It is tempting to dismiss the furore over Jaswant Singh’s expulsion from the BJP as a matter of no great consequence. After all, the BJP is a party that is out of power and seemingly in terminal decline. Jaswant Singh is at the end of his career and even if the BJP does manage to recapture power in five years’ time, he would probably have been too old to play an active role in the next government. Read more

I am getting increasingly tired of people — well-meaning Indians and not so well-meaning Americans mainly — telling us that we have to look at the problem of terrorism from Pakistan’s point of view. We should accept, we are told, that we have not given Pakistan any proof about Hafiz Saeed or the 26/11 plotters that will stand up in a court of law. Read more

Consumed as we are with the hurly-burly of the General Election, we may have lost sight of an important development in our neighbourhood. As the Pakistan government tries to persuade the Taliban to retreat from its latest encampment a mere 100 kilometers away from Islamabad, the world — and Washington, in particular — has finally come around to the view that Pakistan is on the brink of becoming the next Afghanistan. Read more

Few things annoy me as much as the claim often advanced by well-meaning but woolly- headed (and usually Punjabi) liberals to the effect that when it comes to India and Pakistan, “We’re all the same people, yaar.”

This may have been true once upon a time. Before 1947, Pakistan was part of undivided India and you could claim that Punjabis from West Punjab (what is now Pakistan) were as Indian as, say, Tamils from Madras. Read more

It has now become increasingly clear that India is being naïve in expecting Pakistan to cooperate in the investigation into the Bombay attacks. Judging by the things that Pakistani diplomats and politicians said in Islamabad, Davos, London and Delhi last week, Pakistan’s attitude is defiant and unhelpful. Read more

There’s been a lot about Pakistan in the Indian media over the last 10 days: obituaries of Benazir Bhutto; predictions about the forthcoming election; attacks on General Musharraf; and conspiracy theories about the assassination.

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