[Reader-list] Pillai was right to tell all about ISI

[Sanjay Khak]

*Pillai was right to tell all about ISI*

*Swapan Dasgupta*

Those who were at the venue of the failed Agra summit eight years ago may
recall the enormous hype surrounding the event and the sense of anti-climax
that followed the inability of the participants to come up with even a
goody-goody joint statement. They will also recollect the inevitable blame
game which began the moment it became clear that President Pervez Musharraf
would have to return to Islamabad without anything tangible to show for his
undoubted flamboyance.

>From the Pakistan side, the responsibility for transforming the media
jamboree was pinned on two Indian Ministers. First, the then Information and
Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj was blamed for an innocuous sound-bite
to the media where she omitted Jammu & Kashmir from the list of subjects
that were being addressed. Second, the blame for thwarting a draft agreement
which the Pakistani side was supremely confident would get through was
attached to an “invisible hand”, a guarded reference to the then Home
Minister LK Advani, allegedly the leading ‘hawk’ in the Cabinet.

The Indians too had their fall guy, except that the identity of the ‘bad
guy’ ran along expected lines. The party pooper, according to ubiquitous
‘sources’, was none other than Musharraf. The General was blamed for souring
the atmosphere of the talks with his robust answer to a question on Kashmir
at a breakfast interaction with the media which was telecast live on
Pakistani channels. Subsequently, he was blamed for attempting quick-fix
solutions to problems that had defied resolution for decades.

The meeting of Foreign Ministers which ended last Friday afternoon was about
as inconclusive as the Agra summit, but minus the same amount of pre-meeting
hype. There was an expectation that the so-called ‘spirit of Thimpu’ would
linger and be bolstered by another stiff booster dose in Islamabad.
Predictably, much of the optimism was fuelled by the fast-growing ‘conflict
resolution’ industry which has convinced itself and its gullible promoters
that its rosy assessment of the future corresponds with reality. But high
hopes were also nurtured by a Prime Minister who has made the restoration of
India-Pakistan bonhomie his personal theme song for UPA2. It doesn’t matter
that many of his Cabinet colleagues don’t believe that ‘Aman ki Asha’ will
make to the top of the charts. Being a peacenik in the age of low intensity
warfare is trendy.

For this gush-gush, love-thy-neighbour brigade, there was one villain of the
unhappy Islamabad summit involving SM Krishna and Shah Mahmood Qureshi. His
name was GK Pillai, a man who wasn’t even in Islamabad to contest his
equation with Hafiz Mohammed Saeed of LeT notoriety. Two days before Krishna
took off for Islamabad, Pillai, who also happens to be the Union Home
Secretary, called the media and divulged crucial details of David Coleman
Headley’s interaction with Indian and US interrogators.

The transcripts, predictably, were explosive and suggested that the 26/11
attack on Mumbai was a carefully planned, joint ISI-LeT operation. Headley
identified the chilling voices of the ‘handlers’ who had barked out
execution orders of the hostages and even gave the names of other ISI
operatives who had worked behind the scenes to spill innocent blood.

The public disclosure of what was known by top Home Ministry officials set
the proverbial cat among the pigeons. The common-sense question that was
asked by people was straight-forward: What do we discuss with a neighbouring
country that is hell bent on exporting terror? It may be a simple question
and not adequately profound to merit the attention of the
conflict-resolution wallahs, but it was this question that made it
impossible for Krishna to not be persistent in asking Pakistan: What are you
doing about those who have been implicated?

Arguably, Krishna could have discussed what Pakistan hoped would be the
agenda had Pillai not revealed too much to the media. To that extent, Pillai
is indeed the man who made things awkward for Pakistan. He was indeed the
party-pooper in Islamabad. However, the suggestion that Pillai need not have
revealed the Headley interrogation just prior to the Islamabad meeting rests
on a very dangerous premise. It presupposes that India, as the big brother,
must bend over backwards to accommodate the sensibilities of the younger
sibling. In other words, the normalcy-at-any-cost approach must be based on
self-censorship and overlooking the past.

Pakistan had calculated that the issue of terrorism had been firewalled as a
Home Ministry issue and delinked from the composite dialogue which would
focus on Kashmir (where Pakistan feels it is on a moral high after the
recent stone-throwing upsurge) and Siachen. Pillai’s intervention upset
Pakistani calculations and it is not surprising that he is sought to be made
the fall guy by the liberal media. Without saying so, the blame-Pillai
brigade has tacitly admitted that the Indian people don’t need to know the
full details of the extent of Pakistani involvement in the carnage because
that would derail the ‘peace process’. What they omit to appreciate is that
any understanding based on concealment and duplicity is certain to be very
fragile.

The Islamabad talks ended in bitterness not because Pillai jumped the gun or
Qureshi was tactless. Like in Agra, there was an enormous gap in the
positions of both countries. For the moment they seem unbridgeable but that
situation isn’t going to be permanent. Both sides need to engage frequently,
at different levels, but without concealing their own fears and suspicions
of each other. It is unrealistic to believe that such a deep-rooted acrimony
can be lessened and a mutually beneficial bilateral relationship established
without building trust. Unfortunately, very little of this exists and last
week’s faltering in Islamabad was yet another reality check.