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The Lok Sabha gradually filled up on Wednesday. And it performed its function,as the location where the Government of India should defend and explain its foreign policy,and where those representatives of India’s people that disagree make their case as to why,and demand explanations from their government. The debate,on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent foreign trips — to France,the G-8 summit at L’Aquila in Italy,and the Non-Aligned Movement’s meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt — elicited from the prime minister exactly what it should have: a detailed response. That response will aid India’s public as well as its parliamentarians in doing their job: analysing the government’s position,and suggesting improvements.

The section of the PM’s speech devoted to explaining the government’s Pakistan strategy revealed the grand theme of his initiative. The meeting,at the sidelines of the NAM summit,resulted in a joint statement that has been criticised in some quarters. He has said before that those criticisms would be addressed when they were raised in the proper forum,Parliament; and yesterday he did so. The mention of Balochistan,for example. The PM robustly defended the inclusion of the line that did so,neither claiming that it was blown out of proportion nor that it was an error. Many in Pakistan believed conspiracy theories about India’s missions in Afghanistan and the turmoil in Balochistan,he said; but India’s government knew that it had nothing to hide from scrutiny. If the issue concerned so many in Pakistan,it was in India’s interest to put it at rest; India’s actions were above board,an “open book”.

That clarification,with its combination of transparent risk and payoff — the very essence of openness — sums up the direction in Pakistan policy that Dr Singh appears to be taking,as was evident in the remainder of his statement. He laid out those aspects of the direction — such as meetings between Indian and Pakistan officials — that were in some ways not a departure; after all,he had himself met with President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani over the previous month. But,equally,he pointed out that “Pakistan must defeat terrorism before terrorism consumes it”,indicating that supporting the fragile,building political consensus within Pakistan that thought so too,was India’s premier foreign policy imperative — not a tit-for-tat focus on inessential details. Pakistan is in our neighbourhood. We cannot avoid it,nor can we look away while it self-destructs. Indeed,what India needs most is to help those within Pakistan most able to help themselves. That was what the PM explained in Parliament,and that is where our foreign policy must go.