| January 10, 2009 | Saturday | Muharram 12, 1430 |
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Beyond Mumbai
AFTER those viciously murdered in the Mumbai attack in November, the biggest casualty of the terrorist atrocity was the peace process between India and Pakistan.
In the wake of the assault, sabre-rattling on both sides has drowned out gentler voices calling for normalisation of relations.
The hysteria evident in the emails I have been receiving makes me despair of the entire human race. Literally hundreds of readers on both sides of the border have written the most jingoistic letters expressing sentiments I hope for their sake they will be ashamed of when they have cooled down.
In their eagerness to propel their government to somehow punish the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack, millions of Indians as well as the media forget that this is exactly what the militants would like to see. Should they succeed in derailing the peace process, and pushing the two neighbours into a state of armed confrontation again, the Lashkar-i-Taiba and their brothers-in-crime will have won a significant victory.
In any asymmetrical warfare, the weaker party tries to win by creating terror through violence directed at non-participants. These acts are aimed at destabilising legitimate governments, and causing tension. Knowing they cannot achieve their objectives through the political process or conventional warfare, they seek to mould public opinion by the selective use of violence that shocks and revolts. They manipulate the media by spectacular acts of seemingly random terror.
In the case of the Mumbai attacks, they appear to have succeeded in their aim. What these terrorists fear most is a durable peace in South Asia. Due to their gory efforts, they seem to have put off any normalisation for the immediate future. Indeed, should India take any military action, as so many Indians are demanding, we can forget about peace for a generation.
What these hawks seem to ignore is that we cannot wish geographical realities away. In their anger and their desire to vent their rage, they are putting themselves on the side of the terrorists. Groups like LeT and the Taliban thrive in an environment of hatred and confrontation. If tension increases, they can portray themselves as nationalists fighting off Indian aggression. This would give them legitimacy in the eyes of many Pakistanis. As it is, these groups were created during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its bloody aftermath, as well as the Kashmir uprising that has now lasted for two decades.
The other side of the coin is that these killers are diminished and marginalised when there is peace and cooperation. If an Indian intelligence officer could pick up his phone and call his Pakistani counterpart to exchange information, this would sound the death knell for many terrorist groups.
Unfortunately, years of tension have bred deep suspicion and mistrust on both sides. Bilateral relations have become a zero-sum game where one country’s loss translates into the other’s gain. Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies have long sought to use Islamic groups as proxies in their efforts to dislodge India’s grip over Kashmir. Even though the state has tried to distance itself from these militants after 9/11, the taint of association lingers. And clearly, many retired and serving officers have ideological sympathies as well as personal links with some of the jihadi groups.
However, Indians need to realise that it is precisely these connections that make it impossible for Pakistan to hand any of the terrorists over to India. The last thing the military establishment wants is to see its role in training and bankrolling these thugs exposed. Instead of demanding the impossible, India should offer to do everything it can to make sure that those guilty are tried and punished in Pakistan. In the absence of an extradition treaty between the two countries, it is hard to see any leader in Islamabad complying with the Indian demand to transfer the alleged planners of the Mumbai attacks to India.
Instead of bickering over legal niceties, the two countries need to look beyond Mumbai. Clearly, Pakistan must eliminate the cancer of terrorism that has taken root on its soil. To achieve this, its leaders and its people have to put their differences aside. Given the polarisation within the country, a massive media campaign is needed.
Unfortunately, the media’s role on both sides of the border during and after the Mumbai crisis has been reprehensible. For weeks, we have witnessed the most irresponsible kind of reporting and commentary, especially on the private TV channels that have proliferated in both countries. Hysterical ‘experts’ have gained a prominence and an audience they do not deserve. Instead of promoting calm and restraint, they have been making the case for war in India.
In Pakistan, the army of studio warriors have been preaching denial of the obvious. When they should have been demanding that the Pakistan government take action against the jihadis, they have been demanding ‘proof’ from India. Well, the ‘proof’ that the attack was conceived and launched from Pakistani soil has been handed over. Let us see what our talking heads, and our government, will do with it.
While Pakistan certainly needs to put its house in order, the task is made more difficult when the sound of war drums echoes across India. When pushing for an accounting with the killers, New Delhi should be simultaneously arguing for more, not less, contacts with its neighbour. Knee-jerk reactions like cancelling the Indian cricket team’s tour of Pakistan certainly do not help.
Recently, an Indian reader wrote to me, complaining that the Congress government was not showing the kind of determination in protecting its citizens as the Israelis were demonstrating by their assault on Gaza. According to him, Indian politicians are less bold than their Israeli counterparts. I replied that I respected Indian restraint more than I did Israel’s ruthlessness. Furthermore, I wrote, Pakistan’s military is not Hamas.
And this is the point: do the hawks on both sides really want to condemn both countries to yet another cycle of violence? Do they really want to hand over success to the militants on a platter? Just as Hamas is not likely to be eliminated by Israel’s massive attack, so too will LeT not be wiped out by any possible action the Indians could take. In both cases, the stock of these groups will rise in the eyes of ordinary people.
There are no easy answers. But one thing is clear: both India and Pakistan need a reasoned response, and not a media-fuelled confrontation.
irfan.husain@gmail.com
