Life moved on, and in 1999, a year after Kargil, its architect, Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf removed Nawaz Sharif from power in a coup. As with earlier coups, this one also took place without any intervention by New Delhi.

And as for all the committees, their findings, recommendations and implementation - who cared? By 2000 the 'Saas-Bahu' genre in TV had taken the audience by storm and the entire country was oblivious to the world. So, naturally, it was time for the second edition of GIRT to roll around. You can't be such fools and be allowed to live in peace.

The year 2001 was possibly the worst year of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. According to then Indian Army chief General S Padmanabhan, from June of that year onwards the army had gunned down 2000 terrorists, of whom 70 per cent were Pakistanis.

In July 2001, at a summit in Agra, New Delhi tried to get the 'pappiyan jhapiyan' school of diplomacy in motion with Gen Pervez Musharraf. Apparently the breakfast served at our hotels didn't sit too well with him – he returned home in time for dinner and Indian diplomacy out the 'pappiyan jhapiyan' school of diplomacy into cold storage.

On 9 September of 2001 the twin towers in New York were attacked and brought down by terrorists and America began to ready itself for a global War on Terror.

On 13 December 2001 the Indian parliament was attacked by the Jaish-e-Mohammed, another  Jihadi outfit. The Indian Army was mobilized and asked to push for the border.

It was time for Operation Parakram – and the Great Indian Response Trick –Edition 2.

The army took about three weeks to effect a complete mobilization along the international border. On 11 January 2002 Gen Padmanabhan addressed the media. Giving his assessment of the situation as it prevailed in the sub-continent he said: "American presence in Pakistan will have an inhibitory impact on India and Pakistan. It will also have an inhibitory impact on the Americans. But when two wild bulls decide to fight in jungles, they carry on regardless." 

In the face of repeated and pointed queries about the possibility of a nuclear exchange he was forthright in his response pointing out that India was fully prepared and would wait for Pakistan to start something.

The press meet flustered two sets of people – one in India and the other in Pakistan.

On 12 January, Indian defence minister George Fernandes expressed his displeasure about the general referring to nuclear warfare.

On the same day, cornered between a rock and a hard place, Gen Musharraf gave what has been billed as a landmark speech against Islamic extremism. In a televised address he pledged to punish anyone responsible for extremism in the Indian half of J&K, or was involved in religious sectarianism within Pakistan.

He announced that the two groups India had blamed for the attack on its parliament, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, were now banned. However, he ruled out handing over to India Pakistani nationals on a list of militants submitted to Delhi.

Washington immediately accorded full marks to the military ruler saying the speech marked a break with the past over Kashmir and gave both Pakistan and India a chance to reduce tensions.

Gen Pervez Musharraf was now a full-fledged partner in the global war of terror. He cast his lot with the crusaders figuring he could play them along even as they saved his and Pakistan's goose from being cooked by the Indians.

This the Americans ensured dutifully. 

In an early incident, Lt Gen Kapil Vij, commander of the Ambala-based 2 Corps, India's frontline strike corps, was removed from command upon American request as his armoured formations  apparently moved "too close" to the frontline.

If the army was being deployed in response to an act of extreme hostility, a direct attack on the country's parliament what was this cute distinction about being "too close" to the borders all about? Where was the Army supposed to deploy its armoured formations? Nagpur? The BJP-led coalition at the South Block is yet to explain this incident to the nation.

In any case who were the Americans to complain?

But there was a reason - once again the Americans were playing brokers, but with a very clear agenda. Ever since 9/11 they too had declared their version of the crusades and the War on Terror was already in motion. The crusade lacked a participant that was desperately sought – General Pervez Musharraf, without whose cooperation the Taliban and the al Qaeda in Afghanistan were in a near impregnable position.

For long at the receiving end of terror, India was now simply bypassed as America and its newly acquired partner, the intrepid Gen Musharraf, hastened ahead with their own agenda.

After sitting along the border for 7-8 long months the Indian army went back to base camp, bringing the third edition of the Great Indian Response Trick to an ignominious end.

Could India have hit Pakistan at any point of time in this long stay at the border? General Padmanabhan revealed in 2004, that during the operation, "circumstances and tides were very favourable to India. They passed time and again". He said the decision whether or not to launch operations was political.

Asked if US intervention had stalled the operations at the last moment, Padmanabhan said, "I would not like to talk about it."

He also refuted the argument that Pakistan's nuclear deterrence could have acted as a "dampener" to any cross border operations. "Pakistan's response had been adequately studied and factored in. No, they had nothing. We had them by the tail."

As for the long deployment Gen Padmanabhan had just one thing to say – deployment was for a longer period of time during both the 1965 and 1971 wars. The difference this time was "we came back without fighting a war."

On 13 October 2002 then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at that time in London, had this to say: "The West finds its terrorism more serious, not ours. It has a double standard to measure terrorism."

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