[Reader-list] "Our Pak policy has failed"

[Kshmendra Kaul]

"Our Pak policy has failed"
 
Tavleen Singh 
Posted online: Sun May 09 2010, 21:20 hrs
 
In one of life’s mysterious coincidences, a Pakistani tried to blow up New York’s legendary Times Square in the week that our most famous Pakistani terrorist was sentenced to death in Mumbai. Since we still do not know the names of the men who were really responsible for 26/11, I found it hard to join in the general jubilation over Ajmal Kasab’s death sentence. What is the point in celebrating the death of a pawn when those who made the moves on Mumbai’s murderous chessboard on those two horrible days remain unpunished and unnamed? The Pakistani government would have us believe they were ‘non-state actors’ but fiercely guards their identity. Why? If Pakistan is itself a victim of jihadi terrorism, as it would like its Western financiers to believe, then why does it protect men so evil that a death sentence would not be punishment enough? 
 
Compare the duplicity over 26/11 with the alacrity that we saw last week in the case of Faisal Shahzad and you face the dismal reality that the Pakistani State is fully behind terrorist activity in India. But, not in full support of terrorist groups that try to blow up Times Square. This could be because the $18 billion that Pakistan currently gets from its Western friends would instantly dry up. Whatever the reason, we saw keen cooperation in the Times Square incident after initial stupid remarks. Pakistani officials tried at first to say that since Shahzad was now an American citizen he was no longer Pakistan’s problem but it did not take long to discover links to Jaish-e-Mohammed and training camps in Waziristan. Arrests were quickly made and loose-tongued officials told to shut up. 
 
If only we could begin to see this limited degree of cooperation on 26/11, we could begin a serious peace dialogue with Pakistan. We could even lend a hand in helping Islamabad solve its terrorist problems though we know that they are a blowback from decades of a foreign policy based on supporting jihadi groups in India and Afghanistan. 
 
The Pakistan Government’s obdurate refusal to pay more than lip service to cooperation on 26/11 leads to the inevitable conclusion that the Pakistani State continues to believe that groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed are useful. Not just because of Kashmir, as some fools believe, but because a stable, strong India weakens the raison d’etre of Pakistan. If Indians continue to buy cell phones at the rate they are buying them and if technology and some wise decisions on infrastructure (both physical and social) bring the dramatic changes that are possible, then there could be Pakistani citizens who might start asking questions. Why has Allah been so mean to Pakistan that it has been forced to rely on military rulers while us infidels across the border have been bequeathed regular elections? Why does Pakistan need billions of dollars of Western aid just to survive while Indian billionaires wander about the world buying up huge
 companies? Why does India, despite four wasted decades of socialism, look so much better than the land of the believers? 
 
A politically stable and economically prosperous India could even end up inadvertently solving the Kashmir problem. Would Kashmir’s separatist leaders still want independence or secession if the Indian economy begins to boom? I think not. So India must be weakened in every way and because war is so not a 21st-century option, what better way than to continue sponsoring wicked men like Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed and Maulana Azhar Masood? Notice that the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed vanishes whenever there is trouble but operates openly otherwise. 
 
The sad truth about our attempts to deal with Pakistan since the attack on Mumbai is that we have failed on every front. We have failed to convince the United States that Pakistan is not an ally in the war against Islamist terrorism but its epicentre, and we have failed to convince the Pakistani government that we are not stupid. That whether the American President can or not we see through their web of deception and lies and that until this duplicity stops there can be no peace dialogue, no ‘engagement’. The death sentence on Kasab will not bring closure but it could become a new beginning if we could see the smallest sign from Pakistan that it sincerely wants peace. Giving us the names of those who conducted the 26/11 massacre from cell phones that have been traced to a location in Pakistan could be a good first step in building what some Pakistani official called the ‘trust deficit’. Otherwise any attempt to restart the peace process would not
 just be meaningless but a betrayal of those who died in Mumbai because the Indian state failed to protect them against the new tactics of an old enemy.
 

(Follow Tavleen Singh on Twitter @ tavleen_singh) 
 
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/our-pak-policy-has-failed/616190/