Kashmir on a platter!

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Wikileaks are leaking away -- and the first batch of cables detailing India-Pak ties are making their way out. One cable points to India's growing frustration with Pakistan. Dated 27th November 2009 and marked confidential, it records the view of Joint Secy in the MEA Yash Sinha who currently handles the Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan desk.

Sinha is quoted as saying "even if India were to lop off Kashmir and hand it on a platter to Pakistan, they would still find a reason to make trouble for us."

Pointing to the lack of progress on the Mumbai attackers' trial in Pakistan, Sinha sounds unwilling to believe foreign minister Qureshi's argument given to SM Krishna when they met in Kabul that the Pakistani government can't interfere in the judicial process. He tells his American interlocutor, "the Pakistanis constantly interfere in the judicial process when it suits them to do so."

Sinha also asks America not to fall for Pakistan's "game" of linking Afghanistan with resolving Kashmir. The cable says he called on the US govt to "see through and resist Pakistan's game of promising cooperation in Afghanistan in return for US pressure on India to sort out Pakistan's problems with India"

Sinha also warns the US against believing Pakistan's "false threats" saying, "If they really believed that (India was a threat on Pakistan's eastern border), they never would have withdrawn an entire army corps from the east and deployed it in the west."

The cable notes that the tone and substance of his comments regarding Pakistan were relentlessly negative. Sinha says an essential element of Pakistani policy is to "try to internationalize every bilateral issue between us." And makes it clear that the Composite Dialogue, on pause since the Mumbai attacks, won't resume until Pakistan takes "credible and verifiable" measures against terror directed at India.

"We have no benchmarks" for resumption, Sinha stated, adding that improvement in bilateral ties is not dependent on a single measure such as Pakistani action against Lashkar-e-Taiba supremo Hafiz Saeed. Sinha stated he is "convinced that LeT is a creature of the ISI and armed by the ISI."

On Pakistan's other neighbour, Sinha "laments that recent media focus on the corruption and inefficiency of the Hamid Karzai government is undermining international community efforts in Afghanistan."And offers Indian help for "expanding military and police training for Afghans in India". As the cable goes `Sinha was pleased to learn of discussions about placing an Indian military liaison officer at CENTCOM headquarters. "We understand the sensitivities involved, but we can help" '.

The cable reveals five aspects of this quadrangular relationship:

One, a year after the Mumbai attacks, India was getting increasingly frustrated with Pakistan's intransigence.

Two, India felt the need to expose Rawalpindi's game-plan to Washington - suggesting there were elements within the Obama administration who were susceptible to that line (Richard Holbrooke? Pentagon?).

Three, the UPA did not dilute its line on terror under US `influence' or 'pressure' . In other words, there was no double-speak or triple-speak. What New Delhi was telling its people at home was what it was telling Islamabad and Washington.

Four, India was (and remains) willing to step up training for Afghan security forces, but prefers to keep it quiet.

And finally, nothing much seems to have changed one year on.

Pakistan is still raising the Kashmir bogey with the US, it's still dragging its feet on 26/11, the US sees through Pakistan's game a lot more clearly today but is still unwilling to use its stick, and Washington is back to blaming Karzai's "corrupt and inefficient government" for all its problems.