MINISTERIAL SCOUTS: Sinha's meeting with Powell (right) set the tone of the Vajpayee-Bush talks

A characteristic dissonance has dominated the 37 bilateral meetings that have taken place between India and the US after the December 13 attack by militants on the Indian Parliament. It is called the "P" factor. Everyone knows which country the letter stands for. In recent months the differences over Pakistan even threatened to retard the gains in relations between the two countries. The fear was that the second meeting between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week would turn out be a damp squib for similar reasons.

Contrary to expectations, the earlier bonhomie was revived and most importantly, the two leaders very deftly side-stepped the P factor. This was not brought about by some fortuituous circumstances. Instead, it was the outcome of some candid thinking on both sides and good footwork by the new team led by Yashwant Sinha that is at the helm in the Ministry of External Affairs. The grounds for change was initiated when US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and the noticeable rapport that Sinha, though new to his post, had quickly established with people who matter in dc.

On the eve of the Vajpayee-Bush meeting on September 10, Sinha had a power session with Secretary of State Colin Powell and key officials that set the theme. "There were 10 officials on either side at the meeting. Both sides were moving with the premise that they wanted to move on," said a senior US Administration official. The meeting acknowledged the differences in approach between the two countries over their individual relationships, or lack of it, with Pakistan. It also decided to use the summit meeting between the leaders to deepen their strategic relationship in defence, trade in hi-technology and even on the nuclear front.

Coming out of the meeting, Sinha told a gathering at the Brookings Institution that while India-Pakistan was a "compelling" subject, "India-US relationship is not hostage to India-Pakistan relationship, as indeed no bilateral relationship is hostage to any other bilateral relationship". In an unusual gesture, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even had a guard of honour, a gesture reserved for heads of state, when Sinha went to meet him after that.

The follow-up meetings between National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her Indian counterpart Brajesh Mishra only lent flesh to the basic structure agreed upon between the leaders. A flurry of visits are expected to follow in the next month or so to cement the decisions taken last week (see box). To give substance to the dialogue, India has submitted four non-papers to the US that outline the road map ahead for relations between the two countries. These deal with nuclear issues, including energy, civilian space cooperation, trade in hi-technology and the details of the strategic dialogue.

In his meeting with Vajpayee, Bush talked about the "long-term partnership" with India and the need to lay a strong foundation for the bilateral ties. "Whether or not we build a roof over it is for our successors to decide," Bush told Vajpayee. He expressed his desire to visit India later this year which was accepted. During the meeting, Vajpayee was as usual economical with words. At his press conference in New York, Vajpayee made it a point to mention that Bush did not give the usual advice to India on initiating a dialogue with Pakistan.

Now, the Indian strategy at one level has become very candid. It is no longer striving for an either-or relationship with the US. Instead, it is now reconciled to the fact that Pakistan is a "necessary ally" for the US in its ongoing war against terror in Afghanistan. At the same time, India has decided to aggressively tackle Pak-sponsored terrorism from this side of the border and also work on the international community to get Pervez Musharraf and his cohorts to fall in line.

The diplomatic end game, with this perspective, rests at the moment on ensuring elections are held satisfactorily in Jammu and Kashmir. The Americans have come out very clearly in their support of the elections and view it as a first step towards creating conditions for a dialogue between the two countries. They indicated to the Indian interlocutors that for the short term, US will have to work with Musharraf to take out Al-Qaida and other terrorists in the region. But long-term relationship with Pakistan depends on the action Islamabad takes against extremism in the country and the forward movement towards democratic polity.

Erasing the hyphen with Pakistan that the US always added when dealing with India in the past will be a tricky job. As Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal put it, "It is as much a diplomatic challenge to the US as it is for us."

-with Shishir Gupta