Remember, the Prime Minister of India was going to the United States as the head of a self-assured democracy poised to emerge as an economic superpower. Unfortunately, he behaved like a sub-Saharan leader washing dirty linen in public in order to win an argument few are interested in. As a result, we gifted the General a chance to reply tit-for-tat (he asked with some asperity how we had the temerity to talk of persecution of minorities in his country when we were busy murdering Christians, Muslims and Sikhs in our own) and pose as if he was the aggrieved party.
We must recognise that in international conference halls Pakistan has a compelling interest to stalk India with the Kashmir dispute. They will ride our back, pull us down, bait us into a slanging match. Our job is to shake them off. The best way to do this is not by acrimonious argument but by benign neglect.
