India running out of
patience By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - After the Mumbai
blasts last month in which more than 200 people
were killed and over 300 injured, New Delhi has
made it clear that it wants Pakistan to do more
about terrorism, with the peace process very much
as stake. Relations between India and Pakistan
have been at the lowest ebb since the blasts.
India accuses Pakistan of harboring
terrorists and not doing enough to dismantle the
terror infrastructure that is creating mayhem in
India. India recently listed 52 terrorist training
camps in Pakistan Kashmir and elsewhere in the
country. The intelligence has been conveyed to
Pakistan and the US.
New Delhi's concerns
were very much on display in Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh's address to the nation from
the
ramparts of the historic
Red Fort on Tuesday, India's 59th Independence Day
anniversary. Manmohan urged Pakistan to take
"concrete steps" to end cross-border terrorism
with the peace process on hold if Islamabad does
not do so.
Manmohan was categorical that
New Delhi had unveiled several peace initiatives
that cannot be carried forward unless Pakistan
cracks down on terror. Following the scare about
bombs in the UK targeting US-bound aircraft and
its links to Pakistan, Washington tipped off New
Delhi about terror attacks planned around
Independence Day, and India has been on high alert
since. "To be successful, these initiatives
need an atmosphere of peace," Manmohan said.
"Unless Pakistan takes concrete steps to implement
the assurances it has given to prevent
cross-border terrorism against India from any
territory within its control, public opinion in
India, which has supported the peace process, will
be undermined.
"All countries in our
region must recognize that terrorism anywhere is a
threat to peace and prosperity everywhere. It must
be confronted with our united efforts. There is a
large constituency for peace and shared prosperity
among our people and we must work together to
build on that," he added.
Manmohan said
India was ready to give its neighbors "a stake in
our own prosperity and share the fruits of our
growth with them. However, the dream of a South
Asian community, where borders have ceased to
matter and where there is an unhindered flow of
goods and peoples, culture and ideas, can hardly
be realized if terrorist violence and the politics
of hate and confrontation continue to cast a dark
shadow," he added.
On the eve of
Independence Day, President A P J Abdul Kalam said
the "challenges to peace from across our
geographical borders" and the "constant threat of
low intensity proxy war" required a comprehensive
strategy to ensure India's security.
This
week, the Indian parliament was informed that
dialogue could move forward only after Islamabad
dismantles the terror apparatus it supports.
"India has conveyed to Pakistan that the dialogue
process between the two countries can be sustained
and carried forward only if Pakistan takes
effective action to dismantle the infrastructure
of terrorism, including training camps, launch
pads and communications links between terrorist
groups on the Indian side and their handlers on
the Pakistan side,'' said E Ahamed, minister of
state for external affairs.
Following the
blasts, the scheduled foreign secretary-level
talks have been postponed, though the two
officials met informally at the sidelines of a
south Asian conference recently at Dhaka. Foreign
secretary Shyam Saran, however, minced no words,
saying Pakistan could easily take steps to control
terrorism against India if it had the will.
India's contention has been endorsed
recently by visiting US Assistant Secretary of
State for South Asia Richard Boucher who said
terror groups with "designs'' against India still
have a presence in Pakistan.
Boucher,
said: "We all know there is terrorism in the
[South Asian] region. Some of terrorism is in
Pakistan. Some of the [terror] groups that have
designs against India still have pieces in
Pakistan." Boucher, who had earlier said that
India had no evidence to accuse anybody for the
Mumbai blasts, said "things have advanced" since
he made such remarks weeks ago.
He added,
however, that Washington would like to see
progress on Kashmir issue resolution through
dialogue.
Under international pressure,
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)chief Hafeez Saeed has been
placed under a month's house arrest in Pakistan
following revelations of a hand in the UK bomb
plot. The LeT is normally seen as an anti-Indian
terror group, but most observers in India say that
the move is just eyewash to keep Western powers
happy, even as evidence emerges of enormous
amounts of money being transferred from Pakistan
to the accounts of those who were allegedly
plotting the UK terror attacks.
New Delhi
wants Islamabad to hand over or arrest such
figures as Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed
Salahuddin, global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.
However, should President General Pervez Musharraf
initiate any severe action, it is unlikely that he
would survive for long.
Earlier this
month, Indo-Pak relations took one of their most
ugly turns since the peace process began in
January 2004. In an event harking back to the time
when suspicions between the two countries was at
its peak, an Indian diplomat in Pakistan was
allegedly roughed up, arrested, handcuffed and
asked to leave the country, on charges of spying.
India has retaliated by asking a Pakistani
diplomat in New Delhi to leave.
These
expulsions are the first since the two countries
agreed to resume dialogue aimed at ending their
decades-old hostilities. They also put a question
mark on the back channel communications between
the two sides that has admirably pushed the peace
initiatives forward in the recent past. These
include establishing rail and road links
(including between Indian and Pakistan Kashmir),
easy visa facilities and enhancement of business
by whittling down the negative trade list.
It may be recalled that expulsion of each
other's diplomats (one senior Indian diplomat was
beaten up so badly that he had to be brought back
home on a stretcher) has for long been a
tit-for-tat diplomatic censure adopted by the two
countries. A few years back, till relations
thawed, the respective embassies in New Delhi and
Islamabad had almost emptied out of staff due to
repeated expulsions. In February 2003, India
declared Pakistan's deputy high commissioner
persona non grata. Paradoxically, the same
diplomat is now in charge of India policy at the
Pakistan foreign office.
In 2001 (in the
aftermath of the attack on the parliament
building) India ordered half of Pakistan's embassy
staff out of the country and banned Pakistan's
national airline from entering Indian airspace.
Pakistan announced similar action against New
Delhi and, within months, the two sides deployed a
million troops on their disputed border in
Kashmir, until better sense prevailed. The two
nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three wars in
the past.
Indeed, New Delhi is under a lot
of pressure to deliver on security. The opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has slammed the
government for being soft on Pakistan.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, the original architect of the peace
process, has charged New Delhi for its
"inexplicably soft approach towards Pakistan and
cross-border terrorism. The recent Mumbai bomb
blasts are the direct result of this soft
approach."
Incumbent BJP party president
Rajnath Singh has said that India should attack
Pakistan (a la Israel) and destroy the terror
camps, a statement that has not gone down well
with Islamabad, with Musharraf saying in his own
anniversary speech that Pakistan is capable of
defending itself and is a strong nation.
One consequence of the blasts has been a
keener eye by Indian security forces on segments
of the Muslim population. This follows
intelligence reports that certain elements within
the community have been influenced by jihadi
terrorism and had a hand in the serial train
attacks in Mumbai.
Some reports talk about
undue and uncalled for harassment of Muslims, who
number close to 150 million in India, the largest
single population bloc after Indonesia. The
problem has been exacerbated by the confluence of
the Mumbai blasts to the run up of India's
Independence Day celebrations when security forces
are on very high alert.
Earlier this
month, the police reportedly "barged" into the
hotel room of prominent human-rights activist Asma
Jehangir's in New Delhi without a warrant on the
excuse that the drill was part of pre-Independence
Day security measures. They went through the
closet cupboards and her bags. Jehangir, who was
very upset by the incident, was part of a
Pakistani delegation to discuss human rights
violations in South Asian countries. Other members
were also checked.
In order to assuage
feelings and in a rare courtesy Manmohan, who
knows Jehangir personally, called her and
apologized for the incident.
However, the
Jehangir episode does not happen to be an isolated
incident. The Asian Age has reported that the
Mumbai police, acting under a directive from the
Maharashtra government, have been investigating
prominent Muslims in the city who have been
registered as frequent travelers abroad.
Among those who received a knock from the
police were well-known Bollywood dance
choreographer Hameed Khan, who was asked to
present himself at the local police station.
Others whom the police reportedly have questioned,
include a senior vice president of a multinational
company and a commercial pilot.
According
to prominent film director Mahesh Bhatt, with whom
Hameed has been working: "I am heartbroken. I
cannot believe that this is happening here as
well, and we must realize before it is too late
that this Islamophobia that we are importing from
the West, this terrible virus that has entered the
Indian bloodstream, will destroy this country."
"It is still true [most Indian Muslims are
out of the extremist fold] to a very, very large
extent," India's National Security Adviser, M K
Narayanan, recently said in a television
interview. "But what has happened is that a very,
very manifest attempt to recruit Indian Muslims is
now being done." These efforts, he said, are
increasingly directed at educated Indian Muslims
and, more troubling, at elements within the
military.
One line of thinking in New
Delhi is not to blame the Pakistan establishment
headed by Musharraf. While intelligence agencies
are certain the Mumbai attacks was planned in
neighboring countries (including Nepal and
Bangladesh), it is debated that rogue elements
inimical to the survival of Musharraf who should
be suspected, even if within the army or the
Inter-Services Intelligence.
New Delhi
knows that an enduring solution is only possible
by engaging Pakistan and has been trying to stick
by the principle it has set for itself of
divesting terrorism from peace talks, as the only
long-term solution. A recent Gallup poll in
Pakistan shows that the proportion of people
wanting peace has risen exponentially.
However, such attacks as in Mumbai makes
matters very difficult for Manmohan, despite the
best intentions.
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based
journalist.
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