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arsa · #1 Sunday, January 11, 2009

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi
Sunday, January 11, 2009
India and Pakistan will not be able to accommodate each other’s concerns regarding terrorism as long as they do not tone down their rhetoric and go for bilateral dialogue in a constructive manner

The confrontation between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks has focused attention on terrorism and insurgency in both countries and their responses to these challenges.

In Pakistan, insurgency is quite strong in the tribal areas and parts of Swat where different Taliban groups have established their domains of authority and openly challenge the Pakistani state. The two sides are engaged in sporadic armed conflict. Suicide bombings, mostly owned by various Taliban groups, take place in different parts of Pakistan. One can talk of an insurgency-like situation in parts of Balochistan but it is in no way linked with Islamic militancy and insurgency in the tribal areas.

India also faces terrorism and insurgency, although currently the Indian government is shying away from acknowledging the domestic sources of these activities. India faces insurgency-cum-terrorism in its north-eastern states, especially Assam. Further, various Maoist movements operate in several eastern, central and southern states that articulate local grievances to build support and challenge local authorities. These movements maintain their authority domains and use violence in a systematic manner, killing officials and non-officials.

Two types of religion-based terrorist activities are also found in India, which seem to have strengthened over the last five-seven years. A range of Hindu extremist and militant groups, including those described as the Sangh Parivar, target religious minorities, especially Christian and Muslims. These groups overlap with the BJP, whose Hindutva ideology is a moderate version of the Parivar’s religio-political perspectives. These trends are sweeping over the liberal-moderate political disposition in the educated classes, the bureaucracy and the military.

The other type of religion-based violence is the incipient militancy among young and middle-aged Indian Muslims who feel alienated and marginalised in the Indian political system. These people are attracted to radical Islamic discourse against the backdrop of the Babri Mosque incident (1992), the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat (2002) and insurgency and the excessive use of coercive state apparatus in Kashmir. These groups have a transnational worldview and are inspired by similar movements elsewhere.

India and Pakistan cannot effectively cope with these various terrorist and insurgent activities unless they undertake at least three types of actions. First, both should abandon the state of denial about the domestic sources of violence and terrorism. India should recognise that the existence of a reasonably developed democracy is no guarantee that its socio-economic and political processes would not marginalise some sections of its diverse populace. People can get alienated even under a democratic system and thus become vulnerable to radical ideologies.

Similarly, Pakistan needs to recognise that there are many Islamic extremists and militant groups that have become a threat to Pakistan’s internal stability, and these groups impose difficult foreign policy situations on Pakistan. Their violent activities cannot be condoned.

Second, India and Pakistan need to focus on the causes of alienation among sections of the populace. Special attention needs to be paid to how the Babri Mosque incident, the Gujarat anti-Muslim riots and the festering Kashmir problem have affected the worldview of the youth and middle aged Muslims in both countries, especially in India.

Third, if India and Pakistan are genuinely interested in eliminating terrorism, they need to cooperate with each other. They must continue to talk directly at the bilateral level and their dialogue ought to facilitate conflict resolution. A pre-requisite for counter-terrorism is mutual trust, which cannot develop if the two countries do not maintain friendly interaction.

India’s handling of the Mumbai terrorist attack shows that it is more interested in pursuing its broader domestic and foreign policy agendas than focusing directly on elimination of terrorism. In the domestic context, India wants to cover-up the administrative, intelligence and security failures in coping with the Mumbai attacks. The Indian government is unable and unwilling to explain how ten people could come to Mumbai in a small boat and undertake carefully planned massive operations at several different places without local support.

At the international level, India is using the global consensus on counter-terrorism to advance its broader foreign policy agenda of maligning Pakistan as an irresponsible state and isolating it. The initial data on the attack was provided to the US rather than to Pakistan. When India provided the relevant information to Pakistan on January 5, 2009, the same was sent to a large number of European and other countries. Such a wide circulation of the data before Pakistan examined it was a propaganda exercise.

Another indication of India’s broader political agenda is the statement of India’s prime minister on January 3. He not only asked Pakistan to hand over the Mumbai suspects but also reprimanded Bangladesh for letting militant groups use its territory for activities in India. Further, India’s plan to send its union home minister to the US with evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai attack is another example of how India wants to use the incident.

India is raising the current conflict with Pakistan at the multilateral and global level rather than taking up the matter with Pakistan at the bilateral level. This is in contrast to Indian practice in the past when it objected to Pakistani efforts to raise Kashmir and other bilateral conflicts at multilateral level. Now, India argues that terrorism is a global rather than a bilateral issue and dismisses Pakistan’s offer of joint investigation and its promise to take action on credible evidence.

India’s broader agenda of maligning Pakistan at the international level and isolating it in the comity of nations is not expected to succeed. The US and other western countries do sympathise with India on the Mumbai attack and they want to pressure Pakistan to contain militancy but they do not share India’s agenda of humbling Pakistan.

It will not be long before India realises that the US and other western countries have strategic interests in Pakistan with reference to Afghanistan and that they would neither endorse India’s war jingoism nor declare Pakistan a terrorist state.

India’s coercive diplomacy activates defensive religio-nationalism in Pakistan that makes it difficult for the beleaguered Pakistani government to take effective action against militant groups and stay active in the US-sponsored war on terrorism.

The current Indo-Pakistan confrontation will have negative implications for India’s domestic context. It can turn India into a country paranoid about security, which will cause political and economic distortions. While Congress may be adopting a tough attitude with an eye on the next general election due before May this year, jingoism will actually help to strengthen its right-wing political adversaries and Hindu hard-liners like the BJP and the Pariwar. Congress cannot beat them in hard-line religious and narrow nationalist political discourse.

India and Pakistan will not be able to accommodate each other’s concerns regarding terrorism as long as they do not tone down their rhetoric and go for bilateral dialogue in a constructive manner. India has better prospects of eliminating terrorism and saving Indian society from drifting towards ultra-nationalism and religious extremism by returning to normal interaction with Pakistan, as existed before the Mumbai terrorist attack. Pakistan will respond positively because this facilitates its desire to contain extremism and militancy inside its own territory.
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