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War on Terrorism : Vajpayee’s New Year message to Pakistan

	January 07, 2002

For those who believe the beginning of a New Year to be a turning point, the last day of 2001 brought some much-needed cheer. Since December 13, the relations between India and Pakistan had nosedived to such a point that prospects of an impending war did not seem all that distant. Matters were made worse when India was still debating as to what action should be taken against Islamabad which was constantly shuffling its feet when it came to cracking down on the terrorist factories.

The Pakistani government showed its first sign of a genuine willingness to stop matters spinning out of control by arresting leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. On the same day, Prime Minister Vajpayee in his New Year message to the nation, mixed stern warning with sound reasoning. Pakistan, he said, would have to shed its blatantly ‘anti-India mentality’. He also made the point - not stated enough in the past - that it serves Pakistan’s own interest to finish terrorism and extremism that it had nurtured for so long. Vajpayee’s willingness to extend his ‘hand of alliance’ to Pakistan was mixing realism with politics: you help us and we’ll help you.

Vajpayee shared his thoughts about how “Pakistan’s social fabric and its institutions have been grievously affected by its government’s policy of creating and systematically promoting the Taliban”. By taking this line, Vajpayee tried to convince his own countrymen as well as Pakistanis that a stable, terrorism-free Pakistan was good not only for India’s future but also for Pakistan’s own. New Delhi may have had valid reasons to be cynical in the past about Islamabad’s ‘crackdowns’ against jehadi forces. But apparently it viewed the latest move to be credible enough to provide Pakistan a list of 20 terrorists and criminals who should be facing trial in India.

Not everybody, however, was convinced. Sceptics pointed out that Lashkar chief Masood Azhar had been arrested for making “inflammatory speeches against the Pakistani establishment” - and not for terrorist acts. Pakistan, for them, is simply continuing its ‘revolving-door’ policy. It was no longer relevant whether it had been pressure from New Delhi or Washington or both that made General Musharraf act at last. What is pivotal, however, is whether he is prepared to run the course of the actions he has just begun to their logical conclusion. Vajpayee is ready to give Pakistan a chance to prove its willingness to cooperate with India. It would be wise - and not a sign of weakness - to wait for Islamabad to deliver on these tasks.

Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh too emphasised the point that it was ridiculous for Islamabad to seek evidence of the role of outfits based in Pakistan in terrorist activities in Kashmir and other parts of India. From 1994 onwards, India had been giving evidence to Pakistan that terrorists and wanted criminals were taking shelter in the country.

He confirmed that India has presented a list to Pakistan of known militants and criminals, including those involved in the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu and in the 1993 series of bombings in Mumbai. Taking aim at the position, Singh said: “I am unable to understand how moral support can be provided to any immoral activity like terrorism.”

Singh reaffirmed that India welcomed Pakistani moves against two Muslim militant outfits allegedly behind a deadly attack December 13 on the Indian Parliament but said more action was needed. Singh called the steps taken against Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as welcome. But they need to be pursued because the dimensions of the problem are immense, Singh pointed out.



BJP’s campaign

The BJP has announced a country-wide campaign in the run-up to Republic Day on January 26 to mobilise people on the war on terrorism. It said that it was not advocating a war with Pakistan but that country must show concrete results against terrorist groups. “War has never been a preferred option for any responsible nation. We hope better sense will prevail on Pakistan,” BJP president K Jana Krishnamurthi said.What happened in the US on September 11 and in India on December 13 were declarations of war on human society as a whole, he said. The BJP chief denied that the party’s campaign on terrorism had anything to do with the Assembly polls.

Stating that the war of terrorism had already been thrust on India, the BJP chief said the party had never attempted to push the Government to go in for “hot pursuit” of terrorist hideouts, claiming that such suggestions may have come from individuals.

Prime Minister Vajpayee’s desire for peace with Pakistan and his willingness to “walk more than half the distance to work closely with Pakistan” have left the BJP and other Parivar affiliates looking for a credible explanation for the turn-around to convince their cadre. The de-escalation of the diplomatic offensive, though expected by the party, has left leaders answering queries on why the BJP- led government is succumbing to US pressure. BJP leaders point out to the “diplomatic offensive” and claim the withdrawal of the High Commissioner from Islamabad and other such measures as a fitting reply to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. This, BJP leaders say, would convince the cadre that the Government has taken enough action and would do more.

But Parivar affiliates like the VHP maintain that it would want either Dawood Ibrahim or war. The RSS might formally announce its position after the ongoing three-day top-level meet in Vishakhapatnam. The Parivar’s dilemma is that the affiliates along with some hardliners in the BJP had all along sought “decisive” strikes at the terrorist training camps in PoK. Immediately after the terrorist attack on Parliament, the BJP had raised the level of its anti-Pakistan rhetoric, with MPs meeting the PM to seek a military solution to terrorism. Reports from small towns had indicated that on certain occasions, the party had indeed whipped up some war hysteria. For instance, reports from Meerut suggested that the local BJP unit had organised a function to bid farewell to soldiers who were being deployed to border areas.

Now to convince the same cadre that diplomatic offensive was equally effective could pose problems for the party, its leaders say. VHP vice-president Giriraj Kishore argued that so far as the VHP’s stand was considered, Pakistan should either hand Dawood Ibrahim and other terrorists over to India or we should go to war with Pakistan.

The Prime Minister had given a call to his party to hold awareness meetings from January 12 to 26 and these could be used to explain the diplomatic offensive, party sources say. The Parivar is optimistic about a face-saver - the government getting hold of Dawood Ibrahim, who has been the main accused in the Mumbai serial blasts case. Extradition of Dawood could help the BJP to convince its cadre of the Government’s efforts to combat terrorism and its success.

The BJP strategists, political observers feel, find themselves now without a poll issue for the assembly elections in UP and other States. As the temple issue may not cut much issue this time, the BJP has been desperate to find an effective poll plank. After Vajpayee told the Hindutva outfits to shelve all contentious issues, including the Ram temple, the BJP had to fall back upon terrorism. The war talk was a convenient topic for the party to exploit with its clear aggressive nationalism. The recent diplomatic moves have made it clear that there may not be an immediate war,despite the tension between the two neighbouring nations. The Hot pursuit concept is now being given a quiet burial, following the shift in the international solution and US pressure. Political and defence analysts too have pointed out that any drastic action like air strikes may not yield much results and could only result in India being isolated in international opinion. Repeated messages from Washington that Musharraf was showing good response to Indian demands and that he should be given more time to crack down on terrorists, indicate that New Delhi should stay its hand and desist from hasty steps, that could result in a full-scale conflict.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister George Fernandes has said there was nothing illogical or unfair in India’s expectations from Pakistan to dismantle the terrorism infrastructure in that country. In an interview to the Far Eastern Economic Review, Fernandes disagreed with a suggestion that India could be pushing for ‘too much and too fast’ for Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to take action against terrorists.

“You can’t be a part of a coalition to fight terrorism in the world, as Pakistan is, and at the same time train terrorists and see that they enter India. There is nothing illogical or unfair in my expectations from Pakistan,” he said. On whether India should give Musharraf more leeway, Fernandes pointed out that would mean New Delhi allowing more people to be killed on its side. Fernandes dismissed suggestions in some quarters that India had no good military option at this point to deal with the standoff. To a question on whether there were any double standards on the global approach to combating terrorism, he said India did ‘not feel happy’ with the way things were going on. “If one strike at the United States is reason enough to set up a coalition, of which all of us are a part, then that coalition should move forward wherever there is terrorism on display,” he said.



Voices from India

Home Minister Advani defined the attack on Parliament House as an ‘attack on democracy’. The Indian government must resist the temptation to make its own contribution to the attack on our democracy. Badri Raina, a columnist, feels this will require that sentient distinction is made between civic discipline and whatever measures may be needed to encourage each citizen’s voluntary contribution to protecting democracy on the one hand and, on the other, coercive laws which instead of reinforcing democracy add their bit to snuffing it out.

It must be recognised that however attractive such recourses seem in the short term, their long-term fallout strengthens not democracy but terrorist impulses of one kind or the other. After all, those well-known regimes in world history - especially of the first half of the last century - which sought to make terror the principle of governance were not defeated by counter-terror but by the power of democratic reason and resolve.

This, above all, has been the outstanding reality of India’s collective, democratic and non-violent success against colonisation - a lesson never to be forgotten. For example, could there be a more trenchant historical irony than for India to have fought the Rowlatt Act and now, when we are independent, to impose upon ourselves a law infinitely more sinister and suffocating?

A bigoted deriding of dissent on the unviable ground that the government of the day alone is the trustworthy custodian of national honour and well-being weakens the idea of democracy and engenders crippling residues for the future. Finally, beyond reworking the mechanisms of the State apparatus, beyond reformulating the laws of the land, beyond playing the blame game, beyond seeking outside approval, the answers to domestic discontent must be sought selflessly in the wrongs that may have been perpetrated at home.



Voices against Jehad in Pakistan

The Pakistan media has begun questioning the decades-old Kashmir policy. Ayaz Amin, writing in Dawn says: After Sept 11 and after our turnaround on the Taliban, it was for us to realize that the era of outside jehad in Kashmir was over. He does not stop at this. He goes on to say that such a withdrawal must be accompanied by an ideological retraction in the army command and intelligence agencies operating under its wings. He demands nothing less than the re-education of the ISI, so that “political restoration” can take place in Pakistan. Then there is Najam Sethi, writing a signed editorial in The Friday Times who says Pakistan’s old strategic doctrine of supporting proxy wars in India’s periphery, especially through an Islamic jehad in Kashmir, so that the conventional military balance is restored to more manageable proportions, is out of sync with recent realities . In particular, the post-Sept 11 world sees Islamic jehad as pure terrorism that must be stamped out everywhere. The die was cast last October when the jehadis of the Jaish-e-Mohammad killed 40 people outside the Assembly building in Srinagar prompting the US Ambassador in New Delhi to finally say militants in Kashmir were terrorists and not “:freedom fighters” . A more aggressive response from India and the international community should therefore have been anticipated following the Dec 13 jehadi attack on Parliament in New Delhi.

As India has mobilized for war, Washington has stepped in to outlaw the JeM and the LeT and warned Pakistan to clamp down on them. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s argument that India should provide ‘evidence” against the JeM and LeT before action can be taken against them doesn’t cut ice with the international community which scarcely bothered with such niceties itself when it came to the Taliban and Al-Qaida. But like their counterparts in Afghanistan, the jehadis in Pakistan and Kashmir have proven to be their own worst propagandists, having proudly owned up to acts of militancy in Kashmir as well as publicly threatening to carry the jehad in the heart of India, Delhi. Therefore, Pakistan’s condemnation of such acts as “terrorist” evokes the same contemptuous dismissal as its lack of adequate leverage over the Taliban before Sept 11.

Asks Sethi: If Pakistan’s past errors have caught up on its, is there any hope of a realistic adjustment in its Kashmir policy ? Islamabad has certainly gone through the motions of complying with the international requirement of freezing the assets of some jehadi groups and detaining their leading lights. But this may not be sufficient to stave off further pressure if the jehadis continue to mount suicide attacks in India, thereby jeopardizing the political and economic “gains” of Islamabad’s revamped Afghan policy after Sept 11.

Perhaps one need not read too much in these stray observations but they are significant nevertheless in that they defy the conventional wisdom of Pakistan’s status quo, not just as it is enunciated at the present moment, but in the manner it has been enunciated since the birth of the nation. The question, of course, is whether such views have met with any degree of acceptance or not. And if so, whether they reflect wholly or in part the thinking of the present ruling elite, is difficult to say. Only one thing can be stated with any certainty. Sept 11 has altered the way Pakistan’s ruling establishment has sought to both see and portray itself.

It has forced it to make difficult choices. It is more than pragmatism that caused Musharraf to crack down on influential mullahs on Pakistani soil at the height of US-led “war against terror” and cruelly cut all links with the Taliban, It was a question of survival. In many ways, Musharraf himself was suddenly arraigned against these very forces and he needed to shed them in order to exist. It would of course, be sanguine to assume that he would choose to do the same to the jehadi elements operating within his country for the “liberation’ of Kashmir. After all, Musharraf had only recently reiterated on Pak television that he considers Kashmir as one of the crucial issues that defined Pakistani statehood.

However, even here much has changed. The attacks on the J&K assembly and Parliament have exposed to the world the nature of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. It will be now difficult for Musharraf to pretend that his country has nothing to do with them.