India, Sept. 27 -- Washington has spent three years playing a public carrot and stick game with New Delhi. VanDyke arrives against that backdrop, not in a vacuum.

By the time the diplomatic plate pulled away from Tihar on the night of 24 September, the opinions in India had already split into three rooms. One room calling the release of the American mercenary, Matthew VanDyke a surrender. One calling it high diplomacy and statecraft. While the last, reserving its verdict on the bases of how relations seem between New Delhi and Washington over the next few months.

The man in the car is Matthew Aaron VanDyke, an American mercenary tourist, founder of Sons of Liberty International, six months in Indian custody after the NIA lifted him at K...