India, Aug. 20 -- A fortnight after the Modi Government defanged Article 370, scrapped its illegal appendage, Article 35A and split the northern State into the Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir, Islamabad is groping for a coherent response. In May 1998, when the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee stunned the world by testing five nuclear devices (Pokhran-II) and made India a full-fledged nuclear state, Islamabad swiftly showcased its own nuclear capability.

This time, most world capitals overcame their surprise and accepted the changes in Jammu & Kashmir as India's internal matter; Pakistan was supported by the colonial-minded Western media and China, which arranged "closed consultations" (unrecorded) in the UN Securi...