism", his second major signal that Pakistan was changing tack on Kashmir.

For a year the military stand off on the border continued. When nothing more was to be extracted from hawkishness, Vajpayee changed clothes and while on a visit to Srinagar in April 2003 made a peace offer to Pakistan. The war leader was now becoming peacemaker.

The wonder remains that it was India ratcheting up the tension and India now changing direction. Blowing hot and cold and earning international kudos, first for firmness in the face of "terrorism", then for flexibility in the search for peace.

In both cases, Pakistan's military rulers were caught on the hop, responding to Indian moves but unable to seize the initiative or set the agenda of bilateral relations.

Should Pakistan have changed direction on Kashmir? Of course it should have but on its own volition, not under crude pressure. Just as it should have changed direction on Afghanistan much before September 11, without the US virtually at pistol point compelling it to do so.

It is a tribute to Vajpayee's diplomatic skill and the ineptitude of Pakistan's military rulers that when Vajpayee waved his olive branch from Srinagar, the strong impression conveyed was of a favour granted Pakistan which its errant behaviour did not quite deserve.

Vajpayee and Musharraf met on the sidelines of the Saarc summit in Islamabad in January 2004. They signed a joint statement so tilted towards India that Brijesh Mishra, Vajpayee's national security adviser, could have drafted it.

The Foreign Office, reduced by higher military engineering to the status of a post office, first heard of this agreement when it was read out on television.

Pakistan was used to being pushed around by the US. From December 2001 onwards it got used to being pushed around by India. And who was doing the pushing? The worst elements in Indian political life, those very forces, represented by the Sushma Swarajs and Uma Bhartis, who bayed for Sonia Gandhi's blood when it looked she was becoming prime minister.

Pakistan has achieved a unique sort of liberation. Which in different times might have been dubbed a loss of shame but which in today's climate will probably be counted as a triumph of pragmatism.