India Holds Its Tongue on Pakistan

NEW DELHI: As the United States has intensified pressure on the Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, to call off the state of emergency there, India has maintained a studiously low-key response to the unfurling crisis in its neighbor and nuclear rival.

The Ministry of External Affairs issued its only formal statement shortly after emergency rule was declared Saturday, and kept it succinct, limiting it to just two sentences.

"We regret the difficult times that Pakistan is passing through," the statement read. "We trust that conditions of normalcy will soon return permitting Pakistan's transition to stability and democracy to continue."

Indian analysts said the muted response reflected a desire not to sour newly improved relations between the two countries by taking a overly critical stand at this juncture.

Uday Bhaskar, an independent defense analyst, said it was India's "standard operating procedure" not to interfere in the internal political affairs of its neighbors, given that most of them are not democracies.

"Traditionally India has never made democracy the single issue on which to shape its response," he said.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee reprised the official line Tuesday, in answers to journalists' questions at an energy conference, straying from the text only to say: "We want peace, stability, development and prosperity in Pakistan."

This cautious approach springs from a determination not to let India become part of the crisis, Indian officials said.

"Whatever is happening there, we are naturally very concerned, because it is right next to us," said an external affairs official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the subject with reporters.

"Instability in the region is not in anybody's interest. But it is very easy for India to say too much and be regarded as the problem," the official said.

Peace talks that started between India and Pakistan in 2004 have advanced relations between the two nations, which have fought three wars with each other. Although the peace process was suspended this year because of the unrest in Pakistan, tensions remain reduced.

"We have built up a good bilateral relationship," the official added. "Here, for once, we are not part of the problem."

Bhaskar agreed that India had to tread with particular care when commenting on events in Pakistan.

"There is always this anxiety that words will be overinterpreted or misconstrued and that India will be seen as interfering, or playing big brother," he said.

Unlike the United States, India has "no intention" of trying to influence affairs within Pakistan, the external affairs official said. "This is something that the people of Pakistan have to sort out."

India's opposition parties have been much more vocal in their condemnation of events in Pakistan than the government. Officials from the rightist Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist party have separately called on Musharraf to restore democracy.

But because of Pakistan's geopolitical importance to India, the Delhi government prefers to maintain a pragmatic relationship with whomever is in power there, regardless of democratic credentials.

"We have been doing business with the military there for many decades," Bhaskar said.

Still, the government's public reticence on events in Pakistan masks considerable private unease about the possible outcome of the crisis, analysts said.

An overriding concern is that the Pakistani government continue to try to rein in militant groups accused by officials in Delhi of orchestrating a number of devastating bomb attacks across India. Security analysts say the possibility that Islamic extremists could take advantage of the instability in Pakistan and mount an attack on India has increased.