Finally, after two and a half months after the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan registered a case against the lone terrorist captured alive by India, Ajmal Amir Kasab and others. Nine others named in the F.I.R. of which six arrested. Indeed a huge reason for India to cheer its win in the tireless diplomatic exercise in this direction. All the more reason for cheer was Pakistan accepting that its soil was used by its ‘non-state’ actors for the attack. There was jubilation all around the country with national dailies painted with the victory story and the screaming headlines of television channels that indeed - ‘we had won’.

Even experts in the area of diplomacy and relations with Pakistan, hailed it as a big achievement and most of them said that this was not the time to be suspicious of Pakistan or that we should not always look at Pak with an element of doubt. I was also sitting in the newsroom, watching the victory like reaction of television channels and the next morning when I picked up the newspapers, the story was the same. But this feeling of victory and elation can be justified as we are Indians, by and large we tend to be emotional people who think from the heart. Now, some brain storming!

But, any Indian who watched the press conference of Pak Interior Minister Rehman Malik with an open mind, could smell there was something wrong. Malik in turn countered India with 30 questions. He went along to say that investigation of one case cannot be done properly in two places (India and Pakistan) simultaneously. He was quick to add that the accused in their custody would be produced in court in the stipulated 30 days time in which a proper charge sheet has to be prepared. Malik also said that if they could not gather proper evidence in this period - ‘defence lawyers in Pakistan were smart enough to outwit authorities in court’.

All this was a clear indicator that all that felt and sounded so good was indeed not what it appeared. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee gave a very guarded reply to Pakistan. But the real ploy was seen within days of the Pak reply when the wily neighbour hit the nail straight on the head, saying that it would require the custody of Kasab to take its investigation in a positive direction. The meaning is simple - India will not and cannot handover Kasab to Pakistan and in this case, Pakistan will cut a sorry figure in front of the world community to blame India for not being able to prosecute those it had arrested on charges of plotting 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

Who wins in this tug of war of diplomacy? India or Pakistan? Just after 26/11, there have been many questions in the mind of the common Indian. Have we done enough on the diplomatic front to ensure a mental victory over Pakistan? Have we been too gentle or too patient? Or have we been overconfident with our approach towards the unfriendly neighbour? In all, what have we attained in this long exercise?

Going back to immediately after 26/11, there were many expectations from the Indian Foreign Ministry or the MEA - Ministry of External Affairs as it is better known in India. After such a brutal and planned attack on the commercial nerve of the country, the average Indian wanted the Indian armed forces to immediately attack Pakistan and ensure the unfriendly neighbour never had the guts to think of another 26/11 in future. But it was evident that international pressure and fear of international sanctions would not allow India to even carry out surgical attacks on the terrorist training camps in Pak Occupied Kashmir, leave alone major military offences against Pakistan. The need of the hour thus was a strong diplomatic move, which would force Pakistan to accede that its soil was used to plan the terror attacks on Mumbai.

There were series of highest of high-level meetings at New Delhi and dubbed as a ‘weak’ Home Minister, the first to go was Shivraj Patil. He was replaced by P. Chidambaram as the new Home Minister. There was a lot of talk of heads rolling from the National Security Advisor to heads of intelligence wings but nothing concrete came out. And then started the diplomatic exercise of the government of India. The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukerjee, Defence Minister A.K. Antony, all initially came out with a major offensive giving Pakistan the dossier of the terrorists. The same dossier was given to as many as 135 odd countries but did it prove to be a futile exercise!

The wily neighbour, changed its stance between days, hours and minutes, refusing to admit that the lone terrorist caught alive in Mumbai, Ajmal Kasab, was a Pakistani national. The flip-flop and dilly-dally attitude of Pakistan continued and the National Security Advisor of Pakistan Mahmud Ali Durrani was sacked by Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani immediately after he committed the mistake of acknowledging in public that Kasab was a ‘Pakistani national’. The official line taken was that he had been sacked on charges of “irresponsible behaviour” and for speaking on the Kasab case without taking the government into confidence.

The fact remains that soon after the attack on Mumbai, the international media drew parallels between 26/11 and the World Trade Centre terror attacks. The then US President Elect Barack Obama had said India had “right to defend itself”. Republican Senator John McCain went a step further and in Lahore, he said that India would launch an aerial strike “if Pakistan fails against terrorists”. But, the official Indian response was less rhetorical.

Did we depend too much on building international pressure on Pakistan and thereby achieved very little! Or it was ’soft diplomacy’ which proved to be a disadvantage to India, thereby letting Pakistan off the hook! In India, all politicians from the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) were vocal in different tunes against their tirade against Pakistan. Many such ‘netas’ had their own theories in their relentless tirades against Pakistan and there was not uniformity in their stands. This is primarily because there was no bar on speakers on this issue. Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay was amongst those who created major controversy on this issue though now I would not like to dwell more on this topic.

Politically speaking, post 26/11, India was a divided house. With the government continuing with whatever diplomatic route it thought was right, being an election year, the opposition also did not leave any effort to make it a political issue. CPM leader Sitaram Yechuri linked the terror attack with the Indo-US nuclear deal saying that at the time of entering strategic partnership with US, he had warned whether India was prepared to face the threats of Taliban and Al Qaeda reaching our shores!

And the BJP slammed the UPA government for failing to convince the world community about the involvement of Pakistan’s state agencies in the Mumbai terror attacks with countries like US and Britain contradicting New Delhi’s stand. BJP leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in a public speech said that the attacks were not possible without help from Indian associates of Pak terrorists. Pakistan was quick to latch to this theory and used it wherever it wanted on the international forum quoting Mr. Modi for it.

Pakistan, on the other hand was more guarded in its approach and speaking on this topic was confined to a few top shots in their country. Dawn News’ Correspondent Arshad Sharif reported that after the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani Foreign Office has been working hard and trying to make sure that no information is leaked. “Only few officials have been authorized to speak to the media.

Some experts on diplomacy and international relations feel that soft diplomacy and over dependence on US, both cost India too much. The only step India took was to declare that the cricket team would neither be sent to Pakistan nor would we play Pakistan at some neutral venue. At the same time, Pakistan reciprocated by announcing that they would not send their hockey team to India. That was all!

A strong looking Home Minister P. Chidambaram hinted at stopping rail and bus transport between the two countries but nothing concrete has been done so far. Experts with hawkish approach say that immediately after 26/11, India should have snapped transport links, border and bilateral trade and putting on hold all visas to Pakistani nationals who wanted to come to India. Well-known Pakistan-affairs expert G. Parthasarthy went a step ahead by saying that India should snap its diplomatic ties by recalling its High Commissioner!

With the Lashkar and Jamaat-ud-Dawa operatives having their free run in Pakistan, it is evident that all arrests and shown by Pakistan were a mere eyewash for India as well as the international community. And Pakistan, has a new big brother named China. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that Pakistan has given a ‘blank cheque’ to China authorising it to negotiate with India on its behalf to deal with the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks. That is called true opportunism! And after over two and a half months of the Mumbai terror attacks and are we not back to square one?