US overtures emboldening Pakistan to foment trouble

THE new year has started on a tragic note for Jammu and Kashmir. Four civilians were killed when terrorists fired at three houses of members of a community at Dhangri village in the border district of Rajouri on Sunday evening. The next day, two children were killed in an IED explosion near the house of a victim of the Dhangri attack. The two incidents, clearly aimed at disturbing peace and scuttling the resumption of the electoral process in the UT, come on the heels of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s statement that terrorism cannot be used as a tool to force India to the negotiating table. In a thinly veiled attack on Pakistan, he asserted last week that India wanted good neighbourly relations with everybody, but this did not mean ‘excusing or looking away or rationalising terrorism.’ Jaishankar had done some more plain-speaking in his address at the UN a fortnight ago — he had called Pakistan the epicentre of terrorism and asked it to clean up its act, while recalling Hillary Clinton’s remark that ‘if you keep snakes in your backyard, you can’t expect them to bite only your neighbours.’

The killings in J&K make it evident that Pakistan continues to aid and abet terrorism in pursuance of its old policy of ‘bleeding India with a thousand cuts.’The onus has always been on the neighbour to turn off the terror tap. What’s worrying for India is the dubious role being played by the US. Ned Price, US State Department spokesperson, said recently that both India and Pakistan were indispensable to his country. The US is giving the impression that it is keen on a ‘constructive’ dialogue between the two countries; nevertheless, Washington is reluctant to tell Islamabad to mend its ways. Last year’s F16 deal with Pakistan left no room for doubt that America has no qualms about running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

The restoration of peace in J&K is a must to create a conducive atmosphere for the conduct of the long-delayed Assembly elections. India must up the ante against Pakistan on international platforms and at the same time see through America’s designs.