Indian PM, Manmohan Singh talks to Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President. He is angry. Zardari is trying to placate him. Manmohan Singh asks him to send his ISI Chief over to participate in the investigation. Zardari agrees.
So far so good. Then the Indian side, presumably, announces/leaks it to the press. Headlines in newspapers say “PM summons ISI Chief to India”. Bad mistake. They should have let Pakistan announce it to the world. The headline could have been very different. “Zardari says ‘We will work with India to fight terrorism’. ISI Chief leaving for India.”
Now India looks stupid and Pakistan looks petulant. Not a good way to start working together on what is the biggest challenge facing both countries.
6 am pacific 
Basab,
Very valid point. But who actually made this insane call?
1. Our PM definitely does not make any call on Security. He listens and then takes the stand based on loyalty. We all know how in the political dynasty at center, loyalty is of premium importance.
2. Our ex Home Minister likes only to dress up and do not have any idea on security. Definitely he does make any decision.
3. Allies do not care. Some are there for making money on spectrum allocation (you will be surprised on the number of TV channels allocated to various political leaders) and another was purely a centrifugal force which could not blackmail any more and quit. Not a single region party has said anything so far – though they are increasingly become powerful at the center.
4. State Govt. – if the home minister of the state govt. says it is a “small incident” and “it happens in a city like Mumbai”, definitely the state govt. is least bothered so far. I do not if the home minister has resigned now based on the comment!
4. Main Opposition party at center – less said the better. No where in the world a cabinet rank minister flies to exchange terrorists and move with them on the same plane. Now the same man is the head of LeT as you indicated in your last post.
5. So, finally the balls fall on the court of our NSA – the National Security Advisor, who is the eye and ear of the government on security matter. Unfortunately, he has been a sympathizer of LTTE, an outfit which has been known as a terrorist one by the US and UK and many more. I guess the call came very much from there.
Saddest part – even a kid can see that it is wrong to start off like this (either way India is failing by calling up the ISI chief), but nothing can be done! Only good news is – it seems sanity has prevailed and our leaders now think it is bad politics to call the ISI chief in election time (if the latest news is to be believed)!
LikeLike
ISI chief is not going to be called as per today’s news in TOI…and it is still surprsing how come they even asked the isi chief to come to india!!!
LikeLike