ON GEORGE W. BUSH'S DEHYPHENATION OF INDIA FROM PAKISTAN





Visits by modern world leaders of the stature of the president of the United States are no different from the royal progress of ancient monarchs, with one important difference. Earlier rulers expected to receive tribute proffered by their vassals; nowadays, a visiting dignitary is expected to give, rather than to receive. During his recent South Asian tour, President George W. Bush visited three countries. In Kabul, he gave Afghanistan the reassurances that it craved; in New Delhi, he gave India what it wanted; and in Islamabad, he gave Pakistan what it deserved.


Pakistan’s establishment would have done well to have remembered the advice of an earlier President George Bush: Read My Lips. Had it done so, it would have understood more clearly the message that his son - the present President George W. Bush - brought with him after his talks in New Delhi. President Bush articulated it the following day on 4th March during the press conference he held jointly with President Pervez Musharraf at Aiwan-e-Sadr. Pre-empting any last-minute supplications by Pakistan to be granted the same favour he had just conceded to India on its civilian nuclear programme, Bush said that 'Pakistan and India are two different countries with different needs and different histories.' US strategy in the region would take into account 'those well-known differences.'


And in that one dismissive remark, an American president who found it difficult to locate Pakistan when he was elected for his first term, achieved something that the British could not resolve in 1947, and that every subsequent government in India and in Pakistan has been unable to since. At a stroke, he severed the gristle of history that has connected the two nations. He has liberated them from each other, like amputated Siamese twins, and told them to learn to lead their lives separately. Physical neighbours now find themselves standing at uneven arm's length from the United States. [EXTRACT]





Published in DAWN 9 March 2006, titled: Bush's Crucial Visit.