There is a consensus among Indians, their state, government and media that Jihadi elements in Pakistan carried out the Mumbai carnage, with the involvement of serving or retired elements of Pakistan’s intelligence services but without the complicity of Pakistan’s civilian government. Fortunately, however, there is no more talk of retaliatory strikes against either state or non-state actors and sites in Pakistan; two provocative incursions by Indian jets last week have been shrugged away as an “oversight”; and extradition demands for the wanted terrorists in Pakistan have been diluted.
Unfortunately, however, the peace process is on “pause”. India is insisting that Pakistan should “do more” to demonstrate its commitment against terrorism. It is exhorting the international community, in particular the USA and UK, to lean on Islamabad. It is also trying to embarrass Pakistan by various devices relating to the nine dead and one surviving terrorists.
The agonizing fallout of Mumbai persists in Pakistan. The original state of mass denial about any Pakistani “hand” in the Mumbai carnage has not even been dented by the evidence of an independent section of the Pakistani media which has tracked Ajmal Kasab to Faridkot near Depalpur in Punjab. Every day incredible new explanations of an “Indian conspiracy” to malign Pakistan are manufactured by hidden hands. The refrain everywhere is: “where is the evidence”, as though irrefutable evidence can ever be collected and presented in such cases.
President Asif Zardari’s government, too, seems to be backtracking from its earlier readiness to clamp down on Jihadi organizations and their affiliates. It is even unsure about how to handle the charities linked to these banned organizations. President Zardari had earlier admitted that “non-state actors in Pakistan might have been involved”; now he is saying that there is no “conclusive proof” of that. Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar has explained that LeT leader Hafiz Saeed cannot be detained beyond 90 days under the Maintenance of Public Order law in the absence of any solid incriminating evidence. And Ambassador Hussain Haqqani says Jaish e Mohamed leader Masood Azhar is probably not even in Pakistan. The Pakistan government is also under pressure to hype the war rhetoric. Recently Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani thundered in Parliament amidst much desk thumping that Pakistan doesn’t want war but will embrace it honourably if it is imposed on it. What’s going on?
Determined attempts have been made in the last seven years, first by President Pervez Musharraf and now by President Asif Zardari, to cobble a national consensus in favour of the war on terror. But most Pakistanis still insist it is America’s war and not Pakistan’s war, despite the loss of territory and thousands of soldiers. On the other hand, the peace process with India by both these governments has run for five years since 2003 and covered considerable ground in back-channel diplomacy with the support of the people, yet it took less than 24 hours after the Mumbai attack and the Indian media’s jingoistic outburst for anti-India nationalism to seize all of Pakistan and plunge it in a state of self-denial. This should tell us something of the hold of national security institutions like the army and ISI and their outlook on the mindset of Pakistanis across the board. The Zardari government is now squarely facing this same religious-nationalist backlash. There is media criticism that it didn’t fiercely oppose the UN Security Council directives, indeed that it may have tripped over itself to implement them; and there is apprehension that it may succumb too readily to the US-UK axis on the war on terror, this time on India’s behalf, in view of the steady stream of Western big-wigs into Islamabad, urging it to crack down on the Jihadi organisations. In fact, the fiery Jamaat i Islami is demanding a maximalist defiance of UN resolutions on terrorism, including the new ones on the Jihadi organizations that favour India, and demanding a withdrawal of the army from FATA and lifting of the ban on LeT and Jamaat ud Dawa. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Muslim League Quaid is harking back to the UN resolutions on Kashmir and insisting that “India hasn’t accepted the reality of Pakistan”, quite forgetting that under President Musharraf it went the furthest in normalising relations with India and replacing the UN resolutions with “out-of- the-box” thinking on Kashmir.
Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has asked the Indian government to send a delegation to Pakistan to map out the next steps. This is a good and constructive idea. Given the growing mood of defiance in Pakistan, it is not advisable to keep this critical process on “hold” or “pause”. What is needed is immediate re-engagement, not gradual distancing or even “halt’. India must think in terms of self-interest and not honour or pride. The Indian government acted maturely by not reacting militarily to the Mumbai provocation and precipitating an un-winnable war. Now it must go the extra mile to kick-start and fast-forward the peace process that had stalled during the last year of President Musharraf’s rule. Neither Pakistan nor India can afford to fall prey to the designs of state and non-state actors in both countries who want to plunge the region into anarchy and chaos.