Nerve Endings Firing Away

Peace initiatives are reciprocated with conciliatory measures, right? You may be, unless you are talking about the India-Pakistan conflict. Manmohan Singh is currently in a magnanimous mood, calling Mian Musharaff over for a cricket match, opening up the LOC for a bus service between two parts of Kashmir, letting separatist Hurriyat leaders visit PoK (they simply went ahead to Islamabad; focus focus, that is another story), and more recently calling the highest battlefield on earth Siachen, a mountain of peace.

Pakistan, of course now an equal partner in peace reciprocated in expected fashion by demanding that India withdraw from Siachen. Foreign Office Spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani has this gem:

"India, as you know, committed aggression on Siachen in 1983. India has to vacate that aggression in order to make Siachen a peaceful area. We hope following the statement, India would unconditionally withdraw its aggression on the basis of past agreements,"

If I was Manmohan, there would have been a dramatic pause and then wild laughter all around my cabinet room, followed by a short statement asking Mr. Jilani to perform a certain sexual act on himself. Ooops! Prime ministers don’t say such things? Well, too bad they didn’t ask us to withdraw Sachin from the cricket series.