In mid-October, Indian and Pakistani national security advisers, M.K. Narayanan and M. A. Durrani had a friendly meeting in New Delhi. And on 24 November Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was in India for talks with his counterpart. He was still there when suddenly the skies fell apart.
All hell was let loose in Mumbai. Terrorists attacked assorted targets, -two five-star hotels, -The Taj and Oberoi, the Leopold Café, Cama Hospital and Chhatrapati Shivaji Railway Terminus. The terrorists took pot shots at innocent commuters with utter indifference. According to one eyewitness, quoted by BBC, two of the terrorists even guzzled beer at the Leopold Café before they went out to start firing.
As the two countries were pushed back to the proverbial “square one,” sport became the first casualty. India canceled its cricket team’s forthcoming tour to Pakistan, where it had been due to play three Tests, five One-day Internationals and a Twenty20 International in January-February 2009. And Pakistan reciprocated by calling off its hockey tour to India.
Why is it that whenever there are signs of Pakistan and India coming closer to each other, some terrorist violence occurs in India, almost as of routine that throws the spanner in the works and puts the clock back? Are there some powerful forces that are chagrined by the prospect of peace and friendly relations between the two neighbours, because, it threatens their entrenched interests? The proclivity towards schadenfreude in some people is not enough to answer that question.
Kargil sabotaged the growing camaraderie between Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif kicked off by the former’s visit to Pakistan. But that was an aberration. And later Pervez Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, made it up adequately with his counterpart. In Kathmandu at a SAARC summit he rose from his seat and went up to Mr. Vajpayee to shake his hand. It was a gesture of contrition for the Kargil excess. The latter evidently accepted it, which translated in Gen. Musharraf state visit to India at his invitation, and the Agra summit.
There was a good deal of fanfare, yet, withal the visit ended in a stalemate. Due to a last moment hitch on some of the wordings in the draft, the much-awaited Joint Declaration was not issued. Pervez Musharraf returned empty handed. Negative forces had succeeded in putting a brake to any attempts at peace and solving problems through dialogue.But that was only an earnest of what was to come. To bring the two countries back from jaw-jaw to war-war, 13 December 2001 was staged. Five terrorists raided the Lok Sabha. All of the raiders and thirteen policemen were killed in the firefight. Reacting to the event India went into the Operation Parakaram mode. It massed its troops at the borders with Pakistan in battle-readiness. Pakistani forces went into red alert in response.
Disaster was only a whisker away when, either, a spontaneous surge of good sense or prompting from the United States, averted a clash of arms. It may have frustrated the hawks, who had been waisting to watch some fireworks. But the doves on both sides of the borders, -the silent majority, heaved a long and deep sigh of relief as the forces pulled back. Samjhota Express blast in February 2007 was yet another attempt to put a brake to the bilateral peace process. But the 26 November carnage in Mumbai was by far the most serious, brutal, and enacted on a far larger scale than ever before. In a moment it washed away all the good work of several years. War drums began to beat ever louder. Bellicose rhetoric filled the air. The scenario revived memories of the aftermath of the December 2001 terrorist attack on the parliament.
India’s outrage is understandable, because Ajmal Kasab, one of the ten culprits captured alive, claims to be a Pakistani national. He has stated further that all the other actors were also from Pakistan. Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria has released the names and addresses of all the other nine that were killed. Three of them are from Multan, two from Okara, two from Faisalabad and one, each, from Sialkot, Dera Ismail Khan and Faridkot, according to Maria, who has also given the photographs of eight of them; one was so badly mangled he could not be photographed.
Feeling frustrated at the absence of the quality and quantum of response they had expected from Pakistan, Indian leaders adopted an angrier tone. Addressing Indian ambassadors from different world capitals in New Delhi, External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee warned on December 22 that if the international community failed to get Pakistan to take effective action then “we are also clear that ultimately it is we who have to deal with this problem. We will take all measures necessary, as we deem fit, to deal with the situation”.
But Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, intervened to tell journalists after attending parliament “There’s no question of war. That is not the issue.” Pakistan’s prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani echoed similar sentiments when he told reporters in Lahore, “My assessment is that there will not be a war.” And Information Minister, Sherry Rahman, said that the democratically elected government wanted to “protect the Pakistan-India peace process created through years of hard work”.
Obviously, hot words have to fly to assuage public anger in India. And Pakistan has to respond in like manner to keep its own popular morale high. But large scale fatalities and widespread destruction of infrastructure is inevitable even in the case of conventional war. If nukes are deployed the number of deaths and the level of devastation will be manifold. And even yet it would be only the immediate consequence. The long term effects of war, especially for India, would be more disastrous, due the incalculable damage to its burgeoning economy. And ironically, terrorism would still remain to be effaced.
Therefore, the question is who would wish to see India brought down from the status when it declined foreign assistance in its tsunami catastrophe, to a seeker of aid? Who is jealous of India’s prosperity to see it economy destroyed in a senseless war? These are questions that cry out for urgent attention from Indian leaders, particularly from the architect of India’s economy, Mr. Manmohan Singh.
Beyond any question the Mumbai attacks underline the urgent need for inter-state cooperation on anti-terrorism measures. India and Pakistan ought to present a joint front and a strong resolve to frustrate the designs of terrorists and warmongers.
As the New York Times editorially observed; “India must share intelligence with Pakistan on the attack. Instead of boxing Mr. Zardari in, it should ask his government to arrest only people who are directly linked to the Mumbai attacks, not other incidents.
“For any lasting peace, India and Pakistan must settle their dispute over Kashmir, the biggest flashpoint. India’s growing investment and intelligence network in Afghanistan also is feeding Islamabad’s insecurity and sense of encirclement. India must be transparent about its involvement in Afghanistan.” (The Pakistan Connection)
War is, not only, not the issue; it is also not the answer to the problem of terrorism.
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