The Hindu Business Line : Is India a soft state?

With three of the Pakistani perpetrators of the terrorist attacks under custody, New Delhi has an opportunity to expose Pakistan as the epicentre of global terrorism. India must make it clear to Pakistan that supporting jihadi terrorist outfits will have its consequences, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

The carnage in Mumbai in the wake of the latest terrorist outrage inevitably raises the query, yet again, about whether India is a “soft state”. Terrorist attacks are not new to Mumbai and its law and order machinery, starting with the bombings of 1993, masterminded by Dawood Ibrahim and his ISI sponsors. Yet the trial process of those accused of this heinous crime still drags on and the mastermind lives in comfort in a spacious villa in Karachi, travelling aro und the world on Pakistani passports.

With three of the Pakistani perpetrators of the recent terrorist attack under custody, there is going to be no difficulty in establishing the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, now functioning under the name of Jamat-ud-Dawa, in the terrorist attack. Its leader Hafiz Mohammed Saeed had openly boasted of how he organised the attack on the Red Fort in January 2001.

Yet, instead of taking note of his actions, the NDA Government chose to invite Pakistan’s then “Chief Executive”, Gen Pervez Musharraf, for a Summit meeting in Agra a few months later — an event that preceded the attack on our Parliament by yet another Pakistani group, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, in December 2001.

International significance

The Mumbai terrorist attack has particular international significance because the Pakistan-based terrorists not only targeted Indian nationals but also the nationals of the United States, United Kingdom and Israel. Hafiz Saeed has often come out with proclamations that “Christians, Jews and Hindus are enemies of Islam”.

After boasting that his followers had hoisted the flag of Islam in the historic Red Fort in Delhi in January 2001, Saeed proclaimed that he would ensure that the green flag of Islam would fly over New Delhi, Washington and Jerusalem. He has claimed Pakistani sovereignty, not only over Kashmir but also in “Hyderabad Deccan” and Junagadh in Gujarat and vowed to “liberate” the Muslims of India. Hence, he has chosen to name the new front for the Lashkar as “Deccan Mujahideen”.

New Delhi now has an opportunity to expose Pakistan as being the epicentre of global terrorism to the international community. One can be reasonably sure that any discussions with Pakistan’s ISI chief will produce nothing more than bland denials or promises to investigate and stall. Media coverage of the entire outrage across the world has focused attention on how foreign tourists have been systematically and meticulously targeted.

The targeting of the Jewish Centre in Mumbai is going to enrage public opinion in Israel, which has many supporters in the US. But this effort has necessarily to be tempered with realism, particularly in countries such as the UK, which depend on the ISI for their presence in Afghanistan and to deal with terrorism perpetrated by Pakistani immigrants.

The US was undoubtedly helpful in exposing the ISI role in the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, but one wonders if an Obama Administration will extend the same measure of co-operation in addressing issues of terrorism directed against India. The Clinton Administration, after all, did precious little, despite the substantial evidence it had, of ISI involvement in the bomb blasts of 1993 in Mumbai.

In these circumstances, India has to use its own resources to make it clear to Pakistan that supporting jihadi terrorist outfits on its soil will have its consequences.

Complacency, corruption

While the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, spoke of the “external linkages” of those involved in the terrorist attack and warned that neighbouring countries who perpetrate such acts would have to bear the “costs”, he has left himself with hardly any leverage to inflict “costs” on Pakistan. He is, after all, on record as saying that the dialogue process with Pakistan was “irreversible” and even shed copious tears proclaiming that Pakistan, like India, was a “victim of terrorism”.

Moreover, during his entire tenure in office, the aggressive manner in which Pakistan’s links with terrorism directed against India used to be exposed in the past was discarded and senior Government mandarins even spoke of groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba being “freelance terrorists”.

Moreover, during the recent Home Secretaries level dialogue, the Pakistan side refused to acknowledge that Dawood Ibrahim lives in Pakistan and the role of the Mumbai Don in the recent attacks cannot be precluded.

The terrorist carnage in Mumbai has exposed deficiencies in both the Coast Guard and Customs, whose officials need to be hauled up for inefficiency and worse. While it is all too easy to blame the intelligence agencies, the fact remains that their efficiency has been impaired by political interference or inaction.

It is no secret that the Intelligence Bureau spends a huge amount of resources collecting information on Opposition parties and leaders to ingratiate its officers with the ruling dispensation. Every Government in India has misused the Intelligence Bureau for internal political snooping.

The R&AW, responsible for external intelligence, has been effectively defanged by successive Prime Ministers having illusions that they will go down in history and get a Nobel Prize for making friends with Pakistan.

The net result of entertaining such illusions and delusions of grandeur is that New Delhi’s covert capabilities to inflict “costs” on errant neighbours, through covert action, is virtually non-existent.

Finally, our ill-paid and ill-equipped police forces have inevitably been affected by the corruption, criminalisation and communalisation that have afflicted our body politic. We can act as successfully as the US and the UK in thwarting terrorist plots only when these issues are addressed.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.

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