SOME Pakistani television channels have called me up seeking my comment on the effect of Senator Barrack Hussein Obama’s election as the US President on India-Pakistan relations. The same question has been raised by the Indian media. The first is downcast and the second exudes confidence since it assumes that India and America are “natural allies.”

However, the Indian reaction to Obama’s telephone call to President Asif Ali Zardari is subdued. The general impression is that Pakistan has been singled out, along with five other countries, because it is an ally in the Afghanistan war. Newspapers do, however, carry reports that Obama called Manmohan Singh but the communication was not established. The idea is to tell Pakistan that India continues to be close to the US.

What amuses me is the obsession in the two countries or, for that matter, in South Asia about the way America looks towards them. They strain every nerve to catch Washington’s eye—one, to score a point on how close that country is to America than the other, and, two, to make America feel that its benevolent attention mattered the country in its internal and external affairs.

Such thinking, speaking dispassionately, smacks of colonial slavish mentality which we have not been able to shake off even after six decades of independence. Incidentally, Bangladesh’s regret is over the defeat of Senator McCain who had adopted a Bangladeshi girl.

If the US elections have proved anything beyond doubt it is that people are their own master. They have no holy cow and they are not afraid to face any challenge. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are sovereign countries and their strength or weakness is from within, not without. They do not have to kowtow before any foreign country, however powerful. Washington cannot impose anything on them if they do not offer their neck. Yet the manner in which they behave gives the impression as if they are banana republics, tiptoeing for favours.

Obama has made certain observations on matters relating to India and Pakistan. Before the polls, Obama was critical of Pakistan for “using” the US assistance in training and arming terrorists for infiltrating them into India. Indeed, India has been at the receiving end and it still is. But these terrorists have now trained their guns against Pakistan itself. India’s resolve to have a joint mechanism is the reply to combat terrorism together. M.K. Narayanan and Mahmud Durrani, the National Security Advisers of India and Pakistan, respectively, have held a two-day meeting at Delhi to discuss the nuts and bolts of the mechanism. Both have been positive in their observation. This is one example to show that we are our own master.

I did not like former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif traveling all the way to Washington and using President Bill Clinton’s services for withdrawing the repulsed Pakistani forces from Kargil. Nawaz Sharif knew Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee well. He should have talked to Vajpayee on the hotline and settled the matter then and there. Clinton did the same thing indirectly. He had Vajpayee on the phone in the presence of Nawz Sharif, conveying that Pakistan wanted free passage to withdraw its troop from the Kargil heights.

Obama’s remark on Kashmir in a press interview, which was given in October but published now, has created a stir. He has said that Kashmir was a place he wanted to “devote serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy there to figure out a plausible approach.” Even the name of Clinton figured as the envoy. Obama’s statement is an unnecessary diversion when New Delhi and Islamabad are engaged in bilateral talks to sort out Kashmir and other problems souring relations between the two countries. Both had signed an agreement at Shimla as back as in 1972 to iron out differences bilaterally, without resorting to arms. And they have stuck to it.

A composite dialogue has been going on and some progress has been made. The fifth round of meeting is due this month. The two countries would have probably reached a fruitful stage if the valley had not acquired a religious colour after the controversial handing over of land in the valley to the Amarnath Shrine Board. India’s pre-condition for any settlement on Kashmir is that it cannot demarcate borders on the basis of religion. Obama would only aggravate the situation by focusing his attention on Kashmir or appointing an envoy like Clinton who is pro-India.

The reported nomination of Ahmad Rashid as adviser on Afghanistan to the American forces at Kabul is a welcome development. He is liberal and has many friends in India. His advice would be sober and not smack of high-and-mighty attitude. His knowledge on Afghanistan is intimate. But why has he been given the responsibility of Kashmir as well?

I have not been able to understand the linkage between Kashmir and Afghanistan. The first problem is as old as partition while the second came up after 1980 when America created a force of Taliban to bleed the Soviet Union to death. Even if the time factor is forgotten, combining the two will be like mixing chalk with cheese. The Taliban aspire to convert Afghanistan into a fundamentalist state. The Kashmiris, whatever their grievance against India, want the Hindu-majority Jammu to be part of their state. If this is so the Kashmir they have in mind cannot be anything but liberal.

Rashid told an Indian newspaper recently that while the Taliban were attacking the American and European forces were operating from the Pakistani soil. He suspected the hand of some elements in authority at Islamabad behind the activities of the Taliban. It is an open secret that the ISI, a part of the Pakistani establishment, is at the back of the Taliban and still obsessed with the idea of having Afghanistan as its satellite to get Pakistan its “strategic depth.” It is strange that the Pakistani army is trying to eliminate the Taliban. But the ISI is still mixed up with the Taliban. It should know that duplicity which former President Pervez Musharraf encouraged cannot go on.

Yet the bombing by America on Islamabad’s federally-administered area is a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani is justified in warning Washington to either halt the missile attacks inside Pakistan or face the failure of efforts to end militancy. Zardari is said to have conveyed the same thing to Obama during their telephonic conversation.

In any case, South Asia expects Bush’s cowboy diplomacy to come to an end. If it does not, Obama’s victory speech which gave the world a new hope of peace and conciliation may turn out to be yet another false promise held by a US President.