The meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and India is being held in a continuing atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust with India vitiating the atmosphere even further by its doublespeak. To begin with, it continues to target Pakistan, especially its military intelligence agencies, on the terrorism issue without offering any concrete evidence. Even now, as the talks take place, a top Indian security official continued to hurl these accusations this time more specifically at the ISI. But it is not just the duplicity of the Indian side that is worrying. Even more damaging is the Indian approach, which is intent on totally abandoning the composite dialogue process on which consensus was built up painstakingly. In its place India wants to start a new dialogue format which means time will again be wasted in formulating and structuring the parameters after which both sides will have to agree to the same. Undoubtedly, India is relying on the US to push the present Pakistani leaders into accepting the India-preferred format but if Pakistan concedes to this, it will suffer a major setback on the core issue of Kashmir. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the present Indian hostile mindset towards Pakistan is its continuing attempts to sabotage Pakistan on all fronts. How can a meaningful dialogue take place between Pakistan and India, when the latter has pressured the World Bank not to provide funds for the Bhasha Dam on the absurd grounds that it is in disputed territory Not only is India playing havoc with the Indus Water Treaty, it is going all out to ensure the water issue undermines Pakistans development on all fronts. Only recently India went into overdrive trying to sabotage Pakistans civil nuclear deal with China. And it continues to aid and abet terrorism in Pakistan from Afghanistan. But why is the Pakistani leadership so pusillanimous in responding to these hostile gestures from the Indian side. Given the new drama India has now instituted of holding high profile but meaningless meetings to ascertain how the substantive dialogue can begin between the two sides, it may have served Pakistans interests better to opt out of such meetings - even if it means a little less elite socialising for all concerned Unless Pakistan reasserts itself in the bilateral equation with India, we will soon find ourselves having conceded valuable space to India on crucial issues. Unlike us, the Indians will not unwittingly allow us to recover this lost ground.