Author: Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: January 3, 2009
India must take the lead in its own defence
if Dr Manmohan Singh expects the international community to pressure Pakistan
to respect the United Nations security council resolutions on terrorism. That
means less talk and more action.
Though Mr Rajnath Singh's suggestion of `joint
military action' with the United States against Pakistan is unrealistic the
Americans will never attack their most trusted ally in this part of the world
the Bharatiya Janata Party president is certainly justified in demanding far
stronger Indian action to eliminate persistent threats to this country's security
and stability.
But direct strikes against the terrorists
(as in Afghanistan) are not the answer for that would precipitate all-out
war between two nuclear-armed neighbours and destroy both countries. Instead,
India must take such political and economic steps that Islamabad is forced
in its own interest to root out the `non-state actors' (Mr Asif Ali Zardari's
term) whom Mr Pranab Mukherjee calls `elements in Pakistan'. It must do so
through coercive pressure that stops short of outright hostilities, and which
also do not affect the wellbeing of Indian Muslims who may already feel imperilled
by the hysteria of some of our popular television anchors.
Far from being only the medium, TV is the
overwhelming message that shapes the thinking of millions of viewers who have
little time for the printed word. It can be misleading and mischievous. Commentators
gloated, for instance, that China had slapped down Pakistan when China had
slapped down India by equating the burgled with the burglar, a tactic the
Americans also favour.. Again, when the screen showed the statement by Mr
Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader, threatening to send `thousands
of well-armed militants' to fight India, the commentator turned it into `thousands
of wellarmed terrorists'. Television is the national circus, sacrificing accuracy
and objectivity for effervescent entertainment.
Foreigners see the media as the disguised
voice of official India and lost much of their respect for our radio and newspapers
-TV was not a factor then in the run-up to the Bangladesh war because of glowing
daily reports of the Mukti Bahini's glorious victories, territorial gains
and destruction of Pakistani men and arms. The fiction of Mujibnagar capped
these fairy tales. Though fully behind India and Bangladesh's liberation,
the world's media ridiculed the hyperbole that reduced a good cause to exuberant
jingoism. It wasn't only that patriotism ran away with professionalism. Authority
called the tune, and I remember a briefing when the army spokesman want ed
the same incident presented differently in Indian and foreign newspapers.
India must not again compromise a sound case with propaganda overkill. Of
course, we are not alone in weaving tales. The late J.N Dixit dismissed as
`utter poppycock' American claims of averting an India-Pakistan war in 1990.
Mr Richard Haass, who accompanied Mr Robert Gates to India in a special White
House plane that the senior President George Bush sent to fetch him from Moscow,
told me the subcontinent's intensely menacing atmosphere reminded him of Barbara
Tuchman's evocative recreation of the eve of World War I in The Guns of August.
One day, Ms Condoleezza Rice might also describe to another journalist how
she rushed to Delhi in December 2008 to prevent India invading Pakistan. It
would be a great feather in President George W. Bush's cap to boast that in
the closing hours of an inglorious presidency he trumped Dad's achievement
and dragged two nuclear powers back from the brink of Armageddon.
American commitment to Pakistan goes back
to even before the British left the subcontinent and will not change unless
there is a cataclysm such as turned Washington against its other protege,
Iran. As for Chinese support, the more India grows, the greater will be China's
need for a Trojan Horse in the subcontinent. These are the facts of life in
a tough neighbourhood where the mix of hot air and inaction can only encourage
Pakistanis to call India's bluff by mounting more guerrilla attacks.
History repeats itself. General Pervez Musharraf's
Operation Badr replicated Ayub Khan's Operation Gibraltar, which had much
in common with the 1947 invasion of Kashmir. Both Operations Gibraltar and
Badr were drawn up many years before they were launched, showing a continuity
in Pakistani thinking and planning even while signing water-sharing treaties,
shaking hands in Shimla, operating the Samjhauta Express, wielding the willow
or engaging in `composite' dialogues. There is no need for Indians to worry
about endangering Pakistan's nascent democracy because there is no divergence
between military and civilian authorities when it comes to India.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto often quoted Palmerston's
famous dictum about countries not having eternal allies or perpetual enemies
but only eternal and perpetual interests. We know what those interests are.
Pakistan feels it was cheated at partition of territorial, riverine, military
and financial assets, seeks to avenge Bangladesh, regain Siachen, and, above
all, acquire the missing `k' in its name. What is not mentioned is that a
politically stable, economically successful, secular democracy next door with
160 million Muslims whose leaders are confident enough like Mr A.R. Antulay
to express unpopular opinions, challenges the basic premise of the `Islami
Jamhuria-ePakistan'.
Since this minority could be India's invaluable
ballast for secular stability, it is worrying that some Congress and Rashtriya
Janata Dal legislators calculated that rallying to Mr Antulay would appeal
to Muslim voters. Across the communal divide, Hindu bigots do not understand
that either India lives in multicultural harmony or doesn't live at all. There
can be no `final solution' for the world's second or third largest Muslim
community: it cannot be forcibly converted or driven into the Arabian Sea.
The danger of irresponsible comments like Mr Antulay's is not Pakistani exploitation
(that propaganda war needs no excuse) but that they play to the domestic Islamist
gallery and ensure a Hindu backlash. It was heartening, therefore, when 6,000
ulema from all over the country condemned Islamist terrorism in Hyderabad.
That, like the denunciations of many ordinary as well as stellar Muslims,
should pacify Hindus who see Indian Muslims as a fifth column.
This is no time for divided loyalties or political
posturing. Only a united India can respond to Pakistan with the vigour that
should have been evident right at the start. Cancelling a cricket tour is
neither here nor there unless it is part of an overall boycott. There can
be no meaningful composite dialogue with people who are trying to destroy
India; a joint terror mechanism perpetuates the pretence that Pakistan, too,
is a victim of terrorism.. Its murderous internal politics which killed Benazir
Bhutto is not the same as the Islamist terrorism that attacked Mumbai.
All governments know how far they can go with
Taiwan or Tibet without provoking immediate Chinese retaliation. India would
be accorded the same deference if it demonstrates its seriousness by drastically
limiting ties with Pakistan, restricting trade and travel, implementing economic
sanctions and urging friends in the international community to do the same
or be exposed as abetting terrorism.
Israel shows there cannot be any half-measures
when it comes to security. India must take the lead in its own defence if
Dr Manmohan Singh expects the international community to pressure Pakistan
to respect the United Nations security council resolutions on terrorism. That
means less talk and more action.
