Across the barbed wire

It is easy to blame Pakistan for its reluctance to accept the "evidence" India has provided against terrorists operating from Pakistani soil, but previous experience suggests that Indian evidence cannot stand scrutiny in an independent court

Pranay Sharma Delhi

The spin doctors of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might have gone on overdrive to interpret the "strong statement" that emerged out of the Group of Eight (G8) meeting in St Petersburg against terrorists and their "sponsors" in the wake of the Mumbai and Srinagar blasts. But they have failed to address some basic questions regarding India's security.  Would the unambiguous condemnation of these attacks by the world's most powerful nations bring an end to terrorism in India? Would this mean that the Indian people would be more secured in the future? Or would it bring an end, to what India claims to be Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the country?

The G-8 statement has so far proved to be insufficient in pinning down Pakistan. India continues to cry itself hoarse over the "evidence" that clearly shows a Pakistani hand in the terrorist attacks. The world, particularly the United States, seems to have a different view. The pointsman in the Bush Administration for South Asia and senior US State department official Richard Boucher has made it clear that there was no evidence yet to prove Pakistan's involvement in the attacks. The serial blasts in the two cities killed hundreds of innocent people and left scores of others injured or totally traumatised.

The scepticism the world has shown in accepting the charge of a Pakistani involvement in the attacks has much to do with India's own policy towards terrorism and how it wants to deal with its western neighbour. For every single terrorist attack that has taken place in
the country in the past two decades, India has always pointed an accusing finger towards Pakistan. Most Indians might have gone along with the establishment's line of holding Pakistan guilty. But to a neutral observer, New Delhi's charges stem from the hostile relations the two countries have had since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947.

The weakest link in building up a case against Pakistan has been the Indian intelligence agencies and their investigating teams. This became evident once again during the Mumbai blasts. A team of experts that had totally failed in preventing the attack was prompt in establishing the links between SIMI and the Lashkar-e-Taeba and holding them responsible within hours of the blasts in India’s financial capital. The pattern was only too familiar. First came the leaks to the media about the involvement of Pakistan. Then, after the opinion of the Indian public was made, came the official statement against Pakistan.

In what seems to be the first major policy shift, India has called off the foreign secretary-level talks that the two countries were to have in New Delhi from July 20 to 21. The former foreign minister Natwar Singh, in his first major press conference after assuming his office in South Block, had made it clear that " no matter what" India would not withdraw from the talks table with Pakistan. He was perhaps trying to prove a point against Vajpayee's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government that had alternately blown hot and cold in dealing with Islamabad. But ironically, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has also adopted the same line as its predecessor within two years in office.

On the eve of Manmohan Singh's departure for the G-8 Summit in St Petersburg, foreign secretary Shyam Saran had said that India's main aim at the meet would be to get a "strong statement" against terrorism and getting the world leaders to treat it as a global
phenomenon that needed to be fought unitedly. This was perhaps the public articulation of what India expected from the world's most powerful nations. But in private, it wanted a condemnation of Pakistan and expected the international community to exert enough pressure on Islamabad so that it was forced to stop terrorist activities against New Delhi. It is not clear whether George W Bush and other world leaders assured Manmohan Singh in private that they would take up the issue yet again with the Pakistani President. But there was no suggestion of condemning Pakistan for the Mumbai blasts.

It is clear that Pervez Musharraf and the establishment in Islamabad could well live with the homilies expressed in the G-8 statement on global terrorism and the Mumbai blasts. In fact, the Pakistani President was early in condemning the Mumbai attacks when he joined the other world leaders in expressing his condolences for the victims of the terrorist attacks in India. Musharraf did not stop there. In a recent address to the nation, ostensibly for the Pakistanis but aimed more at those across the border in India, he offered to help India in tracking down those responsible for the attacks in Mumbai. But he made it clear that he could act only if there was sufficient evidence.

Predictably, India has rejected Musharraf's offer and insisted that he acted on his own commitment to stop terrorist activities against India by taking action against terrorists operating out of Pakistan. The ministry of external affairs spokesman Navtej Sarna said that India has given "enough evidence" in the past and if Musharraf wanted
to show he was sincere in his fight against global terror, he should act against those individuals and groups that New Delhi has already identified. The fact that the Pakistani foreign ministry also rejected India's contention was known soon after Sarna made his comments.

But as the two countries continue to shift the onus on the other the question remains how India would deal with the evolving situation that includes both: its dealing with Pakistan and its fight against terrorism from across the border. The recent developments have perhaps created a situation where India needs to do some serious introspection and ask itself some hard questions.

It is easy to blame Pakistan for its reluctance to accept the "evidence" India has provided against terrorists operating from Pakistani soil. But does the Indian evidence stand scrutiny in an independent court? Past experience, however, suggest otherwise. Here is
the example of two cases that had no Pakistani link. Iqbal Mirchi was allegedly linked to the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993. But when India sought his extradition from a London Court it was summarily rejected because the evidence provided by the Indian investigators against Mirchi, who also happens to have the controversial surname of Memon, was totally inadequate. Nor has India managed to get famous Hindi film music director Nadeem extradited from the United Kingdom, who is allegedly linked to the murder of T-Series owner Gulshan Kumar.

India often blames these failures on "lack of political will" of the countries from where the extradition is sought. But New Delhi itself has been guilty of doing the same with others, and often with countries considered to be its close allies. Some years back, Bhutan
had requested India to hand over a political dissenter who Thimphu claimed was trying to rouse passion against the monarch. But fearing a political backlash in India against the "wanted person" who was also a champion of human rights in Bhutan, the Indian leadership developed cold feet at the last minute.

There are sections in the Indian establishment who argue that the Bush administration did not wait for a scrutiny of its evidence against those behind the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US in an independent court before going ahead with an armed intervention in Afghanistan to throw out the Taliban regime. Nor has Israel sought the support of the
world leaders before embarking on its military operation against the Hamas in Palestine and the Hezbollah in Lebanon. But then India is a sovereign country and has its own demands and needs. It is for the leadership in New Delhi to come out with an effective policy to deal with the challenges it faces.

When the NDA was in power, it tried the tough act with Pakistan after terrorists attacked the Indian parliament. It weighed various options to deal with Pakistan. It even thought of a strategic military strike against terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. But the idea was given up because civilian populations were too close to such camps. There was also fear of a condemnation both within an outside India if a large number of innocent people died because of the missile strikes. The moving up of the troops along the Line of Control (LoC) in an eyeball-to-eyeball contact position with the Pakistani troops did not help either. Though South Block claimed that it forced Musharraf to sue for peace, the world opinion about a possible armed conflict between the two sides degenerating into a nuclear war in South Asia stopped India.

Whenever the issue of infiltration has come up the Pakistanis have pointed out that India has already fenced most part of the LoC with barbed wire. In addition, there are sophisticated surveillance equipments and large number of troops to man the border. With all these advantages if India cannot stop the infiltrators how could anyone hold Pakistan responsible for not stopping some determined individual or group of people from crossing over?

The fact remains that it is India's call to act. The Manmohan Singh government would have to decide how it wants to deal with Pakistan. For the past many years successive Indian leaderships have only pursued in building an international opinion against Islamabad. This, by all accounts, has not proved to be effective or sufficient. The
tough decision that many in the country are in favour of should start looking at clearing the mess that exists within India. If Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India then it is also the primary responsibility of the leadership in New Delhi to take urgent political
steps, and not rely only on military ones, to bring about lasting peace in the violence-prone state. India cannot allow it to fester any longer. If it does, then Pakistan or some other outside force would continue to take advantage of the existing contradictions and use them for their own benefit.

The focus should not be in Jammu and Kashmir alone because the problem of terrorism is no longer limited to that state. Terrorist activities, be it in Mumbai, Chhattisgarh, Bihar or Andhra Pradesh, have brought the focus back on the fundamental question: does India have the ability to accommodate the dissenters? If large numbers of people, irrespective of their religious belief or ethnic composition, feel frustrated because they do not have a stake in the system, then no amount of policing would be sufficient to deal with the problem in hand.

While dealing with these problems internally India would also have to make up its mind on how to deal with its neighbours and particularly Pakistan. South Block officials have hinted that it was for Pakistan to decide what kind of a relation it wanted with India.

 But perhaps the time has come when New Delhi would have to seek an answer to this fundamental question. Does it want war or peace with Pakistan?