''India has suffered its first strategic setback in the fight against terrorism,'' writes Ajit Doval, the former chief of Intelligence Bureau. India has suffered this strategic setback not because of Pakistan; nor because of Al-Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Toiba. According to the former IB chief, India has suffered this huge and irreversible setback thanks to none other than our own Prime Minister. Our Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh? Yes, says Doval.

The Prime Minister himself has stunningly certified - after holding out to the world for 50 long years that Pakistan was merchandising terror to torment India - that Pakistan is a victim of terror. So it is not an exponent of terror any more. This, Doval says, brings Pakistan and India - the terror merchant and the terror victim - on par! And Dr Singh issues this generous certificate to Pakistan when, Doval says, in the last 12 months, Pakistan-sponsored jihadis have killed over 400 innocent Indians, the largest number outside J & K since Independence. And so far 60,000 Indians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and the rest, have been sacrificed for this terror deity, Pakistan.

If this is what the former IB official says about the Prime Minister, this is what, B. Raman, a former RAW officer, says about the Prime Minister: ''God save this country and its men, women and children from the depredations of the jihadi terrorists. Since our own Prime Minister has let us down, what else can we do?'' More plainly Raman implies that the Prime Minister has betrayed the country.

Why are these celebrated officials, who have spent their life defending India's security, so exasperated? The reason is simple. At Havana last week Manmohan Singh suddenly identified a new ally for us to fight Pak-sponsored jihadi terror against India. Who was that new ally? None other than, believe it, Pakistan itself!

More incredible, to justify Pakistan as the ally to fight terror - the LeTs, Mujahideens, Dawoods, Azhars and the rest - that operate from Pakistan against India, Singh has also certified that Pakistan is a victim, not a merchant of terror! Stunned, Raman finds the answer to why Singh has begun seeing Pakistan as an ally against Pakistan in criminal psychology.

Raman diagnoses that Manmohan Singh is suffering from 'Stockholm Syndrome'. What is this syndrome? According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, the syndrome is named after the robbery of a bank in Stockholm in which the bank robbers held four women bank employees hostage for five days. The victims became emotionally attached to their victimisers, and even defended their captors after they were freed from their six-day ordeal. Nils Bejerot, a psychiatrist who assisted the police during the investigation of the robbery, coined the term 'Stockholm Syndrome'.

Applying this psychiatric parallel Raman believes that Singh, like the four captive women employees, seems to have got attached to Musharraf, the terror merchant himself. The PMO got so upset with the two honest officials who spoke the truth that the Press Advisor to the PM wrote to the editors of the newspapers trashing the two writers and almost telling the editors to shut their columns! The secular media forthwith obliged the PM, who is its darling, by trashing in its editorials the views of the two officials!

Worse still, a retired Foreign Secretary, who was perhaps mandated to defend the deal with the devil, virtually gave up the fight against terror to justify the grand idea of capitulating to jihadis rather than fight them out. This is how he lectured on a TV channel. ''We do not seem to be making any headway in our fight against terrorism. This (mechanism) may help.'' Citing this, says B. Raman, rightly, that ''battle fatigue has set in New Delhi - particularly in the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Office.''

Irrespective of the party in power, the core of the Indian foreign policy for decades has been to convince the world that Pakistan, having been transformed into Wahabi Islamic theatre by Gen Zia, is the centre of Islamic terror. The world, particularly the West, who treated Pakistan as a pet child - whose potential for mischief to contain India was their geo-political asset - refused to listen to India till they themselves had it from Pak-born and Pak-trained jihadis. Now, when the whole world has thus begun to understand India's version of Pakistan and is even seeing the state of Pakistan as a failing experiment, the Prime Minister of India, of all persons, is certifying Pakistan as a victim of terror. And he has even proposed a joint venture with the jihad factory owner to fight against the jihadis! This has effectively destroyed the Indian case built for 50 years that what defines Pakistan is its hostility to India.

Fortunately for India, the devil has refused Dr Singh's offer for partnership against jihad. Musharraf, who said 'yes' to Singh in Havana, has almost said 'no' on reaching Pakistan. Consequently the PM himself has developed second thoughts on the joint venture with the devil to fight jihadis. So the joint venture idea is still-born. But not before the misadventure destroyed the credibility of the Indian case built over 50 years that the state of Pakistan was a criminal venture even as the world has begun seeing as we did. The PM has served Pakistan better than any Pakistan Prime Minister or President would have. QED: luckily for us, the devil has refused to accept our surrender.

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, September 23 ,2006