Words from leaders do matter, especially on occasions like Independence Day. They could even be inspiring at times. But if they are not accompanied by decisive action, the credibility of the government rapidly erodes. If Delhi is seen as incoherent and weak, neither friends nor adversaries will take its pronouncements seriously.

The current mood of despondency in Delhi has less to do with the objective circumstances confronting it today. While the Maoist menace and the Kashmir situation are quite challenging, India has navigated deeper and more turbulent waters before.

The real source of the problem appears to be a lack of political will at the apex of the UPA government. The longer the current spell of inaction, the greater will be the degree of difficulty in turning things around later.

As leading members of the ruling coalition and the government speak in different voices about internal and external security, the prime minister must restore unity of purpose in Delhi. Persistent signals of political division and loss of bureaucratic nerve would only embolden those seeking to create trouble.

In their remarks, the prime minister and President Pratibha Patil did devote considerable attention to the challenges to internal security from the Maoists. The government, however, faces a far greater challenge in Jammu and Kashmir where India’s internal and external threats fuse into one.

They are also unlikely to stay confined to a bilateral framework between India and Pakistan. If Delhi cannot bring the situation in Kashmir under control and manage its relationship with Pakistan, the rest of the world will become part of the argument fairly soon.

If there is a major terrorist attack — going by their past frequency another one is probably due fairly soon — India’s relations with Pakistan will turn explosive. Meanwhile, the global stakes in Pakistan have never been as high as they are today, given the scale of the international community’s involvement in Afghanistan. As the Taliban gains ground in Afghanistan, the Pakistan army’s leverage with the rest of the world has grown rapidly.

A restive Kashmir will inevitably bring greater international support to the Pakistan army’s position that the road to a settlement in Kabul must run through Srinagar. That in turn will leave Delhi utterly exposed on all flanks in Kashmir.

Above all it will turn Dr Singh’s bold search for peace in Kashmir and with Pakistan over the last six years into tragedy. Few recent Indian leaders have devoted as much attention to the Kashmir peace process in both its internal and external dimensions as Dr Singh. But if he avoids decisive moves now, he could soon find himself in the middle of one of India’s gravest national crises.

Over the last six years, the prime minister has traveled frequently to Kashmir and committed unprecedented resources to boost the state’s economic development. He elicited studies on the various options for providing autonomy to the state and examined the ways to improve the humanitarian conditions in the state.

Dr Singh also launched many confidence-building measures across the Line of Control between the divided parts of J&K. Above all, he negotiated a framework for resolving the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan during 2005-07 with General Pervez Musharraf.

All that progress has ground to a halt after the attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 and the terror outrage in Mumbai in November 2008. The current unrest in Kashmir could well bury the peace process.

Dr Singh’s appeals, like the ones he issued from the Red Fort on Sunday, to the militants in Kashmir and the generals in Pakistan to give up violence and renew the peace process will fall on deaf ears. Both see India vulnerable and indecisive.

Given the limited chances for early and productive negotiations with either of them, the prime minister must focus on unilateral measures that can alter the current negative dynamic in Kashmir. India’s new unilateralism must involve three sets of actions.

The first is to overhaul of the current political and administrative arrangements in Jammu and Kashmir. Delaying surgical actions now will leave Delhi with a rapidly shrinking and costlier set of options. Restoring the credibility of the state government must be the top-most priority in changing the conditions in Kashmir.

Second, India must continually reaffirm its commitment to accept creative solutions for the Kashmir question. It may also be a good moment for the government to widely share the outlines of the Kashmir settlement it had explored with Musharraf. That would help counter the misperceptions about India’s “inflexibility” on Kashmir.

The third involves unilateral re-disposition of its security forces in J&K to improve the humanitarian condition in the state.

Dr Singh cannot allow the intelligence agencies and the army a separate veto each over political and strategic decisions on how best to organise security in Kashmir. Doing more of the same or tinkering with the current security strategy in Kashmir will only make matters worse.

“Masterly inactivity” can often be a useful strategy. At this juncture it might turn out to be fatal for India in Kashmir. It is only by acting unilaterally and doing what is right can the government become a credible interlocutor on Kashmir.

The failure to anticipate and act decisively against the gathering threats on our north-west will impair India’s internal peace, push it towards a war with Pakistan, undermine the prospects for rapid economic growth, and harm the relations with the rest of the world.