Raise The Costs High For Pakistan's Terrorist War

By Sumer Kaul

It looks like a re-run of an old movie. The Prime Minister, as is his wont, suddenly waves an olive branch at Pakistan, Pakistan calls it a positive development, we call Pakistan's reaction a positive development and, across the seas, Washington and London see all this as a positive development and, lo and behold, there is an overnight change in the atmospherics and a palpable sense of optimism in the corridors of power in Delhi.

Taking a cue from this, certain pompous editorialists and commentators are building their usual castles in the musty air of their ivory towers, industrial and trade circles are happily speculating on what all they can cheaply import from and profitably export to Pakistan, and the big chiefs of the mercenary-minded cricket board are smacking their lips at the mega-bucks they will make from the anticipated resumption of India-Pakistan matches.

I find it difficult to share the optimism. After all, we have been here before, haven't we? The French call it deja vu, a feeling of something tediously familiar. Forget Tashkent and never mind even Simla, we have the all-too-recent testimonies of Wagah and Agra to the likely fate of such unilateral spasms of statesmanship.

So what is behind Mr Vajpayee's latest Noble-minded initiative? (The capital N and phonetic pun are not unintended). He says this his third (and "the last in my lifetime") attempt at sub-continental reconciliation is dictated by the transformed world situation post-Iraq, that all developing countries must wake up to the new threat, and that India and Pakistan in particular need to hear the "khatre ki ghanti", forget past acrimonies, enter into an honest dialogue and bury the hatchet, and presumably do so before the global hatchetmen conjure up some pretext or other and bury us both, a la Iraq.

Satya Vachan (as they say in those TV mythologicals), for there is no knowing what sinister designs the global overlords have up their sleeves. In fact, the prospect of a more muscled Anglo-American interest in the subcontinent came ominously to the fore even as their war machines were still pounding Iraq. The communique after the Bush-Blair summit clearly mentioned their intention to turn their attention to the India-Pakistan "flash-point". The series of meetings, already held or planned between American functionaries and their Indian and Pakistani counterparts underline the US-UK resolve to step in.

One wouldn't necessarily view this as a calamity if only the Anglo-American motivations were above-board and altruistic. But this has never been the case and if there were any doubts on this score they stand demolished in the light of their now openly proclaimed policy of undertaking invasive intervention wherever they fancy. It is perhaps in this light that some commentators see Mr Vajpayee's peace overture to Pakistan as a master stroke of pre-emptive diplomacy.

But is it really that? Given New Delhi's 'ji hazoori' to Washington on all matters and especially in regard to our actions and non-actions on Kashmir vis-a-vis Pakistan's jehadi terror, one tends to suspect that India's peace offer has been blueprinted elsewhere. In fact, considering that both India and Pakistan have virtually ceded the captaincy of their policies as well as the umpiring to the U.S., there may well be some kind of 'match fixing' going on here.

I hope I am wrong. I hope our leaders have at last woken up to the dangers of letting the Americans take 'interest' in our affairs. In other words, I hope Mr Vajpayee's olive branch is homegrown and that he will prove third time successful in reversing the half-century-long tide of India-Pakistan hostility. But having said that I cannot help the feeling that this is hoping against hope.

Resuming full diplomatic ties and overflights and train and bus services is all very well. So is the desire to establish full and open trade and sporting links and other people-to-people exchanges. But let us face it: while it would be desirable to do all this, the absence of such relations is not the cause but the result of our troubles with Pakistan.

In the ultimate analysis these troubles are traceable to the infirmities of Pakistan's foundational ethos, infirmities which its successive rulers, instead of correcting, have further perverted. Simply because Kashmir is a Muslim majority area Pakistan wants it (or rather that part which it failed to seize in 1947-48). That this two-nation obsession brazenly ignores the fact that historically and legally the state is an integral part of India and that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan is obviously of no import to the jackboot-jehadi regime ruling the roost in that country. In fact, this rabid and powerful combine has developed a deep vested interest in keeping the issue boiling and bleeding.

This situation is not going to change because of any emotional rhetoric for peace and friendship from India. As I see it there are only two ways in which it can change. One is if the United States decides to bring about a "regime change" in Islamabad. But given the original divide-and-rule imperialist mischief and the long-standing and still largely unchanged Anglo-American tilt towards the inherently more malleable Pakistan, I don't see them doing an Iraq in Pakistan, at least not in the immediate future.

The other way is for India to go all out to defeat Pakistan's bloody game without further delay or dither. Periodic diplomatic dramabazi just won't do. We must hit back with all means at our command. This should entail not only a ruthless operation against the terrorists and their local agents in Kashmir but paying back in kind their masters and mentors in their own country. We must raise the costs of Pakistan's terrorist war so high for them that the people of Pakistan feel impelled to oust the military-mullah dispensation, and thereby join the people of India to establish peace and harmony in our subcontinent.

The author is a veteran Journalists, based in Delhi.