The Hindu Business Line : Is India heading for a diplomatic quagmire on Mumbai carnage?

The forthcoming visit of the Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, to Washington, with evidence of Pakistani involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai carnage marks the end of the first phase of India’s efforts to seek international understanding and support to compel Pakistan to irrevocably dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism, which it has built to “bleed” India.

New Delhi’s position initially seemed to endorse President Zardari’s position that the terrorist attack was undertaken by “non-state actors”. There appeared to be a disinclination to make it clear that, given the sophisticated nature of the operation, it could not have been undertaken without training, arms, ammunition, grenades, navigational equipment and logistical facilities being provided by the Pakistan army and navy.

Such collaboration between the Pakistan army and navy would have required clearance at the highest levels of the armed forces. We should remember that in Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the Pakistan army has a leader who is pathologically anti-Indian.

Shortly after the terrorist attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul and virtually on the day that Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani arrived on an official visit in Washington, the CIA leaked the details of ISI involvement in the attack to the New York Times, indicating that such an attack could have been mounted only with clearance of not only the ISI Director-General, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, but also, evidently, of army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani.

It is, therefore, not clear why New Delhi chose to be so circumspect and not draw attention to the Pakistan army’s involvement in the Mumbai carnage.

Seeing New Delhi’s ambivalence on the involvement of the Pakistani armed forces, the Americans and others have tacitly sought to absolve the Pakistani armed forces of any involvement.

If such involvement is established in the killing of American nationals, they would have been forced to act against the ISI, causing huge embarrassment to the relationship with a “major non-NATO ally”, whose assistance they require in their “war on terror”.

The US had substantial information of ISI involvement in the Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993, but the Clinton Administration chose not to act on it.

Similarly, there was no dearth of evidence on the involvement of the Pakistan armed forces in the proliferation of nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But the Bush Administration has accepted the Musharraf Government’s assertion that the entire proliferation was the work of Dr A. Q. Khan and a so-called “A. Q. Khan network”.

Strategic denial

The Pakistan army appears determined to persist with its policy of “strategic denial and defiance” in dealing with its culpability in the Mumbai carnage. But it does appear to have a “fallback position”.

If international pressure becomes stronger, the army appears prepared to allow the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Communications Chief, Zarar Shah, to take the rap. It would, however, not allow the LeT chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed to face trial, despite the fact that by his many utterances of his involvement in terrorist attacks in India, including the January 2001 attack on the Red Fort, Saeed is a self-confessed terrorist.

Zarar Shah is known to play an important role in coordination and liaison between the ISI and the LeT. A quiet “deal” would be struck with Zarar Shah involving a “confession” of his sins, a la A. Q. Khan, in return for a farcical and prolonged “trial” and eventual acquittal, once memory of the Mumbai carnage fades from international attention. Sadly, Pakistan’s judiciary lacks credibility. It has, after all, regularly endorsed takeovers by military dictators.

New Delhi should not overlook these realities. While there are said to be transcripts of conversations between serving and former ISI officers on the Mumbai carnage, India will now have to insist that, as in the attack on our Embassy in Kabul, the Mumbai outrage could not have taken place without the approval of Gen Kiyani.

Tough talk with the US

The US should be told that there should be no cover up, as in the past, on Pakistan army and ISI culpability. Pakistan will insist on legal proceedings, if any, being in Pakistani courts. India, however, cannot ignore how Omar Syed Sheikh, released during the Kandahar hijacking, was convicted of killing American journalist Daniel Pearl by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan and sentenced to death, but still remains a free man, in an evident conspiracy of silence between the US and Pakistan.

India should insist that if Pakistan refuses to hand over those guilty, including military officials past and present, to India, these individuals should be extradited to the US and tried according to US judicial processes, much in the way Pakistani terrorist Aimal Kansai was extradited, tried and executed in the US.

At the same time, there is a wide range of actions — diplomatic, overt and covert — that India will have to take, if it wants to be taken seriously and not regarded as a supplicant. First, our High Commissioner to Pakistan should be recalled and the staff in High Commissions reduced to a minimal level.

The argument that the High Commissioner has useful contacts has little merit as contacts can be maintained, when needed, through other channels.

Second, we should quickly work out measures to ensure that the waters of the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, meant for exclusively by India, are used in India and do not flow into Pakistan. Cultural and sports contacts need to be restricted to events to which we are internationally committed.

Covert action

Strategically, the Americans and others should be made aware that we may be compelled to take measures that would result in Pakistan moving its forces away from its borders with Afghanistan, unless our concerns are seriously addressed.

Finally, we have to send a clear message that we are not insensitive to Afghan and Pashtun aspirations on the Durand Line, which in any case now exists only notionally.

All this has to be supplemented by wide-ranging and sustained covert action. Over the last decade, successive Governments in New Delhi have been guilty of undermining the country’s covert capabilities, in an unrealistic quest for a mythical “shared destiny” with Pakistan.

By stating that any future terrorist attack would have unimaginable consequences, New Delhi already appears to be suggesting that we would be prepared to “forget and forgive” in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage. The message instead should be that we will neither forget nor forgive.

There also appear to be some illusions about China’s role. We should never forget that if China had not blocked moves in the UN Security Council in 2006 and 2007 to declare the Jamat-ud-Dawa as an international terrorist organisation, which would have subjected it to international sanctions, the Mumbai carnage may not have occurred. China is thus an accessory to the Mumbai carnage.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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