The significance of last week’s Mumbai carnage does not lie in the number of innocent people killed or in the audacity of its planning and execution. The region is flush with modern weapons, suicide-bombers, terrorists, insurgents, separatists, communalists and militants of all shades and creeds.
Nor is this “India’s 9/11”. Such violence is not unprecedented in India which has witnessed ethnic insurgency in Punjab, separatism in Kashmir, communalist Hindu rage against Muslims and Christians, and a running Naxalite class war in the north and south west. The Mumbai attackers might have come from foreign, even Pakistani, shores, but it is inconceivable that they didn’t have local supporters, abettors and sympathizers. Certainly, India cannot retaliate militarily against Pakistan after Mumbai like America did after 9/11 against Afghanistan. First, Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan gleefully accepted responsibility for 9/11 but Hafiz Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan has flatly denied it. Second, America could go after the Taliban regime because it ha publicly refused to abandon Al-Qaeda; in contrast, the Pakistan government has publicly condemned the outrage and offered to cooperate with India in tracking down the terrorists. Third, and most significantly, any pre-emptive or retaliatory military strike by India against any state or non-state target in Pakistan would provoke a reaction in kind, triggering a larger conflict between two nuclear armed powers. This factor was missing in the aftermath of 9/11.
Fortunately, the both governments realize the complexity and sensitivity of the situation, despite the initial hysteria of nationalism displayed by the two media. An Indo-Pak conflict would play into the hands of religious extremists on both sides. In Pakistan it would isolate and destabilize the Zardari government for being “soft” on India. This would also be a recipe for domestic political anarchy from which only the exponents of extreme religious nationalism would benefit. Inevitably it would invite foreign intervention in the east, trigger ethnic conflict in Karachi and give succor to the Baloch insurgency, thereby creating conditions for the dismemberment of Pakistan. In India, it would spell the end of the Congress regime for not winning an un-winnable war. More significantly, it would weaken the Indian state by provoking a violent Hindu backlash against Muslims (thereby alienating them further), damage the economy, and drag India to the UN for multilateral mediation against its interests. At the very least, it would destroy the ongoing peace process in which the Indian state is the major beneficiary of Pakistan’s “out-of-the-box thinking” on Kashmir and enhancement of trade facilities.
In such critical situations, national politics should override party politics. So while India’s Congress-led government is right to worry about its electoral prospects five months hence by not suitably retaliating, it should not lose sight of the larger interests of the Indian state. Far better to start focusing on the root causes of Mumbai (the unresolved Kashmir issue and the 150 million Muslims’ increasing alienation from, and hostility to, mainstream India) while revamping internal security and intelligence as deterrents to terrorism. Much the same advice may be given to the PPP-led government in Pakistan. If it cannot hand over any of the “terrorists” wanted by India regardless of any “evidence” because that would provoke a religious-nationalist backlash and play into the hands of the India-baiters in the army and intelligence services, it should make a bigger and more sustained effort to bring all stakeholders – army, opposition and media – on board a credible and functional strategy to win the longer-term war against religious extremism within, whether it is of the Taliban variety or of the Jihadi type, and strengthen the peace process with New Delhi.
The international community in general and the US in particular also have a more urgent and sensitive role to play in this region. It is not enough to send Condoleezza Rice and Admiral Mike Mullen to the region and urge restraint, while pressurizing Pakistan to do “more” militarily in the war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. President-elect Barrack Obama is right when he thinks that the road to peace in West Asia is via peace in South Asia through a resolution of the “original sin” of Kashmir. India and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have been fighting proxy wars in Punjab, Kashmir and Karachi for decades. These have now spilled over into proxy wars in Baluchistan and Afghanistan and embroiled the USA. Mr Obama’s regional approach would encourage stakeholders India, Pakistan and the Afghans (Uzbeks and Tajiks represented by the Northern Alliance and Pasthuns represented by moderate elements of the Taliban who have broken links with Al-Qaeda) to help clean up the mess and make Afghanistan a truly neutral and federal moderate Muslim state.
This is a tall order. But the US cannot afford to get stuck in another Vietnam in Afghanistan. Pakistan cannot afford to succumb to political and economic anarchy followed by dismemberment or “Islamic” revolution. India cannot expect to escape the havoc that would be unleashed on its secular and democratic state if its neighbourhood is raging with fire and 150 million estranged Indian Muslims are being constantly provoked by extremist elements within and without to revolt against their motherland. Sane voices in both countries must stand up and be counted.