L K Advani's admission comes at a time when the BJP-led government's myopic vision and policies have been badly exposed. The Vajpayee government has been proclaiming that it has achieved a spectacular improvement in relations with the United States. It had expected the US administration to take a more resolute and open stand in support of India on the hijacking issue. The naïve statement of Vajpayee that his government would ask America to declare Pakistan a terrorist state, revealed this grossly erroneous approach. The entire BJP leadership was in Chennai for its national executive session when the hijacking drama was unfolding. It was able to see how the western world, including the USA and Britain, refused to categorically help India and to even mildly criticise Pakistan for its dubious role. The releasing of the three key extremists and the spectacle of Jaswant Singh accompanying them to Kandahar has punctured all the posturing on countering terrorism.

The BJP leadership has sought to explain away the mishandling of the hijacking by pointing out that it is difficult to take a "hard stance in a soft state," All this talk of a soft state is meant to cover up the abject failure of the government to effectively deal with the emergency situation caused by the hijacking. The BJP's idea of ending the soft state and replacing it with a hard one will be an authoritarian option which will worsen the situation further. The BJP cannot comprehend that extremism amongst the minorities is fostered by its own communal politics. Unless the minorities are assured of basic rights, fundamentalist outfits will flourish and Pakistan will continue to utilise such elements. The home ministry, under the tenure of L K Advani, has conspicuously failed in dealing with the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. The so-called "pro-active policy" is in a shambles with the militants mounting successive attacks on the army and police forces.