Two unrelated foreign visits have brought into focus the ineptitude and the lack of imagination of the BJP-led Government. India stands isolated on two issues that have great geopolitical and geoeconomic importance. To understand the predicament in which India finds itself today, we have to go back in time-at least a year-and examine critically the course followed by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government.

First, Afghanistan. India took the moral high ground ("We've been fighting terrorism for 10 years") and thought that this would help it upstage Pakistan. But world politics is not a morality play. No doubt after September 11, the US needed friends, but its need for airfields and marines was greater. Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan, India does not. Pakistan could help the US win over some moderate elements in the Taliban, India was implacably opposed to any Taliban ("A moderate Taliban is an oxymoron"). Pakistan's ISI has worked closely with the Taliban, India's raw has apparently no "assets" in Afghanistan and, worse, it had not cared to keep in touch with the Afghan government-in-exile of ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Pakistan could offer the US airfields, though they were far from Afghan targets; India too was happy to offer logistics support, but there were no takers because India's airfields were even farther away. In such a situation, should you be surprised that the US went out of its way to choose Pakistan as a frontline ally? India's support was taken for granted.

India, I believe, misread the US position and its priorities. The high-power visits of Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, et al had nothing to do with the war against the Taliban. The real purpose was that the US did not want a distracting skirmish between India and Pakistan while it was waging a war in Afghanistan.

Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf were invited to visit President George W. Bush within a day of each other. Vajpayee was treated with polite respect, Musharraf got a warm embrace. Pakistan also got-or will get-over a billion dollars in aid besides the lifting of sanctions, debt reduction and crucial support to Musharraf that will strengthen his lease on power.

India must wake up to the reality that it has no committed or permanent allies in its dispute with Pakistan over the status of Kashmir. India could take a leaf out of China's book. When China asserted its sovereignty over Hong Kong, it relied on its treaty rights, its military power and, above all, its ingenuity in propounding the theory of "One Nation, Two Systems". Likewise, India must rely on the Instrument of Accession, its armed forces and the periodic elections it holds to elect a democratic government in Jammu and Kashmir. A creative solution will be one that respects the wishes of the people of that state. If at the end of his three-nation tour, Vajpayee's Government has shed its naivete, the excursion would have been more a blessing than a disappointment.

The second issue concerns the WTO and the launch of a new round of talks on multilateral trade. Union Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran went to Doha like a prize-fighter. When China and Russia were poised to enter the WTO, Maran threatened to walk out of it. Maran declared that he would never accept new issues like competition, investment and environment. Eventually, all these were brought in and Maran was allowed to save his face by making a separate, and largely unnoticed, statement. India claimed credit for adding a rider to the trips agreement, a rider that is irrelevant to us because the Patents (Amendment) Bill has already provided for compulsory licensing and non-commercial public use. In the ultimate analysis, 143 countries stood on one side of the line and India stood alone on the other. No one will forget India's role as a near-spoiler. And when the talks get underway, India will receive few concessions on matters of vital interest to it.

Maran's error was, as was the error after the launch of the Uruguay Round, his refusal to negotiate. He thought that he could do another Seattle at Doha. He miscalculated on three grounds. At Doha, it was not presidents and prime ministers but battle-scarred, veteran trade negotiators who were in the ring, and they knew when to yield and when to score. Secondly, post-September 11, there is a new unity of purpose that binds the US and the European Union. Thirdly, the imminent entry of Russia and China into the WTO decisively tilted the balance against India. Just as it happened after Uruguay, only another government and another commerce minister can retrieve the situation for India. And lead the country to realise that a rule-based multilateral trading system is an imperative for developing countries to achieve higher rates of growth.

Thanks to Vajpayee and Maran, we got an opportunity to learn valuable lessons.

(The author is a former Indian finance minister.)