So how should we kafirs respond to the lecture on Islam and related matters that General Pervez Musharraf delivered last week? Should we applaud as western leaders and commentators are so loudly doing? Should we see it as the first sign that Pakistan is beginning to envision a future that goes beyond jehad and Kashmir? Should we put aside our inherent aversion to military rulers and recognise the Islamic General next door as Pakistan's first truly modern leader even if he toppled an elected government to seize power?

Column writing is a tricky business. You write something and then before you know it, something happens and your words are overtaken by events. Last week in this column I wrote that Musharraf should not be trusted because he had done nothing yet to win India's trust and it was after these words appeared in print that the General delivered his lecture. It has been well received in India and whatever doubts there are about his sincerity were best expressed by Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh when he said that we needed to see the General act on his words to be convinced of his seriousness. The General has since acted with seeming resolve. The New York Times reports that "the Pakistani Government has rounded up 1,430 people across the country in recent days and sealed 390 offices of militant groups as part of a widening crackdown on extremists ordered by General Pervez Musharraf".

So, why do I still find it hard to trust the General? After listening to his speech on television, I read it over and over again in the newspapers that carried it in full. With every reading it became clearer that Musharraf continues to believe that there are one set of rules for the world and another for India. Let me give you two illustrations.

At one point he condemns extremist organisations in his country for their involvement in Afghanistan. "These extremists did nothing except contribute to bloodshed in Afghanistan. I ask of them whether they know anything other than disruption and sowing seeds of hatred? Does Islam preach this?" If the General replaces Afghanistan with Kashmir, he would discover that here too his extremists have done nothing more than sow seeds of hatred and disruption, but this is not how he wishes to see it. Here, we are told that Pakistan will "continue to extend our moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris" because "Kashmir runs in our blood". It is an odd thing to say if you consider that it happens to be a province in India and not the one that the General or most Pakistanis come from. The General would do well to spend a few moments pondering over why throughout the 1970s and 1980s Kashmir did not run in Pakistani blood. If he did, he would discover that it was because at that point India did not have a Kashmir problem so Pakistan's leaders did not spend much time persuading ordinary Pakistanis to think of Kashmir rather than their own grim economic problems.

To come to my second example of double standards in the General's world view, he is forthright in condemning Pakistan's religious leaders and organisations for involving themselves in conflicts involving Muslims in other countries. He orders them correctly : "It is for the Government to take a position on international issues. Individuals, organisations and political parties should restrict their activities to expression of their views on international issues in an intellectual spirit and in a civilised manner through force of argument." The General appears to have missed the point that Pakistan's only involvement in the Kashmir issue is because Muslims happen to be involved. So should he not be taking his own advice? He also appears not to notice that religious zealots in his country are unlikely to restrict their activities in Kashmir as long as their leader continues to tell them that Kashmir runs in their blood. If Pakistani leaders had not, since the violence began in 1989, gone out of their way to incite ordinary people to go off and join the jehad, Kashmir would not have been an issue in Pakistan.

If Musharraf is sincere about his desire to end religious terrorism in Pakistan, he needs to understand that it cannot be done as long as he continues to encourage his people to think of Kashmir as the new battleground for jehad.

India has a problem in Kashmir that is the result largely of mistakes made by our own leaders. These mistakes can be rectified if Pakistan stops interfering. It has paid a heavy price for its interference in the affairs of Afghanistan and it will pay an even heavier price if it continues to interfere in India's internal affairs of which Kashmir is very much a part. Meanwhile, the General would do well to stop talking in terms of Muslims and kafirs. This kind of talk goes down badly in India where we do not subscribe to the view that any one religion has a monopoly on belief.