Q: You said that there are two people on Indian side who believe that a feasible solution to Kashmir issue was possible. But is there anybody on Pakistan who is equally optimistic?
Mani: The reason that why Manmohan Singh and I are convinced that a solution is possible because both of us know Pakistan. He knows Pakistan at a very high level. He also knows Pakistan because he was born and brought up to the age of 8 or 9 in his village near Rawalpindi. I know Pakistan because I stayed there for three years as India's first Counsel General and I have been to Pakistan at least 30 times in last 30 years. There is a huge constituency in Pakistan that wants peace with India. And this constituency includes large segments of political establishment, the security establishment and the administrative establishment. And we are making a huge mistake in not recognizing that we need to strengthen that constituency by structuring our dialogue as uninterrupted and uninterruptible.
But what we have instead done especially since 26/11 is to hand over the dialogue to any terrorist or any Pagal who wishes to do something or the other because the minute there is an incident especially with your 24*7 TV and people who I'm not allowed to name here but who are hysterical and who have converted TV journalism into hysteria. Just brush them aside, go to Pakistan, structure the dialogue and I guarantee you that no country will we have a better relationship with than Pakistan because if it hadn't been for the accident of partition ,they would have been citizenship of India and if you can't settle with people who are, if not your brother, at least your first cousin . What is the point in saying that I have very good relationship with Paraguay? We can do it if we settle our minds to it and if you structure it properly.
