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Indo-Pak Ties In Combating Terror:WILL ISLAMABAD SEE GOOD SENSE? by Prof. C.Mahapatra,2 Dec 08 Print E-mail

ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 2 December, 2008

Indo-Pak Ties In Combating Terror

WILL ISLAMABAD SEE GOOD SENSE?  

By Prof. Chintamani Mahapatra

School of International Studies, JNU

For the first time ever, the Indian Prime Minister requested the Pakistani Prime Minister to send the ISI Chief to India to share intelligence information about the terrorist attacks on Mumbai.

Was it a well-thought out policy change? Was it a desperate appeal in view of the unprecedented terrorist attacks on India’s finance Capital, equated by some with America’s 9/11 incident? Why did the Pakistani Prime Minister first agree to the suggestion and later decided to send a representative than his ISI Chief to India? 

Whatever it is, the idea of strengthening the anti-terror mechanism with Pakistan is not at all a bad one. Ever since this mechanism has been in place, both Pakistan and India have been victims of several deadly terrorist attacks. Gone are the days when Pakistan used to see an Indian hand in every law and order problem within its territory. India likewise saw a Pakistani hand in almost every major bomb explosion by terrorist groups.

Now the situation has come to a stage where inter-Governmental cooperation in tackling terrorism in South Asia has become imperative. There is a tendency in our country to quickly identify terrorist acts with a community, group or a country. The tone of accusation seeks to blame the entire community or country and creates additional controversy.

However, today there is an effort not to blame an entire community for acts of terrorism and political violence. In other words, we are increasingly realizing that terrorist groups have no religion and even if they have one, they try to use religion for their heinous purpose.

The time has come not to blame Pakistan per se for the Pakistani hands in terrorist activities in India. Certainly, there was a time when the Pakistani Government had a policy of encouraging, financing and even training anti-India terrorist groups. But since the 9/11 incident in the US, the situation is more complex. There are several anti-India terrorist outfits in Pakistan that are opposed to the Pakistani Government. Some of them would go to any extent to derail the bilateral peace process between the two countries.

Moreover, Pakistan now has a band of terrorist groups that are battling with the Pakistani Government. The rising influence of Taliban forces in Pakistan, the impact of the Afghan instability and the growing autonomy of anti-Indian groups have been giving a tremendous headache to President Asif Zardari’s Administration.

Against the backdrop of all these developments and the existence of an anti-terror mechanism, it is perhaps prudent on the part of the Indian Government, the media and the country's opinion makers to guard against making statements and observations based on preliminary facts and impressionistic in nature.

New Delhi must appreciate Islamabad’s positive gestures. For instance, President Zardari promptly condemned Mumbai’s terrorist attacks and offered his Government's assistance. Further, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry’s statement, issued hours after the conversation between the Pakistani President and the Indian Prime Minister said: "Pakistan is prepared to deepen its engagement with India, including on combating terrorism. It is, however, important to avoid a blame game and knee jerk reactions…."

Such a statement in a way was the "knee-jerk" reaction of Pakistan to some of the observations made in India about the impact of the Mumbai incident on the peace process and the composite dialogue. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry should have understood the anguish of Indians over the unprecedented terror attacks.

Having said that, Indian commentators and analysts should also be careful about threatening to abandon the dialogue process after every terrorist attack with some linkages to elements in Pakistan. In fact, the suspected ISI hand in the Indian Embassy bombing in Kabul had substantial credibility and that could have justified ending the dialogue process with Pakistan. But the Indian Government refrained from taking such a drastic step. Is it appropriate to recommend such steps?

However, the Pakistani Government has lost a great opportunity to build confidence in the regional peace process by first acceding to New Delhi’s request for sending the ISI Chief to India and then revising its decision. The ISI is synonymous in the minds of a majority of Indians with something evil. The birth, growth and evolution of the ISI activities in our country are responsible for this image of the ISI in India.

Unfortunately, successive ISI Chiefs, the Pakistani military and its political leadership have failed to realize that the ISI’s strategies would not work in a democracy like India. Neither has the ISI been able to reform its goals nor has the Pakistani Government taken any major step in this direction. By functioning as a powerful entity within the Pakistani ruling circles, the ISI has actually not allowed any fresh thinking on Pakistan's foreign policy goals in a fast-changing global order.

Of late, there are sections of leaders in Pakistan who seem to have understood the utility of improving ties with India and the futility of an exercise to destabilize India. These leaders are quite supportive of the Indo-Pakistan peace process. But the old-type of thinking still continues in important sections of the ruling establishment. The most prominent old-style thinking is in the rank and file as well as the higher echelons of the ISI.

If the Pakistani Government would have asked its ISI Chief to visit India, share information and discuss the common threats faced by both the countries, especially from certain terrorist groups, it could have set a new ball rolling in the security dynamics of South Asia. Islamabad must move beyond paying lip service to "intelligence cooperation" and show some concrete cooperation in this field.

Clearly, terrorists are the worst kinds of mercenaries. They pose the most dangerous threats to States. This is a fact that has not gone unnoticed in the international community of nations. Promoting terrorism cannot be a viable instrument of statecraft. Hence Government-to-Government cooperation is imperative to tackle this ever-growing menace. New Delhi has to push further the idea of anti-terror cooperation with Islamabad and start an official stream of dialogue between Indian and Pakistani intelligence organizations. Good sense should prevail in Islamabad before it is too late. --- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)

 

 

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