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| A U-turn on Pakistan | | |
- By Brahma Chellaney
In a reminder of the costs the Indo-US nuclear deal is continuing to exact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has lapped up a long-pressed US proposal, bringing about a tectonic shift in Indian policy on Pakistan — embracing the sponsor of terrorism as a partner in the fight against terror. While Islamabad has stood its ground, making no new pledge nor budging from any stance, India has overnight gone from portraying Pakistan as the source of the problem to accepting it as part of the solution. In one stroke, India has doctrinally brought its approach towards the military regime in Islamabad in sync with America’s Pakistan policy. Yet, as is his wont, Dr Singh insists he has effected no policy shift.
In fact, the latest U-turn on Pakistan should be seen as part and parcel of the ongoing reorientation of Indian foreign policy under Dr Singh. An economist-turned-politician with no experience in diplomacy has put much-needed economic reforms on hold as he has worked to fundamentally reshape Indian foreign policy with little debate within or outside the government.
Having made the nuclear deal the centrepiece of his foreign policy, Dr Singh finds his room for manoeuvre crimped. To ensure passage of the misbegotten deal, Dr Singh has to continue to stay on the right side of the US. His policy shift on Pakistan is no less astounding than his midnight decision a year ago to vote against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board.
Equally telling has been Dr Singh’s conspicuous silence on the massive US arming of Pakistan, which in recent months has included a $5.1-billion F-16 package, in addition to the sale of Harpoon missiles and P3C Orion dual-purpose naval aircraft. In fact, the Indian lobby in Washington was advised by New Delhi not to campaign against the flow of US arms to Pakistan, lest it jeopardise Congressional approval of the nuclear deal. Similarly, at the IAEA, India — in deference to the US — declined to link the Iran issue with the Pakistani nuclear-supply chain.
In the latest turn, the PM has publicly echoed the US position that Pakistan is actually a victim of terror and needs to be roped in as an ally in the anti-terrorism fight. Indeed, such is America’s portrayal of Islamabad as an injured party that the White House’s latest National Security Strategy Report lists Pakistan, but not India, among the 12 identified countries where "terrorists have struck."
The US angle to the Indian shift is too conspicuous. First, the idea of a joint counter-terror mechanism originated not in New Delhi or Islamabad, but in Washington. It was when Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was in office that the US first proposed a joint Indo-Pakistan mechanism to handle all terrorism-related issues. A joint-agency idea, in any event, is a conceptual extension of the US portrayal of Pakistan as a victim.
Second, the new Indian framework of engagement with Pakistan involving the setting up of such a mechanism came after US assistant secretary Richard Boucher said Washington was encouraging India and Pakistan to reopen peace dialogue on strengthened terms. Third, the Indian concession was announced on the eve of George W. Bush’s meeting with General Pervez Musharraf at a time when the US President has been seeking to squelch at home mounting public criticism of the Pakistani military ruler. In fact, Musharraf is also coming under pressure within Pakistan.
For his part, Dr Singh prepared the ground for the Indian policy shift even before he met Musharraf by startlingly calling Pakistan "a victim of terror" and saying "terrorism constitutes a threat for both countries" and "it is incumbent on us to work together." He went on to say, "These groups, whether it is the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba or Jaish-e-Mohammad, can act autonomously also."
Dr Singh’s stance conflicts with his own government’s recent statements. For instance, the government told Lok Sabha last month that there are still 52 terrorist-training camps in Pakistan. Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee earlier said, "No evidence is available to suggest that Pakistan has taken measures to completely dismantle the terrorist infrastructure within Pakistan and PoK." But now the same government has agreed to partner Pakistan "to identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations."
Having unquestioningly accepted a joint mechanism with Pakistan, India is hard-pressed to define the institutional structure and modalities. In their public comments, the PM and the foreign secretary designate have been unclear and incoherent on what this mechanism entails.
After having kept those in charge of fighting the terrorists in the dark on his U-turn, Dr Singh will now have to decide whether the counter-terror mechanism with adversarial Pakistan will involve two key components — intelligence sharing and joint operations. This will pose a painful dilemma for New Delhi. Incorporating the two elements will compromise Indian security interests but excluding them will turn the mechanism into a mere talk shop that allows Islamabad to keep up the pretence of engagement while continuing to script terrorist attacks in India.
India has a knack of coming to Islamabad’s rescue whenever Pakistan faces international heat. Dr Singh’s predecessor invited Musharraf out of the blue to Agra and helped end the Pakistani dictator’s semi-pariah international status since the October 1999 coup. When the Pakistani nuclear-proliferation scandal involving A.Q. Khan burst open in early 2004, Atal Behari Vajpayee again came to Islamabad’s aid through nuclear confidence-building discussions that helped Pakistan to deflect international pressure.
Now when Pakistan is under intense spotlight in the US over its role in aiding the Taliban and sheltering Al Qaeda remnants, Dr Singh has sought to bolster the White House’s defence of Musharraf by not only resuming peace talks with Pakistan, but also embracing the terror-exporting military regime in Islamabad as a partner against terrorism. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney have had to publicly defend their pet dictator this month.
When the need was for India to hold Musharraf’s feet to the fire on his much-violated promise to prevent the flow of terrorism from Pakistani-held territory, it has rewarded him with a joint institutional mechanism to discuss terror and pledged "to build on convergences and narrow down divergences" on the Kashmir issue. Such is the paradigm policy shift that India has gone from extracting firm anti-terror commitments from Musharraf in January 2004 to now pledging to join hands with Pakistan to fight terrorism.
If there had been a representative government in Pakistan seeking to clean up the terrorist nests set up by the military, a joint institutional framework would have made sense. But how can there be counter-terror institutional "initiatives and investigations" with a ruling military establishment wedded to the export of terrorism as an instrument of state policy?
This is certainly not the way the Indian republic can honour the memory of the victims of Pakistan-sponsored acts of terror. The biggest threat India confronts today is from Pakistan-based terrorist groups that are carrying out daring assaults deep across the border. In the past 11 months alone, India has faced major acts of terror from New Delhi to Bangalore, with about 200 citizens being killed in the Mumbai train bombings alone. Turning this abysmal situation around demands a new mindset that will not allow India to be continually gored. Instead, Dr Singh is willing to partner those that have laid a terrorist siege on India.
Once again a major policy shift has been executed by stealth. And with the same casualness that accompanied the nuclear deal in July 2005. Just as Dr Singh told Parliament last month that if the United States imposed conditions extraneous to the terms of the deal, "the government will draw the necessary conclusions," he now says that if the joint mechanism with Pakistan "does not work, we will have to deal with the consequences." But who will pay for the consequences of failure? Certainly not those who are comfortably ensconced in a commando ring and seemingly have little stake in tomorrow’s India.
One thing is sure: the latest concession will only aid the perverse dynamic driving Pakistan’s poisoned relationship with India — its ability to talk peace and maintain terrorism as its primary export. That means more terror attacks in India.
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