According to a new Washington Post story, Indian diplomats were worried about his tough-as-nails reputation and didn’t want him meddling in Kashmir. Holbrooke, nicknamed “The Bulldozer,” for his ability to negotiate resolution in the most conflicted situations.

Quoting C. Raja Mohan, an Indian strategic analyst, “I think it is time for us – having fobbed off Holbrooke – to sit quietly and ask where we are and how do we manage the situation.” He is also reported to have warned Holbrooke against “any high-profile intervention” in Kashmir.

India’s former National Security Advisor, Brajesh Mishra, “No matter what government is in place, India is not going to relinquish control of Jammu and Kashmir. That is written in stone and cannot be changed.”

A US official in Washington told the Washington Post that Holbrooke was originally tasked as the Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan “and related matters,” code for India and Kashmir, but on the morning of the announcement, “related matters had been deleted from the description.

Anyway you look at it, the Obama administration has shown that his new dialogue with the Muslim world goes through Tel Aviv and New Delhi.

The original story that we posted is below.

For those of us in Pakistan that had any hope that President Barack Obama would be any different than the outgoing George W. Bush, this past week showed that we were fully confused in believing that “Change had come.”

While most of Pakistan is focusing on the recent drone attack in South Warizistan, my focus is more on the Indian lobbying effort to make sure the Richard Holbrooke was not the US Envoy to Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. This also presented a departure from Obama’s own stated approach of engaging India in a regional dialogue. But India lobbied hard to make sure that neither India nor Kashmir was included in Holbrooke’s official brief.

President Obama had told the New York Times that working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve their Kashmir conflict would be a critical task for his administration’s efforts to try to counter growing instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

According to Daniel Markey, a South Asia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, “The reason they were so worried is they don’t want their activities in Kashmir to be equated with what Pakistan is doing in Afghanistan.”

“They [India] are the big fish [in the region],” Markey added. “They don’t want to be grouped with the ‘problem children’ in the region, on Kashmir, on nuclear issues. They have a fairly effective lobbying machine. They have taken a lot of notes on the Israel model, and they have gotten better. But you don’t want to overstate it. Some of the lobbying effort is obvious, done through companies, but a lot of it is direct government to government contact, people talking to each other. The Indian government and those around the Indian government made clear through a variety of channels because of the Clinton rumors and they came out to quickly shoot that down.”

When Holbrooke’s nomination was forwarded, the Indian lobby in Washington told Obama’s transition team that “they would expect no mediation on the Kashmir issue,” which is much like what was said to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband after he dared to suggest that Kashmir be solved.

“Resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders.”

Other sources said India’s hired lobbyists were deployed to shape the contours of the U.S. diplomatic mission. According to lobbying records filed with the Department of Justice, since 2005, the government of India has paid BGR about $2.5 million.

BGR officials who currently work on the Indian account, who according to lobbying records include:

• Andrew Parasiliti, aide to former Senator Chuck Hagel
• Stephen Rademaker, former U.S. State Department counterproliferation official 
• Ed Rogers, former aide during Reagan and Bush I and a BGR partner
• Walker Roberts, former House Foreign Affairs committee staffer 
• Robert Blackwill, former U.S. ambassador to India, left BGR in 2008 for the Rand Corporation. 

In addition, the Indian embassy in Washington has paid lobbying firm Patton Boggs $291,665 under a six-month contract that took effect Aug. 18, according to lobbying records.

“BGR has been a registered lobbyist for the Indian government since 2005,” noted one Senate staffer on condition of anonymity. ”The Indian government retained BGR for the primary purpose of pushing through the Congress the civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India – hence the strategic hires of Bob Blackwill, the former U.S. Ambassador to India, and Walker Roberts, a senior staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee responsible for vetting past such agreements. BGR continues to actively lobby on behalf of the Indian government – their lobbyists sought to influence a recent Senate resolution on the Mumbai attacks. So I would be very surprised if BGR were NOT involved here.”

For its part, Pakistan has spent about $1,175,000, on lobbying during the past year, including on trade issues. That includes Dewey and LeBoeuf‘s work for the Ministry of Commerce, and Locke Lord‘s work for the Embassy of Pakistan and the Pakistan International Airlines Corp, according to lobbying records.