Immediately after condemning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Pakistani Foreign Minister, Khurshid Kasuri suggested that the best way to deal with terrorism was to tackle the real issue of Jammu and Kashmir. What has a bomb blast in Mumbai got to do with Kashmir, you may wonder, but that seems to be the association in the Western World as well. When Michael Krasny made this association in Forum the Consul General of India, B.S. Prakash, asked him the same question.
Note that all this association was already made, very prematurely, even before the Police had clues connecting SIMI and LeT and before the congratulatory phone calls were traced. Even before this, suggestions came from various experts that the peace process should not suffer due to such terrorist activities and even thinking about reviewing the process would be falling into the terrorist trap.
Echoing the insensitive line by Khurshid Kasuri , Xenia Dormandy suggested that Kashmir is the problem and India needs to step up in offering something in Kashmir. To give her credit, and she said the right things on her interview with Neil Conan on Talk of the Nation, that the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is a big problem. Now the Economist too has suggested that India and Pakistan should solve the Kashmir issue.
All this faith in the peace process is built on the assumption that once the Kashmir resolved, with major “compromises” (code word for land donation), there will be ever lasting peace process in the sub-continent. Israel has learned the hard way this week that making such compromises do not guarantee anything, other than an escalation in violence.
Last September Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip and Gaza became the first completely independent Palestinian territory. The Palestinians fired rockets from Gaza, and then later dug a tunnel from there and kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. United Nations verified the withdrawal and was satisfied with it. Now from Lebanon, Hezbollah entered Israel and kidnapped two soldiers. Now Israel is fighting a war on two fronts.
What is the guarantee that Gaza and Lebanon will not happen to India. How can you trust a nation which does not want to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and which was planning Kargil, while yet another peace process was going on?<
You are exactly right, Israel’s experience with the Gaza withdrawal shows that jihadi groups see any concession as weakness and an invitation to escalation. And don’t forget that the architect of the 1993 Mumbai blasts Dawood Ibrahim continues his operations within Pakistan, and that the Pakistani government refuses to give him up. Also, whatever the military government of Pakistan might say, the ISI and jihadi groups operate largely outside of the state’s control and have their own agenda. In these circumstances, official pronouncements from Islamabad are at best irrelevant, and at worst an offensive hypocrisy.
Yes i completely agree. India should learn from Isreal not to make the mistake of a so called “compramise”. For all the talk of compromises by the western world, it is Indians who are losing their lives. In my view, India so far has been quite passive in its counter-terrorism measures. Be it within the nation or even bringing our errant neighbour to task on this issue. It is time we took a more aggressive stand in the fight against terrorism and to protect the lives of innocents in our nation.
Did you see the news story where India criticizes Israel and want it to stop its bombing campaign.
Indian government has a hard time understanding why Israel is defending itself and fighting for its captured soldiers – it would never do that (as we are seeing now).
It’s all very nice to compare India’s situation with Israel’s. In terms of how the two countries are impacted by terrorism, I think the analogy definitely applies. However, in terms of the options available to respond to the terrorism, there is a fundamental difference. Israel is a nuclear armed nation surrounded by non-nuclear military lightweights (comparatively speaking anyway). All its actions have the implicit support of the only super-power left that matters. India and Pakistan are both nuclear-armed, which significantly reduces India’s other military advantages. And the US backing India in a war would be a first time event in the history of the two countries. That sort of backing may not be as important militarily as it is diplomatically.
So while I share the feeling that we should demolish Pakistan in response to their repeated disgraceful transgressions, I can’t help but realise that this is hardly practical: the losses on both sides would be huge, and India has a lot more to lose given that our economy is finally on track to potentially become great. My suspicion is that the rising Indian economy will be the way to eventually end all this. A solid economy and growing global influence is what will be needed to eventually strangle Pakistan into becoming a “good boy”, or collapse continuing to do what it is doing.
“So while I share the feeling that we should demolish Pakistan in response to their repeated disgraceful transgressions, I can’t help but realise that this is hardly practical: ”
I am glad you want to take US permission to take action. That’s right. Let’s us just wait for the right time – when the day is bright; when the stars are aligned; when our astrologer tells us the time is right.
India has lot more lose? You beat – lot more to lose, as much as the thousands killed every year by terrorists. Let’s wait until we become an economic wimpy superpower and Pakistanis will come begging for mercy
RS,
India’s options are not restricted and a military action is possible. It has to be carefully planned since Pakistan is a nuclear power and a suicidal one. But that was not the point of my post.
The point was in how much trust you can put in a nation which constantly backstabs us during the peace process. Israel too has found the same thing.
India does not need anyone’s permission to clean up the country of terrorists, like SIMI, LeT and their foot soldiers in the country. That’s what we should do first.
definitly agree on this. These people are not fighting for dirt alone, if we can call them fighters, they’re cowards who like to see people die, they fight for some motives that promises more war rather than peace. IF they really care, then they would atleast followed the charters and not kill civilians. That alone proved their motivation. Bunch of cowards.
Although RS raised some good points about going on a war with Pak, as JK said, atleast we could do something about SIMI or LeT in our own territory. That should be done first.
We cannot hope US to support us in a war against Pak. Their interest in War On Terros has already been revealed.
I don’t think Pakistan would use the nuclear option against India in case of a war. The UN and USA etc would ensure that neither countries use nuclear power.
In my opinion India has all the rights to recapture atleast the PoK part of Kashmir. In fact now is the best time to take such measures. That itself would ensure that many terrorists are pushed back into the Pakistan mainland and their terror camps dismantled. Once they are pushed in, Pakistan would be much more forced to dismantle the terror infrastructure than currently. Right now the terror camps are mostly in PoK which Pakistan need not necessarily monitor closely. But once within Pakistan, it would be more pressure from US to dismantle them.
And as JK points out, its equally important, if not more, to cleanse the country from inside. Any good ideas on how such a mission can be accomplished?