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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