U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wave to the media at the airport in New Delhi, India, on Sunday, Nov.7, 2010. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama ventured reluctantly into South Asia’s deep-rooted rivalry over the weekend, apparently leaving observers in Pakistan happier than those in India.

In his comments on terrorism delivered at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel – the location of a deadly attack two Novembers ago – the president dismayed many in India by making no mention of Pakistan.

The 60-hour assault that killed more than 160 people was carried out by 10 Pakistani gunmen on behalf of Lashkar e-Toiba (LeT), a jihadist group set up in the late 1980s with the backing of the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fight Indian rule in disputed Kashmir.

Despite being formally banned by former President Pervez Musharraf, LeT continues to operate, with the government in Islamabad appearing either unwilling or unable to act firmly against it. Perceived Pakistani support for anti-India terrorists is among the most intractable of numerous differences between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

In his comments at the Taj Hotel, Obama spoke of “perpetrators,” “terrorists,” “murderers” and “those who attacked Mumbai,” but made no reference – directly or indirectly – to their origin.

President Obama shakes hands with students during a visit to St. Xavier College in Mumbai India on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010. (AP Photo)

Indian media commentators were unimpressed, but it was a 20-year-old student identified in local media reports as Afsheen Irani who had the opportunity to challenge the president.

At a townhall-type meeting at a Catholic college in Mumbai on Sunday, she confronted Obama: “Sir, my question to you is why is Pakistan so important an ally to America, so far as America has never called it a terrorist state?”

The president admitted he had been expecting the question, and went on – in almost 600 words – to explain his view that the situation was complex and the history difficult, and that Pakistan’s government was now growing to recognize the scale of the threat within its own borders.

The U.S. had made it clear “that we will work with the Pakistani government in order to eradicate this extremism that we consider a cancer within the country that can potentially engulf the country.”

Obama also said Pakistan and India needed to work out for themselves how their relationship would evolve.

“The United States stands to be a friend and a partner in that process, but we can’t impose that on India and Pakistan.”

Indian media quoted Irani as saying afterwards she had prepared another question to ask, but shifted subject after Obama failed to mention Pakistan earlier.

She described the president’s lengthy reply as “a diplomatic answer to a controversial question.”

‘Buying into Pakistan’s excuses’

Obama was due to address India’s parliament on Monday evening – early Monday U.S. eastern time – and expected to address the Pakistan issue in that keynote speech. (It was after an LeT attack on the Indian Parliament building shortly after 9/11 that the Bush administration applied pressure on Musharraf to ban the group.)

Ahead of Monday’s speech the view among commentators in the two countries was one of disappointment and irritation in India, and satisfaction in Pakistan.

Times of India writer Hemali Chhapia said Obama’s wordy reply to Irani’s question “showed his administration was likely buying into excuses that Pakistan trots out for not acting against terror groups.”

“Despite … mounting independent evidence, Washington still doesn’t fully subscribe to the view that Pakistan's military is mixed up with terror attacks,” she said. “They’re only willing to admit that ‘rogue’ elements of these organizations support terrorism.”

“In India, we had hoped that when Barack Obama became President, he could come up with some new ideas” in the war on Islamist terrorism, wrote Tavleen Singh, a columnist for the national daily Indian Express.

“So far the only new idea he has come up with is trying to win Muslim countries over by being extra nice to them. He bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia and then there was that speech in Cairo last year that sought to win hearts and minds.

“Has this niceness worked? Not in South Asia … In Pakistan, Army Headquarters remains in charge of foreign policy and has shown no sign of controlling the violent fanatics it spawned.”

In a column on the Mumbai-based Rediff.com news Web site, former Indian ambassador to the United Nations T.P. Sreenivasan called Obama’s reply to Irani’s question “inadequate.”

“The exchange with the student should have come as no surprise to the Indian leaders, but to hear it from him on this visit should have put to rest any expectation that the U.S. would abandon its alliance with Pakistan or pressure Pakistan to give up terrorism as a state policy,” he said.

And in a column published by the South Asia Analysis Group, journalist Rajeev Sharma contrasted Obama’s “soft approach” to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s forthright comments during a visit to New Delhi last July.

“We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able in any way to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world,” Cameron said then, in reference to Pakistan.

‘Hard-line elements disappointed’

Ahead of Obama’s arrival, some commentators in Pakistan had anticipated “Pakistan-bashing” and the Lahore-based daily The Nation predicted “a major propaganda exercise for India which will exploit it against Pakistan.”

In the event, leading Pakistani newspapers welcomed his approach in Mumbai.

“If the Indians were hoping, nay holding their breath for President Obama to chastise Pakistan for its alleged role in terrorism, they were solely disappointed,” the Islamabad-based Daily Mail said in an editorial Monday.

“President Obama displayed maturity and statesmanship in avoiding any mention of Pakistan,” it said. “He cannot be oblivious to Pakistan’s sensitivities and operative role in combating terrorism.”

“Another indication that the U.S. considers its relations with Pakistan crucial was making no mention of Pakistan during President Obama’s speech expressing sympathies with the victims and survivors of the 2008 Mumbai attack, to the disappointment of hard-line elements in India,” observed the Daily Times of Lahore.

President Asif Ali Zardari declared Sunday Pakistan was “cooperating in unearthing and bringing to justice the perpetrators of militant acts.”

“The undeclared policy of ‘running with the hare and hunting with the hound’ was abandoned,” he told a conference held by a regional media organization, using an British expression roughly equivalent to “working both sides of the street.”

Addressing the same event, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called on India to show appreciation for Pakistan’s “efforts in curbing terrorism.”