[Reader-list] India Peace Group Required in Pakistan: Sethi

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PAKISTAN - INDIA:

Mail Today, January 30, 2009

INDIA MUST SEND ACROSS A PEACE GROUP
by Najam Sethi

A PEACE delegation comprising human and women's rights activists, media peaceniks and party political representatives from Pakistan recently visited New Delhi. They went with a threefold objective: to "condole" the Mumbai attacks and express solidarity with Indians in their hour of grief, to explain how and why Pakistan too is a victim of the same sort of terrorism that is threatening to afflict India, and to try and put the peace process and people- to- people channel back on track.

In view of the adverse travel advisories put out by both countries and
the war paint put on by both media, the delegation risked being
branded "unpatriotic" in Pakistan. But the two leaders of the delegation, Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission
of Pakistan, and Imtiaz Alam, Secretary- General of the South Asia
Free Media Association, are known as fearless crusaders in the region
for doggedly promoting the cause of peace between India and Pakistan.
Given the goodwill they personally enjoy in India, they threw caution
to the wind at home and embarked on their journey across the border
with great expectations.

In the event, however, even they were surprised by the consistently
frosty, sometimes hostile, reception that they received at private,
official and media forums in Delhi. It seemed as if all of India,
public and private, had consciously united to send out one harsh
message to Pakistan: that India is deeply wounded and will not take
another such attack lying down. This is perfectly understandable.

THE terrorist attack was on the Taj Mahal Hotel, the pride and symbol
of resurgent modern India; it humiliated India's " powerful" security
establishment by exposing its gaping weaknesses; and the terrorists
targeted innocent civilians rather than any specific military or
intelligence organ of the state or government, thereby signaling their
intent to wage war on India, Indians, and indeed the very idea of
secular India.

Therefore credit must be given to the Indian establishment for showing
great restraint and maturity, unlike the reckless way in which America
reacted after 9/ 11.

The post- Mumbai composite view in India has three salient elements.
First, they say that elements of the Pakistani state were allegedly
complicit in the planning, organisation and implementation of the
attack, evidence of which is proffered in the recorded chatter of the
terrorists with their Pakistani handlers which suggest that this
message was deliberately meant to be given. The implication of this,
as India's foreign minister has expressly stated, is that non- state
actors and state actors in Pakistan were jointly responsible. Second,
they believe that the government of President Asif Zardari is innocent
but weak and Pakistan's military establishment is guilty and strong.
The implication of this is that there is no point in India talking to
a weak civilian government or strong military establishment — because
both are part of the problem — about redressing terrorism and
advancing the peace agenda. Third, they insist that Pakistan should
not mistake India's overt outrage and anger as merely election-
related histrionics and that it will be business as usual after the
elections are over in April. On the contrary, they claim there is a
consensus in India's state and society that India must align with the
international community and fashion a united strategic resolve to
compel Pakistan's state and society to dismantle its terrorist
infrastructure on pain of international encirclement, blockade and
sanctions.

Unfortunately, however, India and Indians seemed blind to an equally
harsh reality about their own state and themselves — that terrorism is
not just Pakistan's problem but increasingly India's too. This is not
because the origins of such terrorism lie exclusively in political
distortions within Pakistan but also because India has had a role in
creating conditions conducive to its growth by refusing to resolve the
regional conflicts that spawn it. Indeed, the truth is that the whole
business of armed non- state actors in Pakistan, and the rise of
Military Inc in Pakistan, who are together the bane of democratic
Pakistan and India, is directly linked to the unresolved Kashmir conflict.

Equally, it is profoundly unrealistic for India's government to claim
that because the Zardari government in Pakistan is weak, there is no
one to talk to in Pakistan about how to get the peace process back on
track. New Delhi had five years of unfruitful dialogue with a strong
military- led government from 2003- 08 that was ready to think
outside- the- box and make unbelievable concessions, especially on
Kashmir, but was constantly thwarted by the statusquo and lumbering
Indian bureaucracy.

INDIANS worry and warn about a second terrorist attack on their soil.

But just as it is inevitable in one way or another in the future, so
too is India's likely response. " Surgical strikes" and " limited war"
may be " honourable" self- satisfying responses, but they are not
realistic options between nuclear armed states. Nor should India think
of responding by manufacturing its own version of state- non- state
actors to foment trouble in Pakistan. It will only hurtle the two
peoples and states into confrontation, make India's problem more
intractable and hurt it disproportionately because it has more
economic and political sheen to lose than Pakistan. Equally, if all
other options are on the table for India in alliance with the
international community, including punitive sanctions, blockades and
Pakistan's total isolation, it should be clear that such an occurrence
will have disastrous consequences for Pakistan's tanking economy and
its equally fragile national unity. Fortunately, the view in
responsible quarters in India is that even this response, all options
short of war, is undesirable because it will plunge Pakistan into
headlong failure. The hawks, on the other hand, argue that at least
India will have ensured that Military Inc. will have only the ruins of
Pakistan to preside over if they continue to muddy the waters. Thus
the debate continues.

A peace delegation from India needs to visit Pakistan now, not to
explain why India is angry — that message lies in the domain of the
Pakistani delegation that has just returned from Delhi — but to
understand why the cause of its established democratic state and civil
society is the same as that of Pakistan's fledgling counterparts.

The writer is the editor of The Friday Times