July 11, 2006, witnessed one of the worst
disasters which the city of Mumbai has seen. In a
series of explosions nearly 200 precious,
innocents lives were lost in the senseless act of
terror. This is the third major terrorist attack
on this metropolis known for a modern and
progressive profile. The first such attack was in
the aftermath of Mumbai riots in which nearly
thousand innocent lives were lost, majority of
them Muslim. In the wake of Gujarat carnage four
blasts shook the city and took the toll of
several lives. This, latest one is again severe
in its extent and various theses are going on
about whodunit? The 1993 blasts were masterminded
by the underworld in collaboration with local
elements that were deeply hurt and mauled by the
anti Muslim nature of the violence led by Shiva
Sena and assisted by the local administration.
While the accused of the blasts are rotting in
jails for over a decade awaiting the judgment,
those named in Shrikrishna report have neither
been convicted nor are in jails. As a matter of
fact several of them were promoted in status,
like Bala Saheb Thackeray promoted himself to
Hindu Hridaya Samrat (Emperor of Hindu hearts)
and the R.D. Tyagi the one who led the killings
of several Muslims in the Suleiman Bakery was
promoted a few notches up.
The responsibility of post 2002 Gujarat genocide
was taken by a group, Gujarat Muslim Revenge
group, which came into being after the Gujarat
genocide led by Modi. Incidentally here also
while the blast accused are behind the bars, Modi
has had a promotion to the much exalted status of
Hindu Hriday Samrat II, with Mumbai's Balasaheb
having the distinction of being the first one to
assume this throne. Here again as the state
itself was actively involved in the carnage, many
a state officials have moved upwards like P.C.
Pandey who was ‘good' enough to act as per Modi's
bidding. In the present one various theories are
floating, but nothing definitive has emerged, as
only a non descript terrorist group has taken the
responsibility of the same. While the major one's
like Al Qaeda has expressed happiness over the
tragedy without owning it, and some of them have
expressed sorrow over the incident. The other
suspect SIMI, the outlawed right wing Islamic
students group has not issued any statement so
far.
Before trying to understand the direction of
needle of suspicion, it will be imperative to see
the state of affairs in Gujarat after the carnage
and also what has been happening here. After the
carnage, Gujarat Muslims have been ghettoized to
the worst possible level and the division in the
society along communal lines has reached
unimaginable proportions, where the prefix of
Hindu and Muslim has to accompany before every
persons name. The isolation and boycott of
Muslims in social life is intense, the guilty of
the carnage are roaming freely and even adequate
and just compensation has not been paid to the
victims. In Maharashtra, in a interior remote
place called Nanded, two Bajrang dal activists
were killed while making an explosive device and
the diary with the bomb making tips was found on
the location along with the artificial moustache
and beard. The place belonged to an RSS
sympathizer and saffron flag adorned the top of
the house. After this, huge piles of explosives
were detected in the nearby places and later
three alleged terrorists were killed by the
police in an encounter near the RSS head office
in Nagpur. An investigation team under the
chairmanship of a retired Judge of Mumbai High
Court went into the matter facing the full
hostility from the police, and came out with a
report which pointed out several holes in the
police version of the encounter. There was no eye
witness to the act of police. As usual the
necessary diary with the names and addresses of
the ‘terrorists' was found on the bodies of slain
terrorist to ease the work of the police to
identify the links of the terrorists. Lately, in
Bhivandi, in the scuffle between police and local
Muslim groups, who were opposing the police move
to build a police station near or on the land of
graveyard, led to the killing of two policemen
and few Muslims. Shiv Sena was hyperactive in
taking the cudgels against the Muslim leadership.
Close on the heels of it, the Shiv Sainiks all
over Maharashtra burnt buses and indulged in
hooliganism, after the defilement of the statue
of the wife of their supremo, Balsaheb Thackeray.
To build a conclusion from these antecedents is
very difficult. For the investigating authorities
all angels are important but the one related to
Nanded blasts by RSS affiliates has been put
under the carpet. While the civic society and
social groups rose to the occasion to lend a
helping hand to the victims of violence, by
offering prayers for peace and the Muslim
leadership went overboard to condemn the blasts.
One can understand the hyper response of Muslim
political and religious leadership in condemning
this and meeting the state authorities to urge
upon them not to harass the innocent Muslim youth
as is the wont of the police for whom Muslim
youth are equal to criminals and terrorists, and
so no proof is needed to put them behind the
bars. Incidentally it also comes as an easy
option to prove that police are working.
For BJP this occasion is serving multiple
purposes. On one hand it has got the opportunity
to come out from the oblivion. This tragedy is
being seen as an opportunity and the rallies are
being organized against the terrorism. Who are
they opposing, a faceless enemy, and an insane
organization, which is already illegal. At such
times the only possible message comes from a
white ribbon or a rose. Also its accusation that
lifting of POTA and soft policies of the UPA are
responsible for the acts of terrorists hold no
water as the nation has seen that the terror acts
were no lesser when POTA was operative and when
the NDA was ruling.
The reasons for such acts of terror are multiple.
One can not be superficial to think that these
are due to teachings of Islam and due to Muslims.
This is what is being strengthened in the popular
psyche by a section of media and the right
wingers. There are people belonging to different
religions operating on the terrain of terror,
ULFA, Irish Republican Army, LTTE and too far
back in time, the Khalistanis. As far as Muslims
are concerned three major causes of terror
involving them can be specifically pin pointed.
One is the politics of control over oil wells, in
pursuit of which the outfits like Al Qaeda were
floated through the U.S.'s CIA. Even if this
ghastly organization has outlived its original
purpose of throwing out such Soviet armies from
Afghanistan, such terror outfits are like
cancerous growths, which begin from a irritating
point and than even if the original purpose is no
more in existence they perpetuate themselves in
an uncontrolled way like a cancer. In this case
the ideological indoctrination of a political
need of U.S. in the language of Islam, i.e. Al
Qaeda to fight against Soviet armies, has done
immense harm to the Muslims all over the world.
The second one relates to the unresolved Kashmir
issue, which superficially sounds to be the
problem between Pakistan and India, or the one of
Muslim separatism, but surely Pakistan itself has
been small puppet in the hands of imperialists is
forgotten most of the times. Many an institutions
in Pakistan are supra government. So this should
not come in the way of peace process. The third
one can be divided into two parts, one is the
insane thinking of a section of Muslims for
taking the revenge of anti Muslim carnage in
Mumbai and Gujarat. The two previous blasts in
Mumbai showed in a clear-cut manner correlations
to these episodes of violence. In the current one
the additional aspect of Nanded blasts and their
implications have to be thought of, more so in
the light of the fact that Mumbai blasts did not
use the dreaded RDX.
All said and done, at all times, one simple rule
of punish the guilty and protect the innocent has
to be the norm of state authorities. And revenge
has no place in the democratic polity, so the
upholders of Newton's action reaction have to be
outlawed in moral and legal arena. The mandatory
state behavior of implicating Muslim youth in
these acts and making them suffer the long
ordeals till the judgments comes is too harsh a
punishment for belonging to a particular
religion. The demonization of Muslims will be
taken a few steps further by the some political
streams and a section of media. These terrorists
are the worst enemies of Islam and Muslims in
general. While a section of RSS sympathizers
argue that all Muslims are suspect as they give
shelter to these terrorists, one has to recall
that in Punjab, the average Sikh was not giving
shelter to Sikh terrorists due to religious
sameness but due to the threat of bullet piercing
one's chest. While saluting the civic society for
its magnanimity in handling the post terror
situation with grace, one hopes that political
elements also wake up to the fact that demonizing
the Muslims due to this will be against the
teachings of saint tradition of Hinduism.
The Indian Army has rejected an upgraded prototype of the Russian-made
Shilka air defense system, asking the government to immediately buy a
replacement instead.
Two Shilka air defense systems were upgraded for the Army by Bharat
Electronics Ltd. (BEL) in collaboration with Israel Aircraft Industries
(IAI). The effort was part of a $104 million, 48-system contract intended
to overhaul the systems; extend their life by 15 years; and install
solid-state radar and computers, electro-optical fire-control systems and
new engines.
IAI is helping with the technology and system integration.
Official: Not Up to Army’s Standards
The Army rejected the prototypes because they were innacurate and had
insufficient range, a senior Army official said.
He would not say whether the Shilka met other requirements — such as
resisting electronic jamming, detecting targets out to 15 kilometers, and
operating in deserts and other harsh environments, where temperatures
range
from 35 degrees Celsius down to minus 40 degrees.
Acceptable upgrades could take several years, the Army official said,
during which the service’s combat capability would suffer.
A BEL executive said there were no technical problems with the Shilka air
defense system.
India’s Army operates about 150 Shilka air defense systems, purchased
three
decades ago from the former Soviet Union.
The Shilka has four 23mm automatic cannons that can acquire and track
target aircraft up to 2,500 meters away, and fire while moving.
The Army operates a variety of other air defense systems, mostly of Soviet
origin. These include the Kvadrat, Osaka, Strela-1, Pechora and Shilka
surface-to-air missile systems, and Tanguska self-propelled anti-aircraft
gun.
India has stepped up security at its nuclear installations fearing an
attack by a Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the
defense minister told parliament on July 31.
Pranab Mukherjee said a series of "special security measures" had been
taken and more were under consideration as officials took the possibility
of an attack "very seriously."
"The information that is available with the security agencies is that LeT
modules are planning on carrying out some strikes against critical
infrastructure items, military targets and religious places," the minister
said.
"Regarding items of critical infrastructure, reports indicate a
possibility
of nuclear installations being considered," he said. India has 15
operating
nuclear power plants.
Lashkar has long been active in Indian Kashmir, where more than 45,000
people have been killed in an anti-India insurgency since 1989. But the
group has also been blamed for attacks in other parts of India.
Security agencies say the recent Mumbai bombings, where 186 people were
killed in a series of blasts on commuter trains and platforms, were
carried
out by local Muslims who may have had links with Lashkar.
Lashkar has denied a role in the blasts.
Mukherjee said the group was becoming more active and was being
"continuously and carefully monitored".
Nuclear terrorism is perhaps the most important threat the world faces
today. Few countries carry greater risks of allowing terrorists to get
their hands on illicit nuclear materials than India and Pakistan,
notwithstanding the safety records of these south Asian nuclear powers.
Pakistan’s case is particularly troubling.
In a poor country of 166m, there is not enough money to build schools for
educating Pakistan’s largely illiterate population or feeding its
undernourished children. But there is enough, it seems, to build a modern
plutonium reactor that will churn out 15 to 20 times more plutonium for
bomb-making than the country can ever use.
The danger for the rest of the world lies in radical Islamists – of which
there are many in Pakistan – getting hold of a growing and readily
available source of radioactive materials that can be easily transported
and shaped into less detectable, miniaturised configurations. To maintain
Pakistan’s support in its war on terror, the Bush administration has
looked
the other way while this dangerous nuclear development took place. That
its
man in Islamabad, Pervez Musharraf, was an assassin’s bullet away from
handing Pakistan’s future to the very radicals the US is trying to
eradicate does not seem to have mattered much in Washington.
Satellite photos show that a new 1,000 megawatt plutonium reactor is being
built adjacent to the existing 50 megawatt Khushab district reactor that
will produce enough plutonium (about 200kg) for 40-45 weapons per year, or
about 15 to 20 times what is produced today. Construction on the reactor
appears to have begun in 2000. It is still a few years from completion,
hindered by the dismantling of the illicit black-market nuclear network
run
by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s atomic father, several years ago.
The drive for nuclear cores that can be more easily fashioned into complex
warhead designs may be Pakistan’s overarching military objective, but it
brings with it a plethora of dangerous scenarios that brittle governments,
such as Gen Musharraf’s, are ill-equipped to handle. The most troubling is
one in which Islamabad’s political manoeuvring to keep its neighbour,
Afghanistan, in check by supporting a resurgent Taliban spirals out of its
control. Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Taliban commander Jalaluddin
Haqqani and others who hopscotch across the Afghan-Pakistan border are as
capable of transporting processed plutonium into the wrong hands as they
are of running guns and heroin.
Pakistan has successfully walked the anti-terror tightrope since September
11 2001 because Gen Musharraf has sought to be all things to all people.
But what if he is gone tomorrow? Who insures the world against Islamists
wresting control of a nuclear programme that is populated with some of the
brightest, most radicalised minds in the Muslim world who still deeply
resent the US dethroning of A.Q. Khan?
The new reactor also raises serious questions about the underlying
motivations of the US-India civilian nuclear arms pact – passed by the US
House of Representatives last week – that will bring American nuclear
technology to India’s atomic power industry. Improving India’s civilian
nuclear safety standards and transparency of operations is a laudable goal
in providing for that country’s energy needs and renovating its decrepit
reactors. But if Washington thinks giving India nuclear technology is
appropriate compensation for looking the other way while Islamabad builds
its mega-plutonium plant – enabling India to build 40-50 nuclear weapons a
year to match Pakistan – it risks dangerously escalating a regional arms
race and destroying economic growth in the process.
If his army hawks insist on finishing Khushab II, Gen Musharraf can at
least ensure that it starts up operations with full international
safeguards in place that match those agreed to by New Delhi under the
US-India nuclear pact. These include inspections that ensure fissile
materials are safeguarded and accounted for at all times. He can change
the
dynamics of south Asia’s arms race by championing a new fissile materials
cut-off treaty – forbidding the production of weapons-grade uranium and
plutonium – and prodding George W.?Bush and Manmohan Singh, India’s prime
minister, to do the same.
Pakistan’s erroneous decision to build Khushab II – and the US plan to
fuel
India’s nuclear power plants as a counterbalance – should not be permitted
to put the rest of the world at risk at the hands of extremists.
A Bush administration plan to sell as many as 36 Lockheed Martin Corp.
F-16
jets and other equipment to Pakistan, the largest U.S. arms sale to the
South Asian country, has emerged unscathed from a congressional review
period.
The close of business yesterday was the deadline for the Congress to block
to the $5 billion sale, which also would benefit Raytheon Co., Boeing Co..
and Northrop Grumman Corp. Without a two-thirds vote in both the House and
Senate to kill the sale, it is automatically approved under the laws
governing international arms sales.
Although two Democratic House lawmakers introduced legislation in the last
two weeks to block the sale, neither measure has garnered much support.
Those advocating armed attacks on Pakistan in
response to the Mumbai bombings wish to emulate
Israel's aggression. That is the worst model
India could follow.
A crass and hysterical nationalism is taking hold
among a section of the Indian middle class in
response to the Mumbai blasts. This nationalism
is paranoid. It considers India uniquely
vulnerable to terrorism because its state is
exceptionally soft, pusillanimous and "cowardly".
At the same time, it wants a militant response -
armed attacks on Pakistan. Its votaries say it is
not enough just to suspend India-Pakistan talks;
India must teach Pakistan "a lesson". Some
advocates of this view have strong sympathies for
Hindutva and harp on the "timidity of Hindus", a
phrase the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)
fondly uses to explain why India has been
repeatedly subjugated by "aggressors". But even
if the communal element is excised from this
view, its essential content remains unaltered. It
advocates a particular model unfolding before our
eyes - namely, Israel's aggression in Gaza and
Lebanon, after the arrest of one-third of the
Palestinian Authority's Cabinet. India would be
"effete", unlike Israel, if it fails to respond
to threats to its security with all-out punitive
attacks.
This view was encouraged by the state's confused
initial response to the Mumbai blasts. Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's address to the nation
did not reflect the gravity of the destruction in
Mumbai, which is of the same order as Madrid
2004, the world's worst recent terrorist
incident, next only to 9/11. In a recent
English-language television programme in which I
participated, the anchor asked whether India
should follow Israel's example. While the
participants argued against this on differing
grounds, 94 per cent of the audience agreed with
the proposition through email and SMS responses.
In keeping with such extreme opinions, the
government hardened its stand and cancelled the
Foreign Secretary-level meeting, issued
belligerent statements, rounded up hundreds of
Muslims, and mindlessly banned access to blogs on
the Internet.
It is of vital importance that we view the Mumbai
blasts in perspective and formulate a rational
response that defends the interests and security
of the Indian people. To start with, it is not at
all clear that the attacks exposed India's
"exceptional" vulnerability. A similar attack
could well have occurred on suburban trains in
Paris, New York, Moscow or London and produced
similar damage. True, the Mumbai suburban rail
system is even more crowded than the New York
subway. But it is nearly impossible to prevent
such attacks altogether. Beyond a point, no state
can anticipate such events, screen passengers,
check all unattended baggage, and so on. The very
pace of metropolitan life makes such checks
impracticable.
India lags behind in quickness of response, in
sounding warnings and providing emergency
services. We have failed to create the
infrastructure necessary to deal with mishaps
such as train coaches falling on tracks, which
need to be quickly cleared, and so on. There is a
strong case for installing inexpensive
closed-circuit television cameras at important
transport hubs. But this is not a watertight
guarantee that terrorist attacks will never
occur. No state, however powerful, especially a
democratic one, can provide 100 per cent security
or guarantee absence of violence. It can take
precautionary measures, be more vigilant, and
improve police efficiency and procedures. That is
where India fails badly.
Secondly, the response of the Mumbai and railway
police was tardy and meagre. Citizens themselves
had to rush victims to hospitals and arrange for
blood much before the state acted. There was
public anger that the state was not doing enough
or being responsive. This grievance is legitimate.
However, a rational long-term response to
terrorist violence can only be based on
systematic investigation to establish the
identity of the culprits, their motives, and
their internal and external links. Only thus can
a responsible government conclude that the
terrorists received encouragement or help from
abroad - in the present case, Pakistan. But
senior officials, including National Security
Adviser M.K. Narayanan, rushed to judgment and
selectively briefed the media alleging that the
Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Students Islamic Movement of
India and other organisations allegedly supported
by Pakistani clandestine agencies were involved.
Most national newspapers duly echoed such views
based upon mere guesswork and speculation.
The assessment that Pakistan was behind the
Mumbai attacks is open to doubt on two grounds.
In the past too, similar allegations were made.
Yet, in no major case have the culprits' identity
or links with Pakistan been fully established and
convictions secured (an exception being the
Parliament building attack case, now under
appeal). Accusations about their links with
"sleeper cells", or agencies operating through
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal remain unsupported
under Indian laws of evidence.
The second reason pertains to recent developments
in Pakistan and in India-Pakistan relations.
General Musharraf is under tremendous pressure
from the U.S., other Western powers and China to
demonstrate that he will take on jehadi groups
and comply with the anti-terrorist commitments he
made in 2004. It is hard to believe, at this
point in the evolution of the India-Pakistan
dialogue, that it makes sense for Pakistani
agencies to risk wrecking the dialogue process by
encouraging or instigating gross violence such as
the Mumbai bombings.
It is possible that some "rogue elements" of the
Inter-Services Intelligence could have done this.
But the central issue is Manmohan Singh's
assessment that the sheer scale of the attack
points to external involvement. Any number of
Indian groups with no live contact with foreign
agencies is capable of getting hold of explosives
and planting them. Such groups learn by watching
others in different parts of the world. Enough
hatreds and injustices exist in Indian society,
which can explain the kind of ideological
pathologies that encourage them to visit violence
on innocent civilians. It is a terrible, very
sick, pathology. But such groups exist.
India has a huge amount to gain from the peace
process with Pakistan. It would be foolhardy to
make it a hostage to speculation about Pakistani
involvement in terrorist violence. In any
cultural, economic or social interaction, India
stands to gain more than Pakistan. Apart from
launching bus and train services, India has
received an assurance from Musharraf that the
Kashmir issue would be discussed on condition
that there can be no redrawing of boundaries. The
more we blame Pakistan, the more obsessively we
look for "the foreign hand", the farther we get
from the task of looking inwards, to examine what
is wrong with our police, intelligence agencies
and criminal justice system so that we can
address some of the cesspool of grievances in
which violence and extremist ideologies flourish.
The "hit-Pakistan-teach-Pakistan-a-lesson"
clamour is a complete negation of any reasonable,
balanced, mature and sober approach to the Mumbai
blasts - just as was the 10-month-long military
mobilisation after the Parliament building
attack, which achieved nothing. What gives the
demand a dangerous edge is the advocacy of
Israel-style militaristic approaches. Its
proponents admire Israel for unleashing high
levels of violence upon its adversaries when
threatened. But, to start with, Israel is not a
state that respects international law. It has the
longest history in the world of violation of
Security Council resolutions, such as 242 and
338, as well as the World Court judgment on the
apartheid wall. India cannot and should not
emulate it. This will encourage terrible
lawlessness and violence in our own neighbourhood.
Secondly, what Israel is now doing is illegal,
immoral and politically disastrous. The roots of
the current conflict go back to Israel's recent
liquidation of Abu Jamal Samhanada, newly
appointed security-chief of the Interior Ministry
of the Palestinian Authority. This was
calculated, as many past Israeli actions, to
provoke. It brought on retaliatory attacks from
pro-Hamas militants with crude home-made Qassam
rockets which inflicted minimal damage. In
response, Israel launched devastating attacks on
civilians, including a picnicking family of
eight. The ensuing violence eventually led to the
killing of two Israeli soldiers and the capture
of one.
Under international law, it is perfectly
legitimate for people under occupation to
militarily target occupying military personnel,
although not to abduct them. But Israel has
itself practised abduction and kidnappings and
made hostage-prisoner swaps, as in 1968, 1983,
1985 and 2004. In June, it took one-third of the
Palestinian Cabinet hostage. It escalated its
attack on Hamas with a view to destroying its
entire military infrastructure. Israeli troops
cut off Gaza's water and power supply and
inflicted collective punishment on civilians who
were in no way responsible for the earlier
attacks or abduction. Cutting off electricity
means cutting off refrigeration - and people's
food supplies.
Israel has since invaded Lebanon, in response to
a Hizbollah raid on its forces. One need not
justify Hizbollah's actions to note the sheer
disproportion of the violence Israel unleashed on
civilians. More than 380 were killed in 10 days.
The number of Israeli casualties is not even
one-tenth this number. Israel targeted civilian
installations in Beirut and devastated its
infrastructure. Israel hopes to weaken decisively
the Hizbollah militarily and further the
objective of establishing a Greater Israel, which
annexes large parts of the West Bank.
This objective can only be achieved if Israel
destroys all regional challenges and unilaterally
draws - for the first time ever - its national
boundaries after dividing up Palestinian
territory into a series of Bantustans through the
apartheid wall. To do this, it must claim that
there is no Palestinian agency with which it can
negotiate. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza even
while continuing with the colonisation of the
West Bank must be seen in this perspective. To
these ends, Israel has inflicted cruel forms of
collective punishment, as well as large-scale
violence, upon non-combatant civilians.
Collective punishment is impermissible under
international law, as are sieges of cities, which
starve them of food and water - the state of
Beirut today after 15 years of recovery and
revival as one of West Asia's liveliest cities.
Israel's unconscionable military offensive is an
act of international brigandage linked to
expansionism. Those who want India to emulate
Israel assign the most obnoxious motives and
purposes to our state. Obviously, they see
nothing wrong with expansionism, aggression,
occupation, disproportionate force,
hostage-taking and outright assassination of
suspects - actions that are punishable under
international law.
India is being asked to follow Israel's
bellicose, lawless and brigand-like conduct on
the presumption that "shock-and-awe" methods,
although excessive, disproportionate and immoral,
successfully deter future terrorist attacks.
However, this presumption has been repeatedly
falsified. Israel's coercion has failed to deter
adversaries or generate security for Israeli
citizens. In fact, the moral force of the first
Intifada derived from the determination that
Palestinian youth showed when fighting the mighty
Israeli military with nothing more than stones.
Israel is one of the world's most militarised
societies: more than 576,000 of its 6.5 million
people serve in its armed forces. The country
probably has the world's highest density of
surveillance equipment such as X-ray machines,
closed-circuit cameras and explosive detectors.
And yet, suicide-bombers infiltrate populated
high-security areas and kill. Such is the deep
sense of injustice, injury, insult and resentment
that Israel's excesses have created among its
neighbours; that its own citizens cannot remotely
hope to become secure in the absence of a just
settlement of the Palestinian question.
It should be demeaning for India even to think of
following a model based on devotion to violence
and cultivation of hatred and prejudice. It is a
sign of the moral and political degeneration of
the Indian elite that it has stooped to clamour
for attacks on Pakistan, without even
establishing its complicity in the Mumbai carnage.
It is incumbent upon all those who value sanity,
sobriety and principle in public life to counter
such crass and extreme militarist nationalism.
Such extremism is the stuff of fascism.
The Bush administration has decided to impose sanctions on two Indian
firms
for missile-related transactions with Iran, U.S. officials told Reuters on
July 27.
The disclosure came hours after the U.S. House of Representatives late
July
26 overwhelmingly agreed the United States should sell nuclear technology
to India and rejected a move by critics to delay the vote over concerns
New
Delhi had not sufficiently aided U.S. efforts to contain Iran.
Under terms of the U.S. Iran-Syria Non-proliferation Act, "we are going to
report to Congress about transactions by two private Indian companies with
Iran," one official said.
He and another official declined to identify the firms but one official
said the transfers involve "dual-use items related to missiles."
While the administration is mandated by law to report violations of the
act
to Congress every six months, sanctions are discretionary but "they won't
be waived" in these cases, the other official said.
The officials did not specify the exact sanctions to be imposed but in
previous cases, sanctioned companies were barred from receiving U.S.
government contracts, assistance or military trade as well as certain
controlled goods which have both civilian and military purposes.
Congressional critics had accused the administration of withholding any
conclusive word on possible sanctions until after the vote on the nuclear
deal, so the issue would not affect the vote.
The nuclear agreement is viewed as the cornerstone of an evolving new
strategic alliance between India and the United States, former Cold War
adversaries.
The administration has repeatedly defended India as having an excellent
record of protecting sensitive technology.
According to lawmakers, the United States since 2003 has filed at least
eight non-proliferation sanctions against at least seven Indian companies
or persons, including two sanctions in December 2005. The new sanctions
would add to that tally.
The U.S. House of Representatives gave overwhelming initial approval on
July 26 to a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation accord with India, an
important but far from final step in making the agreement a reality.
The approval vote was 359-68 after lawmakers rejected amendments that
aimed
to put limits on India's nuclear weapons program and were proposed by
critics concerned the deal would harm nonproliferation goals.
Lawmakers also rejected an effort to defer action until India did more to
back U.S. efforts to contain Iran.
The deal would allow nuclear-armed India to buy American nuclear reactors
and fuel for the first time in more than 30 years, despite the fact it has
still not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
It also requires the rising South Asian power to open civilian nuclear
facilities to international inspections, forgo future nuclear tests and
cooperate with the United States and other nations on halting the spread
of
nuclear exports.
"History will regard what we do today as a tidal shift in relations
between
India and the United States. This will be known as the day when Congress
signaled definitively the end of the Cold War paradigm governing
interactions between New Delhi and Washington," said Rep. Tom Lantos of
California, senior Democrat on the House International Relations
Committee.
The Senate must also approve the bill but a vote is not expected until
September. The House and Senate would vote again after U.S.-India
negotiations on the technical details of the agreement are completed.
India must also complete negotiations with the International Atomic Energy
Agency on a system of inspections for its civilian nuclear facilities and
the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group must change its regulations to allow
nuclear transfers to India.
Pouring 'Nuclear Fuel'
Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, head of a bipartisan
nonproliferation task force, lambasted the deal as pouring "nuclear fuel
on
the fire of an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race" because it would allow
New
Delhi to expand its nuclear weapons production to upward of 50 bombs a
year
from seven.
During several hours of debate, the House, led by President George W.
Bush's Republican Party, soundly rejected an amendment that would have
forced India to halt fissile material production as a condition of the
nuclear deal.
The House also rejected an amendment that would forbid India from
capitalizing on a new ability to buy U.S. nuclear fuel by diverting all
its
domestically produced uranium for weapons use. India now uses half of its
domestic uranium for energy production and half for weapons, lawmakers
said.
A surprise move to defer a vote until India did more to back U.S. efforts
to contain Iran failed by 235-193.
The Bush administration had warned such amendments would kill the deal,
seen as crucial to an evolving strategic alliance between India and the
United States, frequent Cold War adversaries.
But proponents said requiring India to halt production of weapons-related
fissile material would help ensure U.S. technology aided India's energy
production, not bomb-making.
As a signatory to the NPT, the United States is obligated not to help
India
and other states advance their nuclear weapons programs.
Lawmakers made clear U.S. nuclear technology should only be used to meet
India's growing energy demands, warning America's cooperation would end if
India tested another nuclear weapon, as in 1998.
The deal has also faced criticism in India, with communist parties that
shore up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's coalition and the opposition
Hindu
nationalists accusing Washington of setting new terms in the
legislation.
India is stepping up vigil on its borders with Nepal and Bangladesh after
investigations into the Mumbai bombings revealed militants and weapons
were
being smuggled from these areas, officials said on July 25.
While the number of border guards on the open frontier with Nepal would be
doubled to nearly 11,000, troops would speed up building a fence on the
Bangladesh border and use high-technology equipment to monitor the area,
they said.
"It is an open border with Nepal and anybody can enter anytime and we are
viewing this seriously," Raj Kanojia, an inspector-general of police, told
Reuters.
"With penetration impossible from the northern side due to strong presence
of army and police, the militants are using the eastern side to
infiltrate," he added.
Investigations into the train bombings in Mumbai this month which killed
more than 180 people, revealed that Islamist militants were increasingly
smuggling arms and explosives and infiltrating through the two borders,
officials said.
Two of the four men arrested so far in connection with the blasts were
from
the eastern state of Bihar, which along with West Bengal and Sikkim
states,
shares borders with Nepal and has been identified as vulnerable, they
said.
India shares a 1,750-kilometer (1,090-mile) open border with Nepal and a
4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) frontier with Bangladesh. While about half
the
Bangladesh border is fenced, there are no barriers along the Nepal
frontier.
"The border with Nepal and Bangladesh is emerging prominently in our
investigation as the terror route," said K.P. Raghuvanshi, the chief of
the
Anti-Terrorist Squad investigating the blasts in India's financial
capital.
"Militants are using the twin borders to send their cadres to Pakistan and
this is a big threat to India's security," he said.
Indian investigators suspect Pakistan-based Islamist militant group
Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani military spy agency Inter-Services
Intelligence to be behind the attacks.
They say the two outfits were suspected to have armed and trained Indian
Muslims to bomb train carriages and railway platforms in the crowded
city.
Pakistan has denied any connection with the bombings and Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf said New Delhi should desist from a "blame
game"
without any evidence.
Indian border guards said they had increased patrolling along the
Bangladesh frontier.
"We are using thermal imagers in the night and also stepping up work to
complete erecting fences in view of the blasts," A.K. Mitra,
director-general of the force, said from New Delhi.
The centrepiece of Pakistan's relationship with the West since
September 11, 2001, has been dubbed "enlightened moderation" by its
president and philosopher-general, Pervez Musharraf. Under his rule,
Musharraf claims, Pakistan has rejected the orthodox, militant,
violent Islam imposed by the previous chief of army staff to seize
power in Pakistan, General Zia ul-Haq (who ruled from 1977-1988), in
favour of a more 'modern' and 'moderate' Islam. But Musharraf's
actions, and those of his government and its allies, are often at
odds with this. In fact, after almost five years of 'enlightened
moderation,' it seems there is more continuity than change. And, with
each passing day, it becomes harder to see how such a policy can hope
to stem the tide of religious radicalism that is overwhelming
Pakistani society.
No one doubts that there have been some changes for the good. There
is a perceptible shift in institutional practices and inclinations.
Heads of government organizations are no longer required to lead noon
prayers as in the 1980's; female announcers with undraped heads
freely appear on Pakistan Television; to the relief of many
passengers thickly bearded stewards are disappearing from PIA
flights; the first women fighter pilots have been inducted into the
Pakistan Air Force. More importantly, in early July 2006, Musharraf
directed the Council of Islamic Ideology to draft an amendment to the
controversial Hudood Ordinance, put in place by General Zia-ul-Haq
and not repealed by any of the civilian governments that ruled from
1988 to 1999. This law gives women a lower legal status and punishes
the victims of rape. Repeal of these anti-women laws has been a long
standing demand of Pakistani women's groups. A vastly overdue -- but
nevertheless welcome -- action was taken by the government when it
released in July hundreds of women prisoners arrested under the
Hudood Ordinance, many of whom had spent years awaiting their trial.
But the force of these pluses cannot outweigh the many more weighty
minuses. General Musharraf has formally banned some of many Jihadi
groups that the Pakistan army has helped train and arm for over two
decades, but they still operate quite freely. After the October
earthquake, some of these extremist groups in Kashmir seized the
opportunity of relief work to fully reestablish and expand their
presence. Exploiting Musharraf's ambivalence, they openly flaunted
their banners and weapons in all major towns of Azad Kashmir and
fully advertised their strength. Some obtained relief materials from
government stocks to pass off as their own, and used heavy vehicles
that could only have been provided by the authorities. Many national
and international relief organizations were left insecure by their
overwhelming presence. Only recently have the jihadists moved out of
full public view into more sheltered places.
Other Pakistani leaders send similar messages. Shaukat Aziz, a former
Citibanker and now prime minister of Pakistan, made a call for
nation-wide prayers for rain in a year of drought. This effort to
improve his Islamic credentials became less laughable when, at an
education conference in Islamabad, he proposed that Islamic religious
education must start as soon as children enter school. This came in
response to a suggestion by the moderate Islamic scholar, Javed
Ghamdi, that only school children in their fifth year and above
should be given formal Islamic education. Otherwise, said Ghamdi,
they would stand in danger of becoming rigid and doctrinaire. The
government's 2006 education policy now requires Islamic studies to
begin in the third year of school, a year earlier than in the
previous policy.
Other ministers are no less determined to show Islamic zeal. The
federal minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul Haq, speaking at the
launch of a book authored by a leading Islamic extremist leader on
"Christian Terrorism and The Muslim World," argued that anyone who
did not believe in jihad was neither a Muslim nor a Pakistani. He
then declared that given the situation facing Muslims today, he was
prepared to be a suicide bomber.
According to a newspaper report, Pakistani health minister, Mohammad
Nasir Khan, assured the upper house of parliament that the government
could consider banning female nurses looking after male patients at
hospitals. This move arose from a motion moved by female
parliamentary members of the MMA, the Islamist party that commands
majorities in the provincial assemblies of the Frontier and
Baluchistan provinces and offered crucial support for Musharraf
staying on as president. Women's bodies are of particular concern to
these holy men: "We think that men could derive sexual pleasure from
women's bodies while conducting ECG or ultrasound," proclaimed
Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan, provincial secretary of the MMA. In his
opinion women would be able to lure men under the pretext of these
medical procedures. Therefore, he said, "to save the supreme values
of Islam and the message of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), the MMA has
decided to impose the ban." Destroyed or damaged billboards with
women's faces can be seen in several cities of the Frontier because
the MMA deems the exhibition of unveiled women as un-Islamic.
Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the
consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April
9, 2006, 21 women and 8 children were crushed to death, and scores
injured, in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi
where a large number of women had gathered for a weekly congregation.
Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving
injured women to hospitals.
One cannot dismiss this as just one incident. Soon after the October
2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a
student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and
his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out
injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building.
The action of these elders was similar to that of Saudi Arabia's
ubiquitous religious "mutaween" police who, in March 2002, had
stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were
not wearing their abayas. In rare criticism, Saudi newspapers had
blamed the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.
The Saudiization of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a
relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among
educated women. Vigorous proselytizers bringing this message, such as
Mrs. Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to heights of fame and
fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades ago the fully veiled
student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses.
Now she outnumbers her sisters who still dare show their faces. This
has had the effect of further enhancing passivity and unquestioning
obedience to the teacher, and of decreasing the self-confidence of
female students.
The intensification of religious feelings has had a myriad other more
significant consequences. Depoliticization and destruction of all
non-religious organizations has lead to the absence of any noticeable
public mobilization-even on specifically Muslim causes like US
actions against Iraq, Palestine, or Iran. Events in these areas
rarely bring more than a few dozen protesters on to the streets-if
that. Nevertheless large numbers of Pakistanis are driven to fury
and violence when they perceive their faith has been maligned. Mobs
set on fire the Punjab Assembly, as well as shops and cars in Lahore,
for an act of blasphemy committed in Denmark. Even as religious
fanaticism grips the population there is a curious, almost
fatalistic, disconnection with the real world which suggests that
fellow Muslims don't matter any more-only the Faith does.
Religious identity has also become increasingly sectarian. A suicide
bomber, as yet unidentified, killed 57 people and eliminated the
entire leadership of the "Sunni Movement" when he leapt on to the
stage at a religious gathering in Karachi in April, 2006. Months
earlier, barely a mile down from my university, at the shrine of Bari
Imam, 25 Shias were killed in similar attack. In the tribal areas,
sectarian tensions have frequently exploded into open warfare: in the
villages of Hangu district, Sunnis and Shias exchanged light
artillery and rocket fire leaving scores dead. Earlier this year,
when I traveled for lecturing in the town of Gilgit, I saw soldiers
crouched in bunkers behind mounted machine guns. It looked more like
a town under siege than a tourist resort.
The clearest political expression of this shift towards a more
violent and intolerant religious identity is the rise of the MMA as a
national force, which on key issues both supports and is supported by
General Musharraf's government. A measure of its power, and the
threat it poses to society and the state, is the Pakistani Taliban
movement that it has helped create, especially in the tribal areas
bordering Afghanistan. Their success draws in large measure on the
lessons they learned when working hand in the hand with the Pakistan
army to create and sustain the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Unable to combat the toxic mix of religion with tribalism, the
Pakistani government is rapidly losing what little authority it ever
had in the tribal parts. Under US pressure, the army has been
mounting military offensives against Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters
who fled Afghanistan. The convenient fiction that the army is merely
combating "foreign militants" from the Arab and Central Asian
countries is accepted by no one. Its assaults have taken a heavy
civilian toll and local resistance has grown.
The local Taliban, as well as Al-Qaida, are popular and the army is
not. In the tribal areas, the local Taliban now run a parallel
administration that dispenses primitive justice according to tribal
and Islamic principles. A widely available Taliban-made video that I
saw shows the bodies of criminals dangling from electricity poles in
the town of Miranshah while thousands of appreciative spectators look
on. In Wana, a regional capital, about 20 miles from the Afghan
border, Taliban supporters have decreed that men are forbidden to
shave. A Pathan barber, who migrated to Islamabad, told me last month
that many others like him are making their way to the big cities or
abandoning their traditional occupation.
The Pakistani Taliban (like their brothers in Afghanistan) see
education as insidious. Pakistani newspapers frequently carry news of
schools in the tribal regions being attacked destroyed by the
Taliban. But rarely are these incidents followed by angry editorials
or letters-to-the editor. Implicit sympathy for the Taliban remains
strong among urban middle-class Pakistanis because they are perceived
as standing up to the Americans, while the government has caved in.
In Waziristan, one of the locales of a growing insurgency, the state
has essentially capitulated and accepted Talibanic rule over tribal
society as long as the army is allowed to maintain a spectator
presence.
Stepping back, the Islamist shift underway in Pakistan becomes yet
more evident. According to the Pew Global Survey (2006), the
percentage of Pakistanis who expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden
as a world leader grew from 45% in 2003 to 51% in 2005. This 6 point
increase must be compared against responses to an identical
questionnaire in Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon, where bin Laden's
popularity has sharply dropped by as much as 20 points.
It is worth asking what has changed Pakistan so and what makes it so
different from other Muslim countries? What set one section of its
people upon the other, created notions of morality centred on
separating the sexes, and sapped the country's vitality? Some well
meaning Pakistanis -- particularly those who live overseas -- think
that it is best to avoid such difficult questions. These days they
are venturing to "repackage Pakistan" for the media. They want to
change negative perceptions of Pakistan in the West while, at the
same time, hesitating to call for a change in the structure of the
state and its outlook.
But at the heart of Pakistan's problems lies a truth -- one etched in
stone--that when a state proclaims a religious identity and mission,
it is bound to privilege those who organize religious life and
interpret religious text. Since there are many models and
interpretations within every religion, there is bound to be conflict
between religious forces over whose model shall prevail. There is
also the larger confrontation between religious principles and
practices and what we now consider to be 'modern' ideas of society,
which have emerged over the past several hundred years. This truth,
for all its simplicity, escaped the attention of several generations
of soldiers, politicians, and citizens of Pakistan. It is true that
there has been some learning -- Musharraf's call for "enlightened
moderation" is a tacit (and welcome) admission that a theocratic
Pakistan cannot work. But his call conflicts with his other, more
important, responsibility as chief of the Pakistan Army.
Pakistan is what it is because its army finds greater benefit in the
status quo. Today the Pakistan Army is vast, and as an institution,
has acquired enormous corporate interests that sprawl across real
estate, manufacturing, and service sectors. It also receives large
amounts of military aid, all of which would be threatened if it comes
into direct conflict with the US. In the 1960s and 1980s, and again
since 9/11, the army discovered its high rental value when serving
the US. Each time the long-term costs to the society and state have
been terrible.
The relationship between the army and religious radicals is today no
longer as simple as in the 1980's. To maintain a positive image in
the West, the Pakistani establishment must continue to decry Islamic
radicalism, and display elements of liberalism that are deeply
disliked by the orthodox. But hard actions will be taken only if the
Islamists threaten the army's corporate and political interests, or
if senior army commanders are targeted for assassination. The
Islamists for their part hope for, and seek to incite, action by
zealous officers to bring back the glory days of the military-mullah
alliance led by General Zia ul Haq.
Musharraf and his corps commanders well know that they cannot afford
to sleep too well. It is in the lower ranks that the Islamists are
busily establishing bases. A mass of junior officers and low-ranking
soldiers -- whose world view is similar to that of the Taliban in
most respects -- feels resentful of being used as cannon fodder for
fighting America's war. It is they who die, not their senior
officers. So far, army discipline has successfully squelched dissent
and forced it underground. But this sleeping giant can -- if and when
it wakes up -- tear asunder the Pakistan Army, and shake the
Pakistani state from its very foundations.
(The author is a professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University,
Islamabad.)
FARNBOROUGH, England - Orville Prins, a top Lockheed Martin salesman, left
London late last week for India on a mission aimed at selling F-16 fighter
jets. It's his 10th trip to the South Asian nation in 12 months.
Prins is one of many aerospace industry representatives and executives
spending a lot of time in New Delhi lately. Counterparts from nearly all
of
the world's handful of major defense and aerospace companies are
assiduously courting Indian government and private industry, seeking to
tap
a vast and ripe market.
With an entrenched democratic government, growing economy and flowering
capitalism, India is seen as perhaps the hottest market for sales of
weapons, commercial aircraft and other new technologies. It's also viewed
as a potential source of new capital, lower-cost production capacity and
talented people.
"It's not just a commercial market; it's a military and commercial
market,"
said Mark Kronenberg, an executive with Boeing Integrated Defense
Systems.
Representatives of India's government and military services were the
center
of lots of attention from Prins, Kronenberg and other aerospace company
executives last week at the Farnborough International Airshow, one of the
aerospace industry's premier business events.
India is expected to issue a formal request soon for proposals to purchase
and co-produce 126 multirole combat aircraft. It's a deal that, based on a
roughly $50 million per plane price tag for the F-16, would be worth
upward
of $6 billon to $7 billion just for the airplanes plus spare parts,
training and other support.
The competition, which could last at least two years, is the first big
combat aircraft deal of the 21st century, and the winner will gain an
important foothold in a fast-growing nation with many defense
requirements.
Nearly every fighter jet manufacturer, backed by their governments, is
expected to submit bids to the Indian government: Lockheed for the F-16,
Boeing for the F/A-18E/F, the Eurofighter Typhoon consortium, France's
Mirage 2000 or Rafale, Sweden's Gripen and Russia with a MiG-35.
"This is going to be a tough dogfight," said Prins, vice president of
business development for India with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in
Fort
Worth.
India is largely a new and untapped market for U.S. defense and aerospace
companies. The huge nation was off-limits for years because of Cold War
politics when India's allegiance was with the Soviet Union. In the late
1990s, the Clinton administration embargoed weapons sales to both India
and
Pakistan.
"If I went into the Department of Defense five years ago and asked for an
export license to India, there was no chance," Kronenberg said. That began
to change with the Bush administration, and little more than a year ago,
President Bush approved arms sales to India.
The Indian government is shopping, looking to improve its defense
capabilities against both traditional enemy Pakistan and other potential
threats like China.
"They live in a dangerous neighborhood," Kronenberg said.
Lockheed has been preparing to do business with India for years. The
company has kept an office in New Delhi for 20 years that is staffed by
seven resident employees.
The company sees "opportunities across the entire corporation," Prins
said,
and has submitted proposals to sell P-3 patrol aircraft, C-130J cargo
planes and even Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, which Lockheed
outfits with sophisticated electronics and weapons systems.
Boeing has already sold commercial airliners and is pitching not only
F/A-18s, but Chinook helicopters and its own P-8 patrol plane.
Another company trying to cash in on opportunities in India is Fort
Worth-based Bell Helicopter.
"You're seeing us take a very active role in India," said Robert
Fitzpatrick, Bell's senior vice president for business development. "Over
the next 20 years, we see it as a $4.3 billion market for vertical-lift
aircraft."
Bell is in the final stages of a competition with Eurocopter to sell 197
aircraft to the Indian army for observation and reconnaissance missions.
The Indian requirements are stiff.
Both companies have had to show that their helicopters can take off and
land while loaded as high as 25,000 feet altitude and function perfectly
after spending an entire night parked on the side of a mountain at minus
20
degrees Celsius.
Bell sold 18 helicopters into the Indian market last year and has 20
orders
so far in 2006. The market potential is vast. In the U.S. economy, there
is
about one helicopter in use for every 20,000 residents. That figure is one
for every 10 million people in India, which has just one emergency medical
service helicopter in the entire country.
If Bell wins the army contract, it would make 60 of the aircraft in its
plants in Fort Worth and suburban Montreal. The rest would be assembled by
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. in India, with Bell producing many of the key
parts and assemblies in Texas.
The fighter-plane competition figures to be a free-for-all, with each
country and manufacturer touting its aircraft's capabilities, the purchase
and operation cost, and trying to offer the Indian government the best
package of work-sharing and other perks to sweeten the package.
Lockheed believes that its experience exporting various F-16 models to
more
than 70 nations, with 50 making repeat purchases, is a big selling point.
The company would, with U.S. government and Air Force involvement, offer
India an F-16 version customized to its needs. As it has with numerous
other customers, Lockheed will offer India a major share of F-16 work,
including probably final assembly of the aircraft.
"We think the F-16 brings the optimum blend of capability and cost, both
acquisition costs and life-cycle costs," Prins said.
There will be cheaper planes to buy, he said, but they may not be cheaper
to own. The Russian MiG, for example, carries a sticker price of $30
million to $35 million.
But the Russian planes, and especially their engines, are not noted for
reliability and require heavier spending to keep flying.
At any one time, 15 to 20 people out of Fort Worth are working on
preparations for the Indian fighter bid.
"This is an important program to our company," Prins said.
He can, if needed, call on the added firepower of Ralph Heath, president
of
the aeronautics division, or even Robert Stevens, Lockheed's chief
executive.
Boeing has also called in the heavy artillery to aid its efforts to sell
F-18s and other aircraft to India. Chief Executive James McNerney has made
one trip during his short time with the company. James Albaugh, head of
Boeing's defense business, has also made the trip in recent months.
The key to working with India for all of the U.S. companies will be
patience, a long-term view. The Indian political and acquisition process
is
described as thorough and deliberate.
"This isn't something that either us or Lockheed Martin is going to
realize
huge benefits from in the short term," said Boeing's Kronenberg. "It's
going to take a decade."
From internal confusion to blaming external agencies. That's how the state responded to India's second worst serial-bombing incident. The response wasn't commensurate with the shocking loss of 200 lives in Mumbai. This toll is about the same as in the 2004 Madrid bombings -- Europe's worst-ever terrorist attack -- which led to the Spanish government's collapse.
There's speculation that terrorists targeted first-class suburban rail coaches in Mumbai mainly to kill affluent Gujaratis who live in Malad and Kandivali -- as revenge for the Gujarat pogrom. But only 15 per cent of those killed were Gujarati. Had Gujaratis been the target, the terrorists would have bombed Kandivali and Malad stations.
We must equally dismiss all claptrap about the 'spirit of Mumbai'. True, Mumbai struggled to quickly regain some sanity through its citizens' admirable solidarity. But it's ludicrous to equate ordinary people's struggle for survival with the elite's craving to shore up the Sensex.
The opposition BJP has tried to politicise the issue by accusing the government of "trading" national security for votes. This implies that "Muslim appeasement" has encouraged terrorism. The charge is communal and insulting to the whole community.
The UPA too didn't cover itself with glory. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's bland, emotionless speech failed to register the tragedy's gravity.
The establishment was divided in its response. The hardliners, led by National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, planted stories about the involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Students' Islamic Movement of India and other Pakistan-backed agencies. But the external affairs and home Ministries were more guarded and said the India-Pakistan dialogue wouldn't suffer-despite an objectionable remark by Pakistani foreign minister Kasuri.
The Mumbai police rounded up hundreds of Muslims from Mahim, Malwani and Bhendibazar without even a "midnight knock". They kicked open the doors of their homes, violating their dignity.
The bombings raise questions about the perpetrators' identity and motives. A major issue is whether the government was right to consider putting Foreign Secretary-level talks on hold unless Pakistan honours its commitment that its territory wouldn't be used for anti-India terrorism.
Although horrifying, the Mumbai killings they don't pose a systemic challenge to India. No sub-state organisation anywhere has successfully mounted such a challenge. For all the resources-and fanatical cadres-at its command, Al-Qaeda has failed to repeat 9/11 in the US. The threat to Indian democracy from the communal Right is far graver.
Neither intelligence agencies nor the police have produced convincing, rigorous evidence identifying Mumbai's culprits or their external links. All we have is speculation. This is no different from the "clues" offered in countless cases, from Baroda to Benares, and Coimbatore to Jammu. That virtually no convictions were secured in these is a shameful comment on the police's slipshod work in generating reliable evidence. Manmohan Singh declared in Russia that the Mumbai bombings couldn't have been accomplished "without some external involvement." This stretches credulity. Neither the explosives used-RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil-nor the targeting of super-crowded trains involve sophistication or scale that cannot be mastered by numerous groups. You don't need the ISI, or even its "rogue" elements, for this.
The timing of such acts may be unrelated to specific events. Groups commit them simply when their cadres and weapons are in place. Nothing suggests that the bombings were meant to avenge a special humiliation or injustice, such as the post-Babri violence in Mumbai, or the Gujarat carnage.
Responsible governments don't change policies on the basis of imperfect, flimsy evidence. The Vajpayee government mobilised 700,000 troops at the border in response to the 2001 Parliament attack. It sustained the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation for ten months at a huge expense. India and Pakistan twice came close to the nuclear brink.
Yet, India achieved none of its stated objectives, including the release of any of the list of 20 criminals handed over to Pakistan. There's no credible evidence of Pakistani official involvement in the Mumbai bombings. Such involvement scarcely makes sense given that Pervez Musharraf himself is a terrorist target, that Pakistan has deployed 60,000 soldiers to fight Al-Qaeda, and that it's under close watch of the international community as regards its commitment to fight terror. Harping on Pakistan denies that terrorism and its causes are rooted in India.
India would be ill-advised to jeopardise the peace process. Rather, it should explore Pakistan's offer of joint investigation, along with a multilateral agency like Interpol.
The India-Pakistan dialogue has worked, despite its flaws and now-slackened pace, in both countries' interest. Several barriers to people-to-people movement have broken down-with an unprecedented 1.7 lakh people crossing the border in six months. India has created, to its own benefit, conditions conducive to economic and cultural cooperation with Pakistan.
Above all, India has won a crucial assurance from President Musharraf that Pakistan would discuss Kashmir within a framework that rules out redrawing borders. Here lies a big peace dividend, which can free us from the psychological, military and political burden of rivalry. It would be self-defeating to miss it.
Mumbai holds a larger lesson. No democratic state can gain absolute security and prevent terrorism. However, it can do three things. First, it can encourage greater alertness, and methodically collect information on suspect groups. It can install simple surveillance equipment such as closed-circuit television cameras at transport hubs. It shouldn't emulate London, with its half-a-million hidden cameras.
Second, the government must provide advance warning, and relief, including medical help, evacuation and rehabilitation, to victims. Citizens needn't feel that the state can assuredly prevent all violence, only that it's doing its utmost to help them. This can only happen if violence is thoroughly investigated and the culprits convicted in a revamped justice delivery system.
Finally, the government must sort out "inter-agency politics". India's 10 intelligence agencies work at cross-purposes. Their top officers are often appointed on cronyist considerations.
This must stop. We must understand how terrorist groups work and the associative bonds that consolidate them. Without this, our agencies will fail to bring terrorists to book. Their knee-jerk responses are the last thing we need.
When, on a single day, around 200 are killed at
Mumbai and 8 at Srinagar, leaving nearly 800
injured, in all, it is but natural that the vocal
population will cry for the retaliatory response.
The people will not tolerate the sight of the
authorities sitting smug and behaving as if
nothing shocking has happened. But, the question
is, what should be India's reaction to what has
happened? Should authorities crack down on a
particular community, pass more Draconian laws
and come down on the suspected neighbour with
fire and brimstone and thereby play into the
hands of the terrorists and their allies who are
opposed to the ongoing peace process and are
determined to tear apart the fragile fabric of
India's liberal secular democracy? Or, should we
prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their
nefarious designs by callibrating Indian response
with care and restraint? India can prevent them
from reaping the harvest of their heinous effort
by frustrating their designs to subvent the peace
process, vitiate communal atmosphere and disturb
peace and tranquility. But, alas, it seems that
New Delhi has decided to play to the gallery of
the voters and dance to the tune of the
perpetrators of violence by behaving the way it
wanted it to do.
In varying language and tone the prime minister,
defence minister, the leader of the opposition in
the Lok Sabha and the president of the BJP have
brushed aside Pak denials and offer of
cooperation and have held it responsible for what
had happened in Mumbai on that 'terrible
Tuesday'. Reportedly, the PM is going to attend
the G-8 meeting at St. Petersburg with the
express intention of pin-pointing Pakistan as the
ultimate source of terrorism round the world. New
Delhi has already announced that the two Indian
MPs scheduled to attend the Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association seminar at Islamabad
would not go there. The proposed meeting of the
foreign secretaries on the 21st and 22nd has also
been called off. By their statements Indian
authorities have chosen to hold the Indo-Pak
talks hostage to good behaviour of the
terrorists, ignoring Pak foreign minister's
confession that Islamabad might have some
influence over them, but no control. If India
really chooses to suspend or slow-down the
on-going process, in response to the atavistic
demands for a revengeful response, then it shall
be surrendering to the terrorists' dictate,
despite the PM's assertion to the contrary. There
are strong vested interests on both the sides of
the border who are opposed to the peace process
and are going to win the first round.
The BJP too has not done the right thing by
selecting, of all persons, the highly
controversial Narendra Modi as their mascot for
peace and security in Mumbai. Along with Pakistan
the Muslim leadership of India, have stood side
by side with the Hindus in condemning these
heinous deeds. So, anti-terrorist marches in
Mumbai, or for that matter any where else, should
be led by a generally acceptable face and not by
any highly controversial one. Even, in its search
for clues and culprits the police should be
extremely cautious and careful. Already, around
250 have been taken into custody near the railway
station of Mahim, in Mumbai, alone. Many more
have been rounded up in other parts of
Maharastra, also and by definition they are all
Muslims. Aurangabad is already having a khaki
look, because of the heavy presence of the
police. Now, know what it means to be
interrogated by the police. So, one can easily
imagine the reaction of innocents when they are
subjected to such humiliation and torture for no
fault of theirs, except for being a Muslim in
Hindu-dominated India. We know the police have to
do their duty the way they have been trained, but
we should also know what the consequences are
when they try to be too thorough by casting their
net very wide. The danger of charge-sheeting some
innocents, in the absence of the real culprits,
who might have fled the country already, is also
there. Nabbing the culprits is important, but
what is far more important is to ensure the
failure of their mission. Attack on a mosque at
Surat is not the right response in this hour, nor
are the suggestions for 'hot pursuit'.
Despite the Musharraf regime's equivocation on
terrorism, India will gain nothing by allowing
the authors of the Mumbai blasts to disrupt the
peace process with Pakistan.
THE WELL-COORDINATED terrorist attacks on
commuters in Mumbai on July 11 have paved the way
for the re-emergence of two facile arguments,
neither of which offers a convincing way of
ending this mindless, criminal violence once and
for all. In India, the blasts have led the
opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and many
security analysts to fault the Manmohan Singh
Government for engaging in a peace process with
Pakistan, whose military regime has clearly not
lived up to its promise of preventing terrorist
organisations from operating from its territory.
These critics also find fault with the repeal of
the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), claiming
the police have been demoralised as a result.
According to this discourse, most terrorist acts
are a product of Pakistan's intelligence
agencies; and India is a victim because of the
government's inability to take Islamabad to task
and allow tough measures against those suspected
of involvement in terrorism. The BJP has also
sought to communalise the debate by linking the
"soft on terror" charge to "vote bank politics"
and the so-called "appeasement" of Muslims,
ignoring the fact that people from all faiths and
regions in India sought the repeal of POTA
because it was used against innocent persons.
The second, equally problematic, argument
revolves around the need to solve the so-called
"root cause" of terrorism. Khurshid Ahmed Kasuri,
Foreign Minister of Pakistan, provided one
variant of this when he suggested that the Mumbai
blasts were linked to India's failure to resolve
the Kashmir dispute. "I think the Mumbai incident
- however tragic it may be and it is undoubtedly
very tragic - underlines the need for the two
countries to work together to control this
environment, but they can only do so if they
resolve their disputes," he told Reuters on
Wednesday. His remarks drew a sharp rejoinder
from India.
At a philosophical level, the idea that a
lingering dispute can lead to violence is
unexceptionable. Also unexceptionable would be
the suggestion - though Mr. Kasuri did not make
it - that the "collateral" victims of the Indian
government's counter-insurgency campaign in
Kashmir might feel driven to commit desperate
acts of terror. But what Mr. Kasuri and other
root cause-wallahs fail to appreciate is the
nihilist nature of the premeditated attack on
Mumbai's commuters. Like the London and Madrid
bombings, and the atrocious attack on the World
Trade Centre, the Mumbai bombings were a
deliberate attempt to target non-combatants. The
perpetrators do not feel the need to issue a
statement or broadcast a charter of demands
because the motive of the attack is not the
redress of a grievance or the settlement of a
dispute, but the creation of one. The motive is
to provoke more violence and insecurity and
reduce the space that exists for dialogue,
debate, and dissent in favour of the hawkish
certitudes of the security establishment.
Though there is no evidence yet, Mr. Kasuri has
chosen to make the link between Mumbai and
Kashmir. But what he ought to have said is that
those who have taken up arms in the name of a
"freedom struggle" or jihad have no right to wage
war against unarmed people. Political or
religious-oriented groups that claim to resist
oppression have as much of a responsibility to
conduct their "struggle" according to the laws of
war as do the security forces. No unresolved
dispute, no human rights violation can ever give
an individual - even if he or she happens to be a
victim of injustice - the right to blow up
innocent civilians on a train or elsewhere. "Root
causes" are important and should be debated and
addressed but the first priority has to be good
police work, forensics, and intelligence so that
the perpetrators are arrested. On their part, Mr.
Kasuri and his colleagues in Pakistan need to
speak out against such acts of terrorism. They
must not seek refuge - as they often do - in the
dishonest innuendo that terror that targets
civilians is really the handiwork of agents
provocateurs or the Indian intelligence agencies.
In the case of Pakistan, there is a
responsibility not only to condemn such incidents
but also to act. In January 2004, General Pervez
Musharraf promised his government would not allow
individuals and organisations in Pakistan to
plot, finance or launch acts of terrorism against
India. Since then, cross-border infiltration by
armed insurgents in Kashmir is down, as indicated
by official Indian figures. At the same time, the
Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed - though
banned in Pakistan - operate under a variety of
assumed names. Both groups sprang to life in the
aftermath of last year's earthquake in Kashmir
and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to
suggest they continue to have links with the
Pakistani military establishment.
As the Manmohan Government ponders over its
options as far as engagement with Pakistan is
concerned, it must ask itself two questions.
First, can anything be done to get the Pakistani
establishment to convert its half-hearted efforts
against terrorism into a wholehearted one? And
secondly, has India conceded anything in the
composite dialogue that makes the country more
vulnerable on the security front?
My answer is `no' to both but for all their
criticism of the peace process, the BJP and its
supporters do not have clear-cut answers to
either question. From the mawkishness of Lahore
to the hawkishness of Operation Parakram, the
erstwhile Vajpayee Government tried it all.
Despite the deployment of troops on full alert
for 10 months and half-baked theories of
"coercive diplomacy," "surgical strikes," and
"limited war," it became clear that there was no
military solution to the problem of terrorists
basing themselves in Pakistan. But if the threat
of military action will not produce results, how
can putting the peace process on hold or delaying
a meeting of the two Foreign Secretaries do the
trick? In any case, the peace process so far has
been extremely positive from India's point of
view. A number of confidence-building measures
have been introduced, which allows India to
bypass Gen. Musharraf and the army and build a
constituency for peace in Pakistan's civil
society, including its business community. And on
Kashmir, the two sides have begun to articulate a
common approach that acknowledges that borders
cannot be redrawn. Based on the record so far,
India has nothing to lose from this process going
ahead uninterrupted. If anything, it is in
Pakistan that one hears concerns about the "CBM
trap" India has laid to postpone a settlement on
Kashmir.
Three scenarios
This conclusion is independent of the identity of
the perpetrators of the Mumbai blasts. Broadly
speaking, there are three possibilities. First,
Al-Qaeda - or some organisation linked to it -
which is as much at war with the Musharraf
Government as it is with India. The motive would
be disrupt the peace process, foment a communal
backlash by giving a boost to the sangh parivar,
and send a message to the world, and the U.S. in
particular, that the `war on terror' is far from
over. Under such circumstances, surely the
optimal Indian response would be to not hand the
terrorists veto power over the peace process.
What if the authors of the blast turn out to be
the LeT or JeM, operating in collusion with some
section of the Pakistani state? If at all the
government of Pakistan or one of its agencies is
linked to the Mumbai blasts, this can only be
because Islamabad is dissatisfied with the way
the peace process is going. Perhaps the Mumbai
blasts were designed to put pressure on India to
make concessions on Kashmir. But the ISI must
surely know that what little concessions India
appears ready to make are largely the brainchild
of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and are being
opposed tooth and nail by the bureaucratic and
security establishment. If anything, then, the
Mumbai blasts make it even more difficult for the
political leadership to grant concessions.
There is another point Indian policymakers should
consider when assessing whether the Pakistani
military establishment might have had a hand in
the blasts. Pakistan claims a firewall exists
between the anti-American, Al-Qaeda-linked
extremists and the anti-India groups such as LeT
and JeM. But the Mumbai blasts - their serial
nature, the choice of public transport, their
proximity to the anniversary of the London
bombings - serve to strengthen the link between
Kashmir and the `global war on terror' as far as
the international community is concerned. They
can only lead to even greater pressure on
Islamabad to crack down on Kashmir-linked
insurgents. It is hard to see how such an outcome
- which would have been perfectly predictable to
the terrorists who planned the Mumbai bombings -
would serve the interests of the Musharraf regime
or ISI.
Even so, assuming some element of official
Pakistani complicity, India really has few
options as far as mounting pressure on Pakistan
is concerned. If there are areas where the peace
process might make the country more vulnerable -
the Army would argue Siachen is one such area -
an unstated go-slow might be justified. But on
other fronts, the process is clearly working to
India's advantage and there is no sense in
scuppering the gains.
There is a third scenario too, that the
terrorists are neither Al-Qaeda nor
Pakistan-backed but homegrown fanatics, whether
Muslim, Hindu or of some other religious or
political persuasion. But again, taking our
national anger out on the composite dialogue
process would be illogical. Under all three
scenarios, the most pressing task is to conduct a
swift and professional investigation. Primary
reliance must be on forensics and good detective
work and not on knee-jerk crackdowns and special
laws. In the Parliament attack case, the police
produced spectacular arrests and `confessions'
with ease but the real masterminds remained
undetected. Mumbai must not go the same way.
India’s state-owned Ordnance Factories Board (OFB) has garnered its
largest
order to date: a $2.5 billion deal to produce 1,000 T-90 tanks for the
Indian Army.
The order will be carried out in phases; the first 300-tank phase began
last month, said a senior official of the board, which administers India’s
39 ordnance factories.
The official said the Army would order the remaining 700 tanks after the
first batch is completed, likely by 2010.
The work will take place at ordnance factories at Medak in Andhra Pradesh
state and at the Avadhi Heavy Vehicles factory in Tamil Nadu state, in
southern India.
India already has received 310 T-90s through a 2001 agreement with Russia
that delivered 124 tanks and kits for 186 more for assembly at Avadhi. The
first locally assembled T-90 rolled out in January 2004, and the entire
order has since been completed.
OFB Chairman Pradip Kumar Misra said that program created enough
infrastructure at the Medak and Avadhi ordnance factories to enable
indigenous production. Initially, 70 percent of the parts will be made in
India, rising to 95 percent by 2010, Misra said.
One official said there have been “technical problems” with some
components
of the T-90s assembled at Avadhi, which will be fixed for indigenous
production. Other Army sources said problems with the thermal imaging
device hurts troop visibility at night.
The OFB official said all problems would be fixed during production by
importing better components from overseas markets.
The Army needs the 1,000 T-90s to offset a shortage of tanks expected in
the next two to three years, said the Army official. Nearly half of the
current fleet of 3,200 tanks are to be scrapped by 2008.
The Army has decided to scrap all 800 Vijayanta tanks, which have been in
service since 1966.
Other tanks slated for scrap by 2008 include about 500 T-55s. Some 400
T-72s may be scrapped or upgraded.
The Army has ordered 124 Arjun tanks from the Avadhi ordnance factory, but
has yet to induct the five Arjuns produced so far due to technical
snags.
The T-90 is replacing India’s Russian T-72 tanks in response to Pakistan’s
purchase of T-80 tanks from Ukraine, said an Indian Army official.
Pakistani officials want the United States to help build nuclear power
plants in the country, similar to the deal Washington is offering
neighboring India.
Denying Pakistan such technology on the grounds that it could be diverted
to make nuclear weapons “obviously is not applicable,” said the country’s
foreign minister, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri. “We are a declared nuclear
power, we have the means of delivery and we have a huge infrastructure.”
With its economy growing at 7 percent a year and petroleum imports going
up
by 50 percent in the last year, Pakistan — like India — needs nuclear
power, Kasuri said.
Even if the United States and the rest of the world don’t help Pakistan
develop nuclear power plants, “we have the capacity to do it ourselves and
we’ll do it,” he said. “We have infrastructure available, manpower
available and uranium available, we don’t have to import anything, and it
will take longer, but we’ll do it.”
If Washington is wary of exporting technology, Kasuri said American
companies could instead “bring your machinery, generate electricity, sell
it to us and take the spent fuel back.” The United States will “begin to
see the logic of our argument. It will be a matter of time.”
Kasuri spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Washington on July 11 after meeting senior U.S. officials.
Though he did not lay out the details of what Islamabad is seeking, Kasuri
said Pakistan was asking the United States for 1,000-megawatt reactors.
Pakistan is developing 300-megawatt and 600-megawatt reactors on its own,
he said.
The U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation pact signed in July 2005 offers
India advanced nuclear technologies and material in exchange for New Delhi
allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor
a majority of its nuclear installations. India will get to keep a few
reactors — meant for its nuclear weapon program — outside such
inspections.
India, like Pakistan and Israel, is not a member of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires non-nuclear weapon states to
subject their facilities to inspection.
The U.S.-India deal has just won approval from two key committees in the
U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and is awaiting endorsement from
the entire Congress.
Lobbying for F-16 Deal
Kasuri was also in Washington to press Islamabad’s case for a $5 billion
U.S. arms package announced by the Pentagon June 28. The sale, which will
go through if Congress does not object, includes:
• 36 Block 50/52 model F-16 fighter aircraft, worth nearly $3 billion.
• $1.3 billion worth of upgrades to Pakistan’s existing F-16 fleet.
• About $650 million worth of weapons for the aircraft.
The aircraft and the weapons are essential, because though there is
“nuclear parity in South Asia, there is no conventional [military]
parity,”
Kasuri said. “India is a bigger country with more resources” to spend on
its conventional forces, and “it’s buying weapons from a variety of
sources.”
Kasuri said he expects Congress to approve the sale, “though I get the
impression that there may be a few congressmen who have predictably raised
objections.”
The June 28 announcement from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation
Agency, which facilitates international arms sales, also said the sale of
F-16s to Pakistan would allow the U.S. ally to use the aircraft in “close
air support in ongoing operations contributing to the global war on
terror.”
Though Pakistan says it has deployed 80,000 troops in remote tribal areas
along its border with Afghanistan, there have been no reports of its Air
Force offering close air support to U.S. or other coalition forces in the
region. Many media reports and U.S. intelligence assessments suggest that
Taliban leader Mullah Omar and al-Qaida’s Osama Bin Laden are hiding in
the
border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
While Pakistan’s military is supporting U.S. and coalition troops in the
border areas, “these troops have no official authorization to operate in
Pakistan,” said Alan Kronstadt, a Congressional Research Service
analyst.
The Pentagon’s announcement that the F-16s and weapons will be used for
“close air support” could mean they would provide cover for Pakistan's
troops over its own territory, Kronstadt said. “I’m aware of no open
source
evidence that Pakistani aircraft have or will provide air support for U.S.
or coalition troops in Afghanistan.”
Kasuri said the planes would improve the “ability of the Pakistani Army
and
its morale will go up. You can’t wage war on terrorism in a vacuum. You
need public support and need the people of Pakistan on your side.”
The arms sales announced June 28, along with an earlier proposal to sell
$370 million worth of Harpoon anti-ship missiles — adding up to a total of
$5.5 billion this year — follows Washington’s designation of Pakistan as a
major non-Nato ally in July 2004. The largely symbolic designation allows
such allies to get preference in buying excess U.S. defense items and to
participate in joint research activities with the Pentagon.
If the sales of F-16s and associated weapons go through, it will benefit
several U.S. defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing,
Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, BAE Systems, General Electric and Pratt &
Whitney.
THE Indian government's decision to call off the
foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan next
week will not improve the prospects of the
composite dialogue between the two countries.
Immediately after the Mumbai blasts, New Delhi
adopted a constructive stance that encouraged
people to believe that the two countries would
address the issue of terrorism in a levelheaded
manner. After throwing broad hints for three
days, official circles in India have changed
their stance and have let it be known that they
suspect a Pakistani hand behind the blasts and
now they do not want to continue the dialogue.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh even warned that
the negotiations could not continue until
terrorism stopped. Mercifully, he held out the
assurance that this did not spell the death of
the peace process. These are obviously semantics
and the message is loud and clear. The talks have
been stalled for the moment, which indicates a
change in the Indian policy of engaging with
Pakistan.
This is a pity for two reasons. First, it is not
possible for Indian intelligence and
investigators to have established the identity of
the perpetrators of the terrorist acts in Mumbai
so soon. Without any hard evidence on this count,
this was an overly hasty and drastic step to take
which New Delhi should have avoided at this
moment when passions are running high. Secondly,
these issues could have been discussed quietly
across the table. The way they have been taken up
at the moment can have negative repercussions.
The two sides have started blaming each other
through the media which will only embitter
relations between them - something most
undesirable at the moment. Given the sensitive
nature of India-Pakistan relations, the two sides
will have to be extra careful about how they
manage the peace process. If need be, the
secretary-level talks can be moved to a later
date and the issue of terrorism can be discussed
between the representatives of the two foreign
offices without bringing it in the glare of the
media limelight. It should be remembered that
Pakistan too is a victim of violence unleashed by
terrorists many of whom use Pakistani territory
for their foul deeds. The two governments need to
cooperate in fighting these elements rather than
indulge in a blame game.
The camera was moving from one room to the other,
from the gate to the courtyard. Walls were
splashed with blood and holed by assailants'
weapons. The documentary was showing the haunted
house of a former Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri
where more than 200 people were brutally killed.
Jaffri came out of the house to surrender and beg
mercy for co-religionists who had taken refuge in
his house. Before surrendering, he called state
functionaries and politicians in Gujarat and
Delhi, sent frantic faxes across the country but
got no support from anywhere. All he could do was
wait for a cruel death. Time was up for him and
his people. This was Gujarat in 2002. The skyline
of Ahmedabad was filled with smoke as Muslim
households, buildings and shops were set on fire
by rioting mobs.
Will the horrendous attacks on Mumbai's Western
railway line mimic the Gujarat carnage abetted by
BJP chief minister Narendra Modi? The signs so
far are encouraging. Mumbai's police commissioner
quickly made an appeal to the people to stay
'calm'. In his address to nation, Manmohan Singh
further emphasised, "Do not be provoked by
rumours. Do not let anyone divide us. Our
strength lies in our unity." The real test is to
see whether communal hatred will be whipped once
dust from Mahim, Bandra, Matunga, Borivili, Mira
Road, Jogeshwari and Khar railway tracks settles.
An obvious reaction to Mumbai blasts could be a
backlash against Muslims in the state of
Maharashtra. It seems that the perpetrators of
the bomb blasts were not bothered about the
fallout of their actions on Indian Muslims. It
falls into the pattern where Muslims have
regularly been killed in terrorist attacks within
Muslim countries and outside. A political end of
terrorism justifies the means, no matter what
they are. If Hindu extremist groups such as the
Shiv Sena were successful in turning anger over
an awful tragedy into a communal frenzy, how
effective will official pronouncements be in this
situation?
What are terrorists trying to achieve by killing
and maiming innocent commuters in the financial
hub of India? A number of conjectures are
floating: a) senseless violence, b) Muslim
extremist groups with Kashmir connection such as
the Lashkar-e-Taiba trying to destabilise the
Indo-Pakistan peace process, c) the Mumbai
under-world launching an assault with the help of
a transnational terror network. Coordinated bomb
blasts on Mumbai's railway resonate attacks on
the financial hub of New York and London. If
these attacks allow terrorists to let off
frustration, they are not going to destabilise
Mumbai or India. Mumbai has already bounced back;
its stock exchange has surged, its railway was
back on wheels the very next day.
However, the Mumbai attacks could lead to the
slowing down of the peace process between India
and Pakistan, if not derailment. Though India has
not blamed Pakistan for this violence and
Pakistan has condemned the attacks unequivocally,
there is a visible uneasiness between the two
governments. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid
Kasuri has reportedly linked the Mumbai attacks
to the lack of progress in the resolution of the
Kashmir dispute. Though the link is rather
obvious to all and sundry, it is imprudent of
Kasuri to have made such brusque proclamation
while Mumbai is picking up bodies from the
tracks. The Indian government has rebuffed these
claims, asked Pakistan not to make
Kashmir-oriented linkages and concentrate on
rooting out terrorism from its soil.
Terrorist attacks such as the one in Mumbai
expose the 'clash of civilisations' myth. The
clash is evident within nations rather than
across so-called civilisations. In the Muslim
world, there is a deeply entrenched feeling of
being wronged by the world powers and injustices
being done to Muslims in Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq
and other places. However, moderate and extremist
Muslims sharply differ in their response to
injustices. Extremists resort to violence within
the Muslim countries and outside. Moderates are
largely for non-violent means to address
grievances. Simplistically speaking, moderates
are for 'modernity' and economic development. In
Pakistan they are, by and large, for improving
relations between India and Pakistan. On the
other side, saffronised extremist Hindus and
secular Indians fiercely differ in their communal
politics, among other things. Clash of ideologies
within nations is spreading its tentacles.
If the Mumbai attacks were indeed carried out by
pro-Kashmir Muslim extremists, they have done a
great favour to Hindu extremists such as Shiv
Shena. Thackeray could not have asked for a more
appropriate action than an attack on Mumbai
trains to reinforce Shiv Shena's fledging
popularity. Extremists from both sides are mirror
images of each other and they boost the 'other'
side by their attacks against innocent civilians.
Notwithstanding the electoral victory of
religious parties in the NWFP and Balochistan in
2002, extremists are a small minority in
Pakistan. Despite having some linkages in the
corridors of power, they are largely voiceless.
Hence, they speak through their terror by
emulating the Reagan era driven by a so-called
transnational jihadi culture. Hindu extremists
have ruled India in the recent past and are a
political force to reckon with even now.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai blasts, India and
Pakistan need to take long-term measures.
Moderates on both sides of the border need to
claim more space in the state institutions
(including the military) and civil society to
assert themselves better. Linked to it is the
necessity of greater effort in Pakistan to deal
with the terrorist network. India is required to
break free from its fossilised realpolitik and
effectively address issues of justice such as
suppression of the Kashmiri people. However, the
immediate measure is to prevent a Gujrat like
backlash against Muslims in India. The Indian
government, human rights groups and international
community need to do all it can to stop a
massacre, if such a situation arises. If the
Western governments can launch a war to halt
murder of citizens in Bosnia and Kosovo, it can
exert pressure on India to avert bloodletting of
its Muslim minority.
The writer is a social science researcher currently in Islamabad.
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