NEW DELHI: Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee dramatically scaled down his hawkish stance with Pakistan on Wednesday and told parliament that New Delhi had never considered war as an option to vent its anger at Islamabad over the Mumbai massacres of November last year.

In fact, in an apparent reference to US drone strikes on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan in recent days, Mr Mukherjee told the upper house of parliament: “We can’t imitate certain other countries and their action…Many, many innocent lives are being lost every day.”

Taking a jibe at the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA coalition that had ordered a massive troop mobilisation during the 2002 standoff with Pakistan, Mr Mukherjee said this time around India had not moved a single soldier nor did it “press the panic button”, or lay mines on the border.“We said we expected Pakistan to fulfil its commitment,” he said, adding that war would not solve the problem of terrorism.

Mr Mukherjee, who had led relentless sabre-rattling briefings to the media together with his other colleagues, with frequent “all options open” threats, appeared to suggest that much of it was bluster. He said India had demanded the plotters’ extradition. He told Pakistan on February 12 that “we would also expect that the government of Pakistan take credible steps to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan.”

And almost taking the cue, the same day, Pakistan acknowledged for the first time that its territory had been used to plot the November attack in Mumbai and said eight suspects had been charged. What Mr Mukherjee did not say was that his tone and that of Pakistan registered a perceptible moderation after the US envoy Richard Holbrooke visited them, a coincidence that requires explaining.

India beefed up security and surveillance after 164 people were killed in Mumbai between Nov 26 and Nov 29 when 10 terrorists attacked the country’s financial hub. India handed Pakistan and other governments a dossier on Jan 5 citing intercepted communications and other evidence to identify the banned Pakistan-based guerrilla group Lashkar-i-Taiba as the author of the attack.

The attacks interrupted a five-year peace process between the two nuclear-armed neighbours whose last military standoff in 2002 saw diplomats in both capitals running for cover. Even the UN had pulled out its non-essential staff that year. Mr Mukherjee who has accused Pakistan of delaying, denial and prevarication was a different person during his reply to the motion of thanks to the president’s address to parliament. He told MPs that a delay in Pakistan’s reply “does not mean we have to rub them on the wrong side…Attacking Pakistan is not the solution”.

Mr Mukherjee berated the opposition for demanding, “why can’t we retaliate like some other countries are doing”. He said it was a vindication of his government’s policy that “diplomacy has paid. It has not failed.... We said that the non-state actors were not coming from the heaven and they (Pakistan) have admitted it”.

He said India did not have any ‘quarrel’ with the people of Pakistan, “but I cannot carry on business as usual till these perpetrators (of Mumbai attacks) are brought to justice and the infrastructural facilities which are available to the terrorists who are operating from there are dismantled”.

Amid thumping of desks, Mr Mukherjee said: “We could mobilise international opinion in our favour” with deft diplomacy.

He mentioned the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July last year, for which New Delhi had blamed Pakistan’s spy agency. He regretted that Pakistan had not shared information on the attack despite making a promise in this regard. He refuted the charge that India was engaged in peacekeeping activities in Afghanistan with some ulterior motive. New Delhi, he said, had “no territorial ambition”.

Taliban deal

Meanwhile, reports here said that India was viewing Pakistan’s peace deal with the Taliban with concern. “While some reports in Pakistan say that the deal could be a tactical retreat by Islamabad, New Delhi sees it as a military surrender to the Taliban, something that confirms its fears of the Pakistan Army’s inability to check the growing influence of Taliban,” NDTV reported.

It did not quote a source for the official claim.